Please visit Financial Support for Attending General Assembly if you are looking for youth and young adult funding options for attending General Assembly 2022.

Call or Email us with Questions

Speak with a friendly Lifespan Faith Engagement staffer about YaYA project grants.

Stevie Carmody: 617-948-4686 | scarmody@uua.org
Jennica Davis-Hockett: (617) 948-4352 | jdavis-hockett@uua.org
Alex Sherwood: 617-948-6516 | asherwood@uua.org

Who Can Apply?

The UUA’s Office of Lifespan Faith Engagement Scholarship Committee (Jennica Davis-Hockett, Sara Green, Stevie Carmody, Alex Sherwood) invites Unitarian Universalist Youth (high school aged) and Young Adults (18–35 y.o.) to apply for a UU Youth and Young Adult project grant.

What Can I Use This Grant For?

The scholarship committee prioritizes funding and support for community-based projects organized by UU young people. Let your imagination soar!
Examples of projects might include:

• Organizing the congregation to transfer the deed of the congregation to indigenous nation (read here about land reparations) for which you and other youth/young adults could use funding to attend a training on land reparations.
• Organizing winter shelter for families living without homes in the church building. Funds from the grant could be used to purchase equipment and materials necessary to put that together.
• Organizing a medic training for the congregation’s young adult group to attend protests and other direct actions. Funding could potentially be used to cover the cost of first aid equipment necessary.
• Organizing your community to collectively create music. Through the youth and young adult project grant, funding could be secured to attend a songwriting conference, leadership development that would help you facilitate such an event, or to acquire the necessary editing software or other technology.

Why This Grant/Process?

Launching on February 1, 2020, this granting process seeks to help UU young people invest in their communities. The Youth and Young Adult Scholarship Committee holds these principles, both for their work and for this granting process:

As a committee, we hope that our work, our decisions, and the impact of our funding builds a Unitarian Universalist movement of young people with more:

• Transparency – our processes are explicable and shareable
• Accountability – our decisions align with our values, which align with our covenant
• Radical Equity – our funding redistributes wealth towards people of color and other marginalized communities
• Compassion – our relationships and processes recognize and trust the wholeness and complexity of people’s lives
• Liberation – our funding seeks to prioritize radical and liberating work, wherever it is found
• Placed-ness – our relationships and funding invest in where we live
• Community – our funding invests in communities

How Do I Apply?

Youth and Young adults seeking to apply for a project grant through the scholarship committee will need to submit an application. The application should be about 500 words written, or 5 minutes of video/audio recording. Your application should give a description of the project, your grant cycle (see below) the community/ies your project is in collaboration with, and a funding request with information on how the resources will be used.

More detailed information, as well as examples of project, communities, and funding possibilities can be found on the application at YaYA Project Grant Application (PDF).

Applicants will also need to send in a letter of support from someone in the community they’re in collaboration with. It could be a minister, director of religious education, a board president, a youth group leader, a social justice committee, a community center director, a professor, or another community leader. The letter of support should include details about their role in the community, an understanding and stated support of the applicant's project, and what resources (people power, skills, funds, meeting space, technology tools) are available in the community to aid the project.

When Can I Apply?

Grant applications are being reviewed in cycles. This helps keep the review process sustainable for staff members. After each due date, the applications are reviewed by UUA staff members, with funds ideally distributed by the end of the month the cycle starts on. We ask that applicants submit within these time frames.

• Spring Cycle:
  • Applications Due Febuary 1st
  • Follow-up conversations between Febuary 8-12th.
• Summer Cycle:
  • Applications due June 1st
  • Follow-up conversations between June 7-11th.
• Winter Cycle:
  • Applications due October 1st
  • Follow-up conversations between October 11-15th

Where Do I Apply?

All applications should be emailed to yayaministries@uua.org. Please include “YaYA Project Grant Application” in the subject line. Feel free also to reach out with any questions about the application and the grant process.