The Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) provides small grants to teams of past and current participants of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs to carry out public service projects using the skills and knowledge they gained during their exchange experiences.
Since it began in 2011, AEIF has supported more than 360 alumni-led initiatives around the world and reached millions of people both directly and indirectly through trainings, awareness campaigns, and leadership and empowerment programs. In 2017, the State Department awarded 68 grants of up $25,000 to alumni teams worldwide to support their public service projects. From mentoring youth in social entrepreneurship to creating clubs that promote religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence, alumni around the world are leading their communities with innovative solutions to global challenges.
Is your alumni.state.gov account up-to-date? Need to create an alumni.state.gov account? Don’t remember your password? Click here for help. Don’t wait! If you send in your request for a new account after January 25, 2019, we may not be able to grant or restore access by the proposal submission deadline.
Get ready now: sign into your alumni.state.gov account to check out the AEIF Helpdesk. There, you can find Frequently Asked Questions, as well as sample proposals (coming soon!), budgets, and guides to help you create a great proposal.
Need some inspiration? Check out the interactive map of the 2018 winners
2019 AEIF TIMELINE THEMES FOR 2019 ARE:
- Friday, February 1: The AEIF competition begins at 14:00 ET (U.S. Eastern Time)! Alumni may start submitting proposals and budgets.
- Thursday, February 28: The deadline for AEIF proposals and budget forms is 14:00 pm ET (U.S. Eastern Time). This is the final and onlydeadline. Late submissions will not be accepted.
- March & April: Eligible proposals will be reviewed and evaluated.
- June: AEIF 2019 semi-finalist projects will be announced.
- Late Summer: AEIF 2019 winners will be announced!
2019 AEIF THEMES FOR 2019 ARE:
- Empowering Women and Girls: Projects enhance or support empowerment that creates enabling environments so that women and girls are able to freely and fairly participate in civil society, the economy, government, education, and sports.
- Fostering Economic Prosperity: Projects promote or develop best practices to nurture more gender-diverse business ownership, as well as innovative ventures that more broadly benefit society. Activities may include skills training, building awareness of job resources, or promoting job creation through information on entrepreneurship or business development. Proposals to create for-profit businesses or directly employ workers are not eligible for AEIF funding.
- Building Civic Participation, Good Governance, and Resilient Communities: Projects support and promote active citizen participation, observation of the governmental/political process, promotion of good governance best practices, media literacy, volunteerism in community service projects; or help communities build resilience to natural disasters, violent conflict or extremism. Projects that support or oppose partisan political activity are not eligible for AEIF funding.
- Advancing Science, Technology, Health, and Innovation: Projects promote awareness of and nurture a healthy innovation economy and improves STEM education. Proposals to provide direct social services (i.e. medicine) to a population are not eligible for AEIF funding. Proposals for research projects are not eligible for AEIF funding.
- Promoting Inclusion and Educational Opportunity: Projects promote opportunity for education, particularly for under-represented or marginalized groups. Projects may also include mentorship programs in science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM), or English language.
For more information, please go to https://alumni.state.gov/aeif
