Sustainability, Equity, & Justice Fund - How to Apply

Assemble a team and work on your application. Student teams are required to have a staff or faculty advisor. All teams are required to have a Fiscal Agent, who will be in charge of the financial details for your project.

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Compile a list of potential stakeholders who will be affected by your grant project. Reach out to them and confirm interest/involvement. A signature of support will eventually be needed from them, so find out what they need in order to feel comfortable signing off on your project.

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(Highly encouraged, but not required) Send at least one draft proposal to an SEJF representative for feedback. This must occur no later than two weeks before a final deadline. Expect at least 48 hours for turnaround with feedback.

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Once you have a final draft and no other changes, send the proposal to all of your stakeholders and request a signature. All team members, including advisor and fiscal agents, must also provide signatures at this time. Signatures can be electronic or hand-written.

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Submit your final proposal by midnight on the deadline date. For example, the fall deadline is 11:59pm on November 1st. You will receive a confirmation email that we have received your application. Submit by emailing a copy to the SEJF Grant Program Manager, Zinta Lucans: lucansz@wwu.edu. 

After your proposal is submitted, your application will be brought to the SEJF Committee for review. This process may include a presentation, an opportunity to answer questions that the committee has about your proposal, or just the written application. The SEJF team will share expectations soon after the deadline. Check out the SEJF Committee tab to learn more about how the committee operates.

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After review, the SEJF Committee will formally vote on each proposal, approving or rejecting funding. An SEJF representative will send a formal decision by email after the committee vote. The final funding decision is typically made about a month after the quarterly deadline. Check in with an SEJF representative for a more specific timeline.

If your proposal is approved for funding, you are now ready for implementation! The final step before we transfer funding is for your team to meet with the SEJF fiscal specialist to discuss financial responsibilities associated with your grant award. A Fiscal Agent form will be required for you to complete. Once we receive the signed form and meet with your team, funding is transferred.

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During implementation, you are highly encouraged to stay in touch with the SEJF team to update us about your progress. We are available to help with implementation as needed, as well as to share outreach and engagement messages. For multi-year projects, you will be required to submit an Annual Report every year.

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After implementation is complete, the final steps are to submit a Final Report telling us how your project went, and a Final Expense Report, showing us how the award was used. We welcome pictures at this time too, so that we can help celebrate your project on our website and social media!