The 2023 Emerging Leaders in Civic Action National Showcase and Award Ceremony is an opportunity to highlight and award young students and civically engaged organizations from across the U.S.

Students are cordially invited to present and share about a civic engagement /community impact project they are working on with us and have a chance to win our Project of the Year Award (certificate and cash prize, 1st place award $1,000, 2nd place award $500, 3rd place award $300)

If the project is not completed by 12/23/2022 or is still in the planning stage, we still highly encourage the team to participate in our 2023 National Showcase and Award Ceremony where the young leaders can learn and connect with other young leaders in civic engagement/community impact area.

Deadline to Apply: December 23, 2022

Which one should I apply for?

Apply Before December 23, 2022

To be considered for the showcase:

• Projects focused on civic engagement and/or community impact

• Projects can start earlier than 2022

• The organization and project must be nonpartisan.

• The project planning and implementation need to be led by the students

• Group can consist of 3 or more high school or college students

• Teams can have working professionals as mentors or guides as part of their team

• Completed CLA Release Form for each member

To be considered for the showcase and award:

• Meet the criteria for the showcase (above)

• The group belongs to a 501C(3) organization or has a 501C(3) organization as its fiscal agent

• Projects must be completed in 2023 by December 23

Projects will be judged by two processes. Judges will rate the projects using the criteria below. Students will have a chance to showcase their projects through social media and people can vote on the best project. Judging process starts and end in early to mid-January.

The judging process will evaluate the following:

1. Quality and Depth of Your Civic and Community Empowerment. Did your project list the project's name, topic, and explanation of the topic of choice, address goals to address and/or solve a problem focusing on civic engagement or community impact; research, and discussion; define the problems, and achievable goals clearly and concisely?

2. Contribution to Allyship, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. How well did the projects take into consideration these values?

3. Roles of Each Team Member. How well were each team member's roles clearly defined?

4. Planning Process. How well did the report communicate the project’s implementation, successes, results, and statistics?

5. Achieved Results of Project. What were the metrics, results, and impact of the project?

6. Navigating of Challenges. How well did the project demonstrate persistence, creativity, and adaptiveness when faced with challenges?

7. Reflections & Future Plans. How well did the report demonstrate the project with clear and attractive public speaking skills, graphs, pictures, cartoons, videos, team members and community testimonials, etc?

8. Video. Three-minute video introducing yourself and the pitch of your project

What is the people's choice?

The video introduction and pitch video will be posted on our website for People’s Vote, the video with the most votes with winning a $1,000 cash prize. Students will have a chance to advertise their videos on our website and garner people's votes on which project is the best. The greater public audience has a chance to vote for their favorite project. Not only students are encouraged to engage in social media, but they are practicing building awareness around their meaningful work.

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