Frequently Asked Questions
Institution FAQ
Full partnership is open to colleges and universities, as well as community organizations, civic groups, and nonprofits. There are no prerequisites to qualify, and partners range from those with long-established civic work to groups taking their first steps.
When you join Renewing Democracy’s Promise, your partnership empowers you to steer the initiative thanks to the work your institution or organization is already doing. Renewing Democracy’s Promise is dedicated to showcasing and amplifying our partners’ efforts.
Institutions and organizations who join Renewing Democracy’s Promise choose the role they take on. Depending on your interest and capabilities, that role may grow or change over time. Partners can serve as Training, Recruitment, Placement, Thought, Funding, Civic Action, or Communication Partners. These distinct roles each lead to concrete, impactful contributions, from supporting student placements to telling the story of our initiative’s work.
Should they wish, institutions and organizations have two paths to funding our network’s efforts nationwide:
As a Funding Partner, one of the seven partner roles in Renewing Democracy’s Promise, institutions and organizations can underwrite an event, program, or defined operational cost. There is no obligation, and you can tailor your specific financial contribution in conversation with our initiative’s program manager. Meanwhile, anyone, from partners to Wesleyan alumni, may make a direct gift that requires no long-term commitment.
As demand for this work grows, philanthropic support empowers this initiative to:
- Expand participation opportunities for students and young leaders.
- Support fellows, interns, and ambassadors from a wide range of communities.
- Build scalable civic engagement resources for campuses and communities nationwide.
- Strengthen partnerships that bridge education, culture, public health, and civic life.
- Create sustainable infrastructure for long-term civic engagement well into the future.
Partnership works at both local and national levels simultaneously:
On the ground, your work is tangible. In addition to continuing the work your institution or organization is already doing, you may host students at your location for training purposes as part of Democracy250 or connect community organizations to facilitate dialogue and leadership training. Your specific experience will take shape according to the role you choose.
As part of our national network, your group joins something larger. Cross-Campus Engagements link student conversations, faculty exchanges, and collaborative research between institutions, while what each partner learns flows outward, so every campus improves faster than it could alone.
How far a partner reaches in either direction is its own to set; some keep their footprint local and hands-on, others help shape national strategy or amplify the work well beyond their campus, and the advising, funding, and storytelling roles carry real weight without running a single event.
While Wesleyan convenes partners in a space where dialogue, community, and action can take shape, our role in Renewing Democracy’s Promise also includes supporting those partners with training and a platform that amplifies their existing work.
Our partner support is visible when:
- Partners and students draw on established training and coaching, including the dialogue and facilitation methods developed through Conversation to Action with Urban Rural Action, rather than building their own from scratch.
- Wesleyan connects partners to one another, to election officials, and to civic institutions, and helps make each partner’s work visible by telling its story across the initiative’s channels.
For many partners, existing work is exactly where their partnership begins. Renewing Democracy’s Promise is built to extend civic work already underway, as well as to foster new actions. When you share what’s already working in your community, it becomes a model for our national network. With our initiative’s recruiting efforts supplementing your own, you can help more students and community members join the projects you already have in motion.
To get started, you only need to initiate a conversation. Express interest through our intake form for institutions and organizations. Our program manager will then reach out to begin the next steps and build a lasting relationship.
Student FAQ
Renewing Democracy's Promise introduces you to a set of roles and helps you excel at the ones that fit.
- Our Leadership Development Program helps you become a bridge-builder who can guide organizing work and facilitate meaningful conversations that make room for everyone to participate.
- The Conversation to Action Fellowship Cohorts help you take those skills and learn to teach them to others interested in overcoming partisan divides and engaging in civic action that protects democratic freedoms.
- Democracy250 builds your ability to step directly into the work of running an election, trained as a nonpartisan worker supporting election offices and staff voting sites, and assisting political campaigns in the 2026 midterms and beyond.
Democracy doesn’t sustain itself, and we don’t strengthen it by studying it from afar. Democracy and elections depend on people who show up to do the work. That's where students come in:
- 48% of U.S. election jurisdictions report difficulty recruiting poll workers, and 58% of those workers are 61 or older. A trained, reliable corps of student workers helps fill that gap, keeping the process running smoothly, accurately, and accessible for every voter.
- Because students serve in a strictly nonpartisan capacity, their presence builds public confidence: when well-prepared, trusted community members support election offices and participate in community initiatives, it becomes easier to trust official systems and independent projects alike.
- Consistent participation builds lasting habits. Developing a practice of supporting elections early can help students stay civically engaged for years, and a generation that has practiced democracy firsthand is among its strongest safeguards.
It comes back to the idea at the heart of Renewing Democracy's Promise: We keep shared freedoms by practicing them together. Student participation brings that practice to future generations, strengthening democracy long-term.
Yes. Democracy250 is also a nationwide partnership, so your home campus isn't the only way to participate. Reaching out via our student interest form lets our team point you toward placements and opportunities across the wider network.
You can also be the reason your campus joins. Encouraging your school to become a partner is a genuine contribution, and the initiative appreciates the steps you take in your college or university community.
Democracy250 is built around training first, placement second. First, you begin with nonpartisan training in how elections work, from civic administration and election processes to the infrastructure behind them. You also receive instruction in the people side of the work:
- For election work, you complete the same kind of training any poll worker does: hands-on practice with voting equipment, the procedures for checking in voters and issuing ballots, accessibility requirements for voters with disabilities, and scenario-based de-escalation for keeping a polling place calm and strictly nonpartisan. Because you serve alongside local election officials, that preparation is delivered and certified to their standards — just as it is for the wider poll worker workforce.
- For community organization work, you receive facilitation and collaboration training through our Conversation to Action program with Urban Rural Action. You can learn more about that program by clicking here.
And preparation doesn't stop once you're placed. Ongoing coaching and on-site mentorship from the officials and organizations you work alongside mean support beyond the classroom as real situations arise.
Your time commitment depends on the role you take, and the program is built so you can choose a scale that works alongside your studies. While the training portions of Democracy250 take place during Summer 2026, most on-site election work centers around the upcoming midterm elections in the fall, becoming busiest close to Election Day. Meanwhile, ongoing efforts like the Democracy Stewardship Corps may span a full academic year or summer term. That said, we pace actions as much as possible for students carrying multiple responsibilities, keeping efforts both effective and sustainable.
Through our Conversation to Action programs, you develop the facilitation and dialogue skills to find common causes with a wider range of people. We also build your professional civic network, connecting you with mentors, peers, and student leaders so you can progress your work with support, not alone.
Getting started begins by completing our student interest form. Then, a representative from Renewing Democracy’s Promise will reach out to help you through the next steps to applying for a spot in our Democracy250 project or another program in the initiative that fits your needs and interests.
