Davis Projects for Peace 2027: US$10,000 Grants for Student-Designed Grassroots Peace Projects

Davis Projects for Peace 2027: US$10,000 Grants for Student-Designed Grassroots Peace Projects

Davis Projects for Peace gives student leaders US$10,000 to design and implement a community-centered project during the summer. The award is intended for a student-led response to a local, domestic, or international issue connected to peacebuilding, conflict prevention, reconciliation, or the conditions that make peaceful communities possible. It is not tuition support, a general travel award, or funding for an existing internship. The official Middlebury timetable now lists the next national submission deadline as February 3, 2027, while making clear that each partner institution sets the student-facing process and an earlier campus deadline.

One point shapes everything else: you cannot apply to Projects for Peace as an independent applicant. The program works with participating partner institutions. A campus liaison promotes the opportunity, establishes local rules, coordinates review, and submits one prioritized proposal and one alternate to the program. If your college, university, or other educational institution is not a current partner, this grant route is unavailable to you. Confirm participation and the local deadline before spending time on a proposal.

Key Details at a Glance

The single most important detail is the application route. The February 3, 2027 date is the deadline for the campus liaison to send the winning proposal and nominated alternate to Projects for Peace headquarters. It is not permission to wait until February 3 to contact your school. Your institution’s internal deadline, format, interview schedule, and selection rules control your application.

What the Program Offers

The core benefit is US$10,000 per funded project. Middlebury describes the grants as support for innovative, community-centered, and scalable responses to pressing issues, normally implemented during the summer. A project might use the money for a workshop series, youth program, local dialogue, education effort, health initiative, environmental activity, or another carefully bounded intervention. The format is open, but the student must explain the relationship to peace and show how the work can be delivered with the available funds and time.

The program was founded in 2007 by Kathryn W. Davis. Middlebury’s official program pages report more than 2,200 funded projects since the founding, with work in more than 150 countries and a current network of more than 115 partner institutions. Middlebury College administers the program and publishes the timetable, proposal guidance, partner information, cohort announcements, and project archive.

The grant also creates a structured project cycle. Students move from imagining and planning to implementation and reflection, with the campus liaison helping them navigate institutional requirements. The official guidance expects a final reflection containing a narrative, expense report, and project photographs with captions. That reporting requirement makes it important to design a project whose activities, spending, and outcomes can be documented clearly.

Who It’s For

Davis Projects for Peace is built for students who have a specific, actionable idea for building peace and the drive to run it themselves over a single summer. It is not a research grant, a study-abroad scholarship, or a general travel fund. The program looks for grassroots work: projects that engage a community directly and aim at the causes or consequences of conflict, division, injustice, or instability.

“Peace” is interpreted broadly. Projects have addressed conflict resolution and reconciliation, but also the conditions that undermine peace — poverty, lack of education, poor health, environmental stress, and social exclusion. A project teaching vocational skills to displaced young people, one building trust between divided communities, and one improving access to clean water in a fragile region can all fit, so long as the connection to peace is clear and the student can explain it.

The strongest candidates tend to share a few traits: a real relationship to the community or issue they want to serve (often through prior volunteering, family ties, or study), a project that is genuinely their own design rather than a placement inside someone else’s organization, and a plan that one motivated student can realistically deliver in a few summer months on a US$10,000 budget. If you are looking for funding to join an existing internship or to conduct academic research, this is the wrong fit.

Eligibility Requirements

Middlebury states that eligibility is strictly limited to students enrolled at a participating partner institution. The current baseline criteria are:

• You must attend a participating institution. The program operates through a network of colleges and universities. If your school is not in the network, you cannot access the grant through this program. This is the threshold requirement, and it is non-negotiable.
• Enrollment at the relevant stages. Students must be enrolled at a participating partner institution at the time of application and nomination.
• No nationality restriction. U.S. and international students may apply when they meet their institution’s rules.
• Any age, major, or year. The program explicitly includes seniors who intend to complete their projects after graduation. Most partner institutions focus on undergraduates, while some also permit graduate students; ask your campus liaison which rule applies.
• Individual or group work. A project may be led by one student or by a group. Teams may collaborate across institutions, but the lead student must be eligible through a participating partner institution.
• A project that can be implemented. The proposed work may take place anywhere in the world, including the United States, and must be student-led, community-engaged or supported, and connected to peacebuilding.

Because the program is administered campus by campus, individual schools may add conditions, limit the number of proposals, require interviews, or restrict which students may apply. The official partner list and your campus liaison are the right sources for institution-specific eligibility. Do not infer eligibility from another school’s page.

How the Application Process Works

The national program does not accept a direct student application. You submit through your institution, and the institution decides which proposal or proposals to advance.

The typical flow looks like this:

1. Find the liaison and confirm participation. The liaison may work in civic engagement, fellowships, international programs, leadership, community partnerships, or a related office. Ask for the campus rules, forms, review schedule, and internal deadline.
2. Develop the proposal and budget. Follow the campus process while meeting the program’s baseline requirements. The proposal should be student-led, community-engaged, and practical.
3. Submit to the campus. Your school reviews applications using its own process. The campus committee selects one prioritized proposal and one alternate.
4. Campus submission. The liaison sends the winning proposal and nominated alternate to Projects for Peace headquarters by February 3, 2027.
5. Complete funding agreements if selected. Middlebury’s timetable calls for funding agreements on March 24, 2027. A participating institution agreement and a student agreement for each named student are required.
6. Implement and report. The final 2027 cohort is scheduled to be announced on March 31, 2027, funds are scheduled for disbursement in April 2027, and projects are implemented in summer 2027. Grantees then complete the required final reflection through their campus liaison.

Your first move should therefore be an email or meeting with the campus liaison, not a direct message to Middlebury. The liaison can tell you whether the institution is participating in the 2027 cycle, whether graduate students or cross-campus teams are permitted, which local partners or approvals are needed, and when materials must be submitted.

Timeline and Deadlines

The 2027 program has a published national deadline, but students still face an earlier campus deadline. Middlebury’s Grant Timetable lists February 3, 2027 for the winning proposal and nominated alternate to reach Projects for Peace headquarters. It also lists December 2026/January 2027 for campus submissions and review, so a student who waits for the national date will almost certainly be late.

The official timetable also records these program-level milestones: the annual participation invitation is September 25, 2026; the 2027 participation agreement is due October 23, 2026; preliminary decisions are communicated March 3, 2027; funding agreements are due March 24, 2027; the final cohort is announced March 31, 2027; and grant funds are scheduled for electronic disbursement in April 2027. These are not substitutes for the local campus deadline. Your campus may close its student competition weeks or months earlier.

The 2026 cycle is no longer the application target: Middlebury has announced its 2026 grantee cohort and lists summer 2026 as the implementation period. The current opportunity described here is the announced 2027 cycle. If your institution has not yet published its local call, contact the liaison and ask when the campus process will open rather than treating the national date as a student deadline.

What You Need to Apply

Middlebury’s baseline guidance identifies two core documents, while each campus may request more:

• A proposal narrative. The ideal length is two pages and the maximum is three pages. Address the issue, approach, collaborators, rationale, your preparation and definition of peace, implementation plans, use of time and funds, contingencies, expected short- and long-term results, monitoring, and the project’s contribution to peace.
• A budget spreadsheet. The budget must account for the full US$10,000 in U.S. dollars and use the program’s categories or the equivalent campus template. Explain unusual costs and show that the project can be delivered without relying on an unrealistic exchange rate or unconfirmed contribution.

Your campus may also require a personal statement, mentor or community-partner letter, proof of institutional approval, an interview, a local application form, or a different budget template. The national guidance says that proposals may be published publicly, so do not include sensitive material, private contact information, photos, logos, charts, or long excerpts from publications unless the applicable instructions expressly permit them. Every person listed on a successful proposal must complete a Participating Student Funding Agreement.

How to Prepare a Strong Proposal

The projects that get funded tend to do several things well.

Make the peace connection explicit. Explain how the activity relates to conflict prevention, reconciliation, shared understanding, reduced exclusion, or another peacebuilding outcome. A worthy service project still needs a clear argument for why it belongs in Projects for Peace.

Design something you can actually finish in summer 2027. A US$10,000 project has natural limits. Name the activities, participants, local collaborators, sequence, and contingency plan. Show what will be completed by the end of implementation and what can continue without pretending the grant will fund a permanent institution.

Ground it in a real relationship. Describe how you know the community or issue and what local collaborators have agreed to do. Middlebury specifically asks reviewers to consider context, communities, cultures, dilemmas, challenges, and conflicts underlying the chosen approach.

Build a budget that a skeptical reader trusts. Itemize costs, justify each line, and make the total add up to US$10,000 in a way that is clearly deliverable. A tight, honest budget is itself evidence that you can run the project.

Define outcomes you can point to afterward. State what participants and collaborators should gain, how progress will be monitored, and what evidence you will collect. Plan for the final narrative, expense report, and photographs with captions from the beginning.

Start early and get feedback. The campus committee is the first decision-maker. Ask the liaison what the committee values, have a relevant mentor review the plan, confirm partner support, and leave enough time to correct the budget before your local deadline.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Assuming you apply directly to the program. You do not. If you skip your campus office, your application does not exist. Find the liaison first.
• Not confirming your school participates. If your institution is not in the network, this route is closed to you. Verify participation before anything else.
• A weak or unrealistic budget. Vague or inflated numbers are a fast way to lose a committee’s confidence. Itemize and justify.
• A fuzzy link to peace. A worthy service project with no clear connection to peacebuilding is a poor fit for this specific grant.
• Over-scoping. Proposals that could not plausibly be completed in one summer by one student, on US$10,000, get discounted.
• Treating February 3, 2027 as the student deadline. That is the national submission date for the campus liaison. Your own campus deadline comes earlier.
• No local partners. Projects that depend entirely on the student, with no on-the-ground collaborators, read as fragile.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the grant? US$10,000 per funded project.

What does it fund? A student-designed grassroots project that promotes peace, carried out over the summer. It is not a research grant or a general scholarship.

Can I apply directly to Davis Projects for Peace? No. You apply through your own participating college or university, which selects and nominates projects. Students do not apply directly to the program.

Who is eligible? Students at participating institutions — primarily undergraduates, including graduating seniors who will carry out the project the summer after graduation. Some campuses also nominate graduate students. Both U.S. and international students at participating schools are generally eligible. Eligibility depends on your institution being part of the network.

Where can my project take place? Anywhere in the world. Projects have been carried out both in the United States and internationally.

What is the deadline? For the 2027 cycle, Middlebury lists February 3, 2027 for the winning proposal and nominated alternate to reach Projects for Peace headquarters. Students must meet an earlier deadline set by their own campus, so contact the liaison for the date that applies to you.

What do I need to submit? The baseline is a narrative proposal and a budget spreadsheet. The narrative should be two pages if possible and no more than three pages; the budget should show anticipated use of the full US$10,000. Your campus may require other forms, letters, interviews, approvals, or templates.

Who runs the program? Projects for Peace is administered by Middlebury College and was founded by Kathryn W. Davis in 2007. Middlebury’s official website is the current source for the grant timetable, guidance, partner list, and cohort information.

Official Links and Next Steps

The reliable starting point for the 2027 cycle is Middlebury’s official Projects for Peace site:

• Official site: https://www.middlebury.edu/projects-for-peace

But the most important link for you is not on that site — it is your own campus’s Projects for Peace page and the contact for the office that runs the local competition. Because the program is administered institution by institution, your campus liaison holds the details that actually govern your application: whether your school participates, who reviews proposals, what the internal deadline is, and exactly what to submit.

If you are enrolled at a participating institution and have a concrete idea for building peace, contact the campus liaison now. Ask whether your institution is participating in the 2027 cycle, when its student call will open, what local deadline applies, and which supporting materials are required. Then draft a focused narrative and a complete US$10,000 budget, test the plan with community collaborators, and leave time for campus review before the February 3, 2027 national submission date. The opportunity is current and announced, but the practical application begins with your institution rather than with a direct submission to Middlebury.