The Civic Science Funding Index (CSF Index) is an evolving mapping project tracking and archiving the flow of grants shaping the practice of civic science.
The Civic Science Funding Index (CSF-Index) is an evolving experimental mapping project designed to track the global ecosystem of entities that have historically supported or are currently supporting civic science activities. These activities include public engagement, science communication, science outreach, informal science education, and related scholarship and practice, funded through sponsorships, grants, and various types of awards.
The information presented is derived from publicly available sources, including organization websites and databases, in addition to data shared directly by funders. This ongoing mapping effort began in 2022 and led to the first publication titled “Distribution of the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning Awards (AISL) between 2006-21,” followed by the release of the dashboard and our ongoing reporting.
Track the organizations and programs supporting civic science work across different areas and geographies.
Examine individual awards, recipients, locations, timelines, and funding amounts in a more structured way.
Capture live sentiment from funders, grantees, scholars, and practitioners navigating the funding environment.
Follow the financial journeys of organizations engaging communities with science using IRS filing data.
A broad overview of organizations that have provided funding for civic science initiatives.
A live tracker of individual grants including dates, descriptions, geographical areas, funding amounts, recipient organizations, PIs, and other available details.
A live pulse of how people in civic science feel about the funding environment, based on a simple 0 to 100 sentiment scale.
A view of the financial paths of nonprofits engaging communities with science, based on IRS Form 990 data from ProPublica.
Use the dashboard below to explore funders, awards, nonprofit trajectories, and live sentiment across the civic science landscape.
Public funder websites, grant databases, annual reports, press releases, and information shared directly by funders.
Records are included when their primary purpose is to support activities related to civic science, including public engagement with science, science communication, science outreach, informal STEM education, participatory science, and science-policy interfaces.
The mapping schema is adapted from the NSF grants database. Information is continuously updated and reviewed for accuracy.
The index continues to evolve as new funders and awards emerge across the broader civic science ecosystem.
Below is a sample of how we are experimenting with ways to visualize nonprofit organizations from the dashboard. The goal is not simply to display revenue curves, but to create new ways of seeing patterns across different civic science models and, ultimately, to generate new types of questions.
Mission: To help K-12 and college students discover, explore, and pursue science.
Mission: To facilitate one-on-one connections to demystify STEM career pathways.
Visuals like this are designed to surface new questions that can lead to actionable insights.
Biobus: What explains the revenue dip between 2018 and 2020? What specific changes enabled the organization’s recovery in subsequent years?
Letters to a Pre-Scientist: What is driving the recent growth? Is it concentrated in a small number of funders or distributed across multiple sources? Does this reflect program expansion, shifts in funding strategy, or increasing demand for its model?
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