Thank you for your interest in the Fund II Roots & Shoots National Fellowship! The Fund II Foundation’s mission is to preserve the African-American experience; safeguard human rights; provide music education; preserve the environment while promoting the benefits of the outdoors; and sustain critical American values such as entrepreneurialism. Fund II is committed to exposing vulnerable and minority populations to the benefits of outdoor experiences. In this way, the Fund II Roots & Shoots National Youth Leader Fellowship Program (Fund II R&S NYL Fellowship Program) provides an opportunity for young people of color to complete community-focused service learning projects to help foster respect and compassion for all living beings, promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and inspire individuals to take action to make the world a better place for people, other animals, and the environment.

Applicants to the Fund II Roots & Shoots National Fellowship Program should be part-time or full-time undergraduate, graduate, or gap-year students ages 18-24 who are dedicated to community, environmental and/or social justice issues to apply for this opportunity.

There are four parts to the application: About You, Your Proposal, References, and Supporting Documentation (including a short bio and uploading your picture). Full details of what will be asked during this application could be found here.

Important: You may use the "back" button to make changes to the application as you work. Once you press "Submit," you will no longer be able to edit the form. Consider composing longer answers in a separate document to copy and paste into the form so as not to lose your work. The autosave feature will generally not work when uploading or when using Safari as your web-browser.

IT MAY BE HELPFUL TO TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF THE FOLLOWING.

You will be prompted to upload your abstract proposal on the following screen.

To best capture the full possibility of your proposal, please make sure to address ALL of the following aspects to the best of your abilities:

• Methodology for implementing your project
  
  
• Describe the community intended to benefit from your proposal
  
  
• Identification of potential partners, other organizations, co-advisor(s) and/or consultant(s)
  
  
• Timeline
  
  
• Projects, if applicable, should entail a visit to a National Park and/or a community map. Resources on community mapping can be found here. In addition, early on in the Fellowship, you will have access to an online course that will help teach you how to facilitate mapping with your intended audience.
  
  
• Budget and how it will be funded
  
  • Fellows receive a $3,000 stipend. The stipend can be used to cover the cost of the overall proposed project(s) and/or offset the cost of facilitating the proposed project.
  • In addition, Fellows will have the opportunity to distribute five $200 mini-grants towards community projects that meet the Roots & Shoots criteria.

See example proposals here.

IT MAY BE HELPFUL TO TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF THE FOLLOWING.

Past experience with the Jane Goodall Institute and/or the Roots & Shoots program is not a requisite for Fellowship participation, but must be a component of Fellows' projects.

An introduction to the overall program and ideas on to how to incorporate components will be available to those without prior knowledge of the program, but all applicants are invited to visit and explore the Roots & Shoots website.

Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots is a youth service program for young people of all ages. Our mission is to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, other animals, and the environment.

You are required to submit 2 references with your application. To do so, please submit the email addresses of your chosen references on the next page. Please ask them to complete the reference form by July 16th.

If 2 individuals do not fill out the form on your behalf, your application will not be considered.