• CTA locals can demonstrate a commitment from leadership to working in partnership with a community organization.
• CTA locals have established internal organizing structures and strong member engagement. 
  • The local chapter’s assigned CTA Primary Contact Staff must also sign-off on the grant application. 
• Community organizing partners must demonstrate a commitment to working in partnership with the local union. 
• Community organizing partners must have a base building organizing model, an active membership, organizing capacity in impacted communities, and successful organizing experience. 
• The partners have previously engaged in work together joint actions or other organizing activities. 
• There is an outline of a joint strategic campaign that the partners plan to organize together to meet shared goals. 
• Grant funds may not be used to participate in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office, or to otherwise influence the outcome of any specific public election, including ballot initiatives.

June 2025: The IFT Community Organizing Grant Application will be opened.

September 19, 2025: Applications are due.

Mandatory Office Hours for Qualifying Applicants: Office hours will be held on Thursday, September 25, 2025 and Thursday, October 2, 2025. Qualifying applicants are required to attend one of these sessions before the final application review process. IFT staff will contact you to schedule your time.

October 2025: Grant awards will be announced.

Questions? Send any of your questions about this new grant opportunity to IFT@cta.org.

The Institute for Teaching (IFT) is attempting to bring a new approach to school change. Based on its’ work in California schools, with foundations and from discussions with hundreds of practitioners and students, the IFT has determined that school change must include two key factors: 

1. It needs to be teacher driven. 
2. It should be based on what is working and successful in our schools and classrooms. 

By focusing on what works in our schools, the IFT believes strength-based models for school change add a new dimension to school improvement. Strength-based models provide an asset-based approach that teachers can use to emphasize talents over weaknesses and strengths over deficits to create a learning environment that supports and encourages every student to do their best. 

In the beginning, the public education system involved people who dedicated themselves to their students in one-room schools or to small groups who met to learn how to read and write, how to reason and recite, and how to think and invent. Whether studying Aristotle or Plato, Latin or Greek—or how to plow a straight furrow or cook a simple meal—students came to school to seek new knowledge and new ways to live and work. They still do. 

Today’s schools have grown beyond one-room schools to become large institutions. Sometimes they are overcrowded, often under-funded, but thousands of students and teachers are succeeding every day in learning, achieving and progressing. The relationship that matters most in our schools today is the same that existed in those one-room schoolhouses: the relationship between teachers and students.

The CTA Institute for Teaching exists to support that relationship, to bolster its influence and provide an environment where these nurtured relationships can foster meaningful learning. IFT inspires the efforts of teachers and stakeholders to hold open the door for learning to take place. IFT facilitates new ways to encourage teachers to work together with others in the community to hold the space for revitalization of public education and a renewal of its commitment to excellence, allowing each and every student to achieve their goals. 

The Institute was formed in 1967 by the CTA Board of Directors and established as a foundation—a 501(c)(3) corporation—to assist public education in ways that CTA alone was unable to address. Since 2002, IFT has come under the umbrella of the CTA Foundation for Teaching and Learning, an independent nonprofit organization that supports CTA sponsored scholarships, awards, grants and disaster relief supporting teachers and students across California.

IFT discovered a new sense of optimism and accomplishment when teachers were empowered to describe and define what makes the teaching and learning process most successful. As a result, IFT is now helping chapters and members become experts on solutions, as they begin to change policy at the local level.

The $5,000-$20,000 IFT grants are designed for PK – 12 teachers and certificated support staff, ESP members and college instructors.  Proposals are reviewed through the lens of IFT’s strength-based equity matrix by an IFT Grant Selection committee composed of outstanding teachers.  To date, CTA members have funded 643 grants totaling over $7.6 million.

IFT supports home visits to build strong home-to-school connections between parents and teachers.  IFT supports the Parent-Teacher Home Visit project towards increasing positive student-teacher-parent outcomes.  Families, teachers, and students benefit when strong relations are built across the school and home environments, leading to a higher potential of increasing student success.   

David B. Goldberg, IFT President

Leslie S. Littman, IFT Vice President

Erika L. Jones, IFT Secretary-Treasurer

Kisha Borden, IFT Board Member & CTA Board Liaison

Eva Ruiz, IFT Board Member & CTA Board Liaison

Christopher Quirarte, IFT Board Member, Region 3

Jess Sanchez, IFT Board Member, Region 4

Angela Stegall, IFT Board Member, Region 2

Marisa Cooper, Community IFT Board Member

Dr. Kyra Greene, Community IFT Board Member

Glen Price, Community IFT Board Member

Abdul Sayid, IFT Executive Director

Marissa Glidden, IFT Program Organizer

BoMee Musetti, IFT Program Specialist

Jazzy Lazo, Field Services Specialist

Jeff Good, CTA Executive Director

Emily Gordon, CTA Associate Executive Director of Communications and Research Division

Anna Dilig, CTA Accounting Manager

Dr. Stacy Begin, CSO Liaison