Civics PlaybookFlorida Education Foundation
- Mission: To create access and opportunities for all students to have the best civics education, including curriculum, debate programs and high-quality teachers who serve as a catalyst for students becoming great citizens who can preserve our constitutional republic for future generations.
- Geographic Focus: Florida (with the goal of expanding nationally)
- Audience: K-12 students and teachers
- Budget: $2.9 million
- Focus Areas and Core Competencies:
- Civics education
- Speech and debate
Speech and Debate Increases Civics Engagement and Respect for Fellow Citizens
Impact: Florida Education Foundation, Florida Civics and Debate Initiative
Florida Civics and Debate Initiative has had 4,289 students actively participate in competitive speech and debate and also helped provide civics training to 6,000 Florida educators, which has impacted 765,000 students and counting.
A Conversation with Lindsey Zander, executive director of the Florida Education Foundation
Q: What is the mission of the Florida Education Foundation? What problem(s) in civics education is your nonprofit working to solve?
The mission of the Florida Civics and Debate Initiative is to create access and opportunities for all students to have the best civics education possible. That includes curriculum, debate teams and high-quality teachers who serve as a catalyst for students becoming great citizens who can preserve our constitutional republic for future generations.
Our mission was created because recent research has shown that our youth are leaving high school and college with an overall lack of civics knowledge. And that civics engagement among Americans is at an all-time low. Meanwhile, America is becoming more polarized by the day. People dig into positions without fully examining them. They want to be heard, but they refuse to listen to others.
Q: How do you describe the big goals the Florida Education Foundation is working to achieve? How do you measure impact?
Our big goal is to produce good citizens, and our big success metric is our republic being preserved for future generations. We also have smaller and more measurable goals. One of those is to involve more students regardless of their geographic location or socioeconomic status, and to expand our speech and debate teams beyond middle- and high-school into elementary schools as well. Ultimately, we want to become a national speech and debate league. Our key metrics of success are increasing numbers of debate teams and participants.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges the Florida Education Foundation has experienced working to accomplish its mission? How did your organization overcome those challenges?
Our first challenge is raising awareness about the benefits of speech and debate. Another is recruiting new coaches and teams to participate. And during this period of exponential growth, another challenge is providing the necessary support to all the teams throughout the state. To help overcome these challenges, we’ve recruited regional ambassadors across the state and also partnered with the Florida Department of Education, Division of Public Schools.
Q: What is the Florida Education Foundation’s biggest need where philanthropists can help your organization achieve its goals?
To achieve our goals, we need to hire regional personnel to help us recruit and support speech and debate coaches and participants. Financial resources are also needed to provide competitive speech and debate teams to populations, including those in rural or urban areas who couldn’t otherwise afford to participate.
Q: Beyond the Florida Education Foundation, where should philanthropists who care about advancing civic knowledge invest their charitable dollars?
We certainly appreciate the partnership and the continued support of several like-minded organizations that have a shared goal of advancing civic knowledge. And some of those include the Bill of Rights Institute, the Ashbrook Center, Jack Miller Center, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education and the Hamilton Center at the University of Florida.
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