Humanity AI Communities Leading on AI Open Call

Sponsor: Humanity AI
Internal Deadline: 10/05/2026
Institutional Submission Limit: 1
Sponsor Deadline: 10/21/2026
Program Website

Humanity AI is investing $10 million in U.S.-based initiatives that give communities affected by AI, including students, educators, workers, and cultural practitioners, meaningful power to shape how it is built, governed, and used. Competitive proposals must be community-led, with community members defining the goals, shaping the approach, and driving the work rather than serving only as participants, beneficiaries, or advisors.

Issue Areas

Proposals must primarily address one of the following issue areas:

• Education: Shaping AI around the interests of students, educators, and communities to expand knowledge, strengthen learning, and safeguard against risks to people. Humanity AI is particularly interested in work led by students, educators, and organizations that represent them.


• Labor and economy: Ensuring AI enhances rather than replaces workers and contributes to an economy in which people have what they need to thrive. Humanity AI is particularly interested in work led by workers and worker-focused organizations.


• Humanities, arts, and culture: Enhancing human creativity and understanding of the human experience while protecting the work of artists and creators. Humanity AI is particularly interested in work led by artists, writers, scholars, cultural heritage workers, and organizations that represent them.

Eligible Approaches

Within the issue areas above, proposals must advance one or more of the following approaches:

• Shaping how AI is governed and used: Community-led efforts to strengthen guardrails around AI use and establish rules governing AI deployment at the local, regional, or national level.


• Building AI on community terms: Technical efforts that center community needs and support AI infrastructure that communities can shape and control. Examples may include community-centered evaluations, audit methods, consensually developed datasets, open infrastructure, or creative approaches that reimagine or challenge AI systems. Any proposed product must be co-designed with the community it is intended to serve.


• Challenging AI that does not serve communities: Efforts that enable communities to resist AI deployments that are imposed or inconsistent with their values and needs while advancing human agency in decisions about AI.

Proposals do not have to use AI as part of their methodology or deliverables. When AI models are central to the proposed work, Humanity AI will give priority consideration to proposals using open-weight or open-source models rather than closed models.

Activities That Are Out of Scope

The following are not eligible as the primary purpose of a proposal:

• AI literacy initiatives focused primarily on teaching people the knowledge and skills needed to use AI tools;


• AI adoption initiatives focused primarily on promoting or expanding the use of particular AI tools or systems; or


• Research-only projects that do not include a concrete action, organizing, or practice component advancing community leadership.

Projects may include research, training, or the use of AI tools, but those activities should support a larger community-led effort to shape, govern, build, or challenge AI.

Funding and Project Period

Applicants may request support through one of three funding tiers:

• Tier One: $75,000–$150,000. Appropriate for a focused initiative, small collaboration, early-stage effort, or contained pilot.


• Tier Two: $150,000–$500,000. Appropriate for sustained work, a collaboration requiring meaningful coordination, a defined new initiative, or work requiring dedicated staff capacity.


• Tier Three: $500,000–$1 million. Appropriate for a major multi-year initiative, coalition requiring substantial coordination, significant technical or infrastructure development, or an ambitious, resource-intensive pilot.

Projects may last up to three years. 

Eligibility and USC Submission Limit

Humanity AI permits schools, departments, centers, institutes, and programs within the same university to submit separate applications, provided each proposal is distinct. To coordinate USC’s submissions, avoid duplication, and ensure compliance with the sponsor’s limits, each USC school, department, center, institute, or program may advance no more than one application through this internal process. A USC applicant may also participate in one separate application submitted as part of an external collaboration, consistent with the sponsor’s rules.

All USC-led and USC-affiliated applications must be coordinated through this internal process before submission to Humanity AI.

Submission Process

• Project information: Project title; USC project lead’s name, title, unit, and contact information; sponsoring USC school, department, center, institute, or program; key collaborators and their anticipated roles; proposed funding tier; and requested project duration.
• Project narrative: Responses to the following questions:
1. Problem and community—maximum 200 words: What problem will the proposal address, and how does it affect the community or communities the project seeks to serve?
2. Approach and outcomes—maximum 200 words: What will the project do, what outcomes will it seek to achieve, and why is the proposed approach likely to be effective?
3. Community design and leadership—maximum 150 words: How will the identified community lead, shape, or participate in the work, including any decision-making authority community members will hold?
4. Experience and relationships—maximum 200 words: What relevant experience, credibility, and community relationships do the project team and collaborators bring to the work?