Civics PlaybookBill of Rights Institute
- Mission: To teach civics. We equip students and teachers to live the ideals of a free and just society.
- Geographic Focus: National
- Audience: K-12 students and teachers
- Budget: $10 million
- Focus Areas and Core Competencies:
- Free digital open educational resources
- Student Fellowship program
- National Civics Teacher of the Year Award
Local Schools Provide Best Opportunities for Innovation and Civic Engagement
Impact: Bill of Rights Institute
The Bill of Rights Institute currently serves a network of more than 76,000 middle school and high school civics and history teachers who teach 7.6 million students. It provides 4,000 teacher resources on its website.
A Conversation with David Bobb, President and CEO of the Bill of Rights Institute
Q: What is the mission of the Bill of Rights Institute? What problem(s) in civics education is your nonprofit working to solve?
At the Bill of Rights Institute, we teach civics by equipping students and teachers to live the ideals of a free and just society. Our mission may seem like a simple premise, but it requires a comprehensive strategic approach that includes several important learning outcomes.
Students need to understand America’s history and our founding principles—like liberty, justice and equality. They must appreciate their rights and responsibilities as citizens and the civic virtues like courage, honor and responsibility that are essential to self-governance. We also believe that teaching civics includes equipping young people to become critical thinkers who can research and articulate well-formed opinions and who can engage civilly, even with people they disagree with. We focus on primary sources and strategies like point-counterpoint lessons to help students develop critical thinking and civil discourse skills.
Q: How do you describe the big goals the Bill of Rights Institute is working to achieve? How do you measure impact?
As an organization that serves civics and history teachers, we closely track the growth and strength of our teacher network. We currently serve a network of more than 76,000 middle school and high school civics and history teachers, which represents more than 38% of the national market. We are on track to reach 100,000 teachers, or about 50% of the market, by the time America celebrates its 250th birthday in 2026. We also track our efforts to increase engagement with teachers in our network. Teachers can progress from simply accessing our materials to attending in-person events or even learning to mentor other teachers.
As a publisher of digital, open educational resources (OERs), we also keep a close eye on digital consumption. The Bill of Rights Institute website has more than 4,000 classroom resources, and we can and do drill down to individual lessons and resources to see how they are being used. In 2023 alone, our website reached more than four million users, and our educational YouTube videos were viewed more than two million times. We develop our curricula to the highest academic standards, and we subject our work to scrutiny by outside scholars, including double-blind studies.
We also want to equip students to apply the civic knowledge and citizenship skills they are learning through our curricula. Three years ago we launched our MyImpact Challenge civic engagement contest, where students solve local problems by drawing on constitutional principles like liberty, justice and equality, and civic virtues like honor, integrity and prudence. This has been well received by students and teachers, and we received a record number of student submissions in 2024.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges the Bill of Rights Institute has experienced in working to accomplish its mission? How did your organization overcome those challenges?
Achieving scale is the greatest challenge for any organization looking to impact the education market. Our particular challenge was achieving scale, while bringing a different, disruptive model to the civics and history education spaces. We were never focused on just building email lists or sitting on our hands, hoping someone, somewhere would use our resources.
Instead, we emphasized forming genuine relationships with local teachers, students and districts, through high-quality, boots-on-the-ground programming. Our educational resources are accessible to any teacher, student or school, regardless of budget. And we support our curricula with robust, local professional development.
At our professional development programs, teachers explore BRI resources and curricula, and learn how to deploy these resources in their classrooms. Educators who attend our programs learn from master teachers, subject matter experts from our network of academic scholars and each other. They come away with a 94 net promoter score, which means great word-of-mouth for our programs.
This comprehensive approach to teaching civics and history requires a talented, highly-trained staff, and a deep commitment from our donor community. We have been fortunate to have both.
We will continue growing our offerings for middle school and high school grades and will begin our expansion into the elementary market. Most importantly, we are teaching civics and history the right way, in a manner that empowers teachers, emphasizes local education and demonstrates a genuine focus on America’s founding principles, kids and their learning outcomes.
Q: What is the Bill of Rights Institute’s biggest need, where philanthropists can help your organization achieve its goals?
Having a strong reserve of general support funds allows our organization to react nimbly to changes and opportunities in the civics and history education landscapes. We have been able to fund high-profile initiatives such as our elite Student Fellowship program and our National Civics Teacher of the Year Award through general support. We are diligent stewards of our general support funds, and philanthropists can always be sure that their funds are deployed wisely.
The Bill of Rights Institute has earned the highest four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and the top Platinum Seal of Transparency from Candid’s GuideStar. In any given year, we are supported by 35-40 charitable foundations and thousands of individual donors.
Q. Beyond the Bill of Rights Institute, where should philanthropists who care about advancing civic knowledge invest their charitable dollars?
We invest heavily in supporting local educators and students, and we would encourage philanthropists interested in advancing civic knowledge to do the same. I participated in an interview on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal last year when a caller truly drove the point home. He had received special education services throughout his years in school, which included no civic education. Everything he knew about our founding, our Constitution and our government came from his time in his local Boy Scouts troop. Schools may be different now, but the message still resonates.
There are locally engaged groups like the American Legion, and local and state Chambers of Commerce that play a vital role in advancing civic knowledge. I’ve loved speaking to Boys’ Nation for a number of years and we’re proud to be the content partner for the Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s National Civics Bee. The greatest opportunities for educational innovation and civic engagement are always going to occur at the local level. It is essential to support the infrastructure of local schools and organizations that help our kids learn.
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