The Center on Representative Government, based at Indiana University in Bloomington, has been named the recipient of the 2026 Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics Award by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
The center’s winning proposal, “Civics-in-a-Box,” is a customizable online civics program designed for youth in non-classroom community settings. This novel initiative was chosen from a record number of applicants by a panel of judges involved in K-12, college, and museum education for the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics (LAIC).
With the $200,000 award, the Center on Representative Government (CORG) will create high-quality, accessible civic education materials that youth group leaders in a variety of community-based settings can use to help students build the skills necessary for effective civic participation in their communities.
To pilot Civics-in-a-Box, the Center on Representative Government will work with locally based organizations such as the Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, and law-enforcement youth outreach programs. Each of the 10 units in the module promotes the development of critical thinking, media literacy, consensus building, empathy, and collaboration skills, and also includes a project-based application on a topic of the participants’ choosing.
“Connecting with America’s youth in a variety of settings is central to educating all students about civics. While the classroom is a natural place for civic education, we know it is not the only place, so we are pleased to support this important out-of-school initiative” said Andrea (Ang) Reidell, director of outreach and curriculum for the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
“CORG is honored to be selected for this prestigious award,” says Elizabeth Osborn, director of education at the Center on Representative Government. “Our center’s mission is to support the development of informed and engaged citizens. We share this goal with educators nationwide, and this project expands our reach to thousands of adults working with youth in out-of-school settings. Civics-in-a-Box will provide youth leaders with a flexible resource to help incorporate civic learning into their existing programs.”
The Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics Award
The Civics-in-a-Box project was selected from proposals submitted by some of the 50 partners in the Civics Renewal Network, a consortium of nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations dedicated to strengthening civic life in the United States. CRN was founded as a project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, whose award aims to help an exemplary project that would improve civics education for students. The competition is open to partner organizations in the Civics Renewal Network. Read more about the partners here.
The first LAIC Award was presented in 2019 to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate to create resources to help 8th through 12th grade teachers conduct productive civic conversations on difficult issues. Recent past winners include Retro Report (2023) to develop education materials for Citizen Nation, their four-part documentary with PBS, and the National Constitution Center in partnership with the Center for Civic Education (2025), to bring together CRN partners and teachers from across the country to create high-quality nonpartisan resources for teaching about American’s 250th anniversary.
