making policy public open call 2025

Making Policy Public is a program for organizers, advocates, and direct service providers to create a free project that breaks down a complex social justice issue, policy, or service into an easy to understand, visual explanation. Projects are created in collaboration with CUP staff, visual designers/illustrators, and selected organizations.

Individuals and community members with lived experience also collaborate on projects through community sessions organized by the advocate with support from CUP.

The knowledge of communities with lived experience is a critical part of collaborations and supports projects that are well-informed, meaningful, and effective.

Projects have supported the work of organizers and advocates by:

• distributing important information widely
• creating a unified message to advocate for legislation
• increasing the number of people who apply and take up social services
• increasing the number of people who participate in city processes

How does it work?

Advocates, organizers, and designers respond to CUP's open call for Making Policy Public.

A jury of visual designers and advocates use program criteria to select four community organizations’ and four visual designers/teams. Each project team collaborates over 5–12 months, depending on the scope and format of the project.

CUP brings experience in collaboration and project management, understanding complex policies, print production, art direction, writing, and research. Community organizations bring their deep knowledge of the issues impacting communities and trusted relationships they’ve built through their work. Graphic designers and illustrators bring their visual skills, creativity, and commitment to creating work in support of social justice. Together, we create projects that break down barriers to meaningful advocacy, organizing, and participation.

Advocates receive 1,000 free copies of the final project to distribute directly to their communities and networks. Designers receive a $4,000 or $7,000 honorarium, depending on the scope of the project.

Selected project partners will attend a program orientation on January 21, 2026. Two of the projects will kick off at the end of January and the other two will kick off in March.

Project Formats

Organizers will choose the format that best meets their organizing needs and capacity. CUP staff will work with them to decide which format feels best based on information from the advocates. Designers will know which size format they are going to be working on at the start of the collaboration.

Small Formats

These projects are 5–7 months. These formats are portable and helpful for information that needs to be discreet or carried around regularly. Because these projects are smaller, the scopes for these projects are more specific. Small formats support one language.

Large Formats

These projects are 8–12 months. Large formats support larger scopes and are helpful for explaining multiple steps of a process or visualizing a complex system. These formats are easy to carry around and good for canvassing. They are also good for working collaboratively at a workshop or training. Large formats can support up to three languages.