The FCNL Education Fund, a 501 (c)3 nonprofit, promotes civic engagement through education and training to achieve a peaceful, just, and sustainable world.
As a Quaker-governed organization, the fund provides research, content and knowledge to equip people who are concerned about building peace, establishing justice, and creating a sustainable planet to engage in advocacy and organizing.
The FCNL Education Fund works in concert with two other national, nonpartisan, Quaker nonprofit organizations: Friends Committee on National Legislation, a 501 (c) (4), and William Penn House, a 501 (c) (3).
Through its domestic and foreign policy legislative programs, the fund analyzes existing and proposed federal government policies that impact people’s lives. The research includes the government’s impact on food, house, health care, employment, immigration, and issues concerning war and peace. The fund also informs Congress and the public about the importance of reducing the U.S. military budget and its operations worldwide.
Through its Young Adult Program, the fund has provided training for generations of diverse young people on legislative issues, advocacy, and other forms of civic engagement. It includes the Young Fellows program, the Advocacy Corps, and a weekend of advocacy training every spring. Many of the program alumni now lead organizations committed to justice and peace.
The fund also provides opportunities for young Native Americans to advocate for issues of importance to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. They provide information to Congressional offices and to national faith groups about the continuing struggles of Native people and support solutions proposed by tribal governments and Native American organizations.
Through its communications program, the fund uses print and digital tools to educate and encourage people to be engaged in the civic and democratic processes that are the foundation of the United States.
FCNL Education Fund, established in 1982, is funded by the generosity of annual, monthly, and planned gifts from a network of thousands of individual supporters, grants from charitable foundations, and its own endowment.
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Foundation Support
The FCNL Education Fund receives single year and multi-year grants from several charitable foundations, including Ploughshares Fund and Humanity United for its various programs.
In 2019, the fund received a multi-year grant from the Thomas H. and Mary Williams Shoemaker Fund which supports the publication of materials on advocacy and Quaker theology. These materials support civic engagement programs.
Quaker Welcome Center
The FCNL Education Fund operates the Quaker Welcome Center, located across the street from the U.S. Senate office buildings. The center is a place for nonpartisan dialogue, weekly silent reflection, and advocacy training for young people.
The Quaker Welcome Center is a green building, the first floor provides a living room-style meeting space and a conference room. The entrance to the center is the garden at 245 2nd Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002.
Friends Place on Capitol Hill
In 2019, the FCNL Education Fund assumed control and management of Friends Place on Capitol Hill, formally the William Penn House. Friends Place, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, promotes civic engagement from a learning and hospitality center on Capitol Hill.
The house can accommodate visitors to the U.S. Capitol and host participants to training programs on advocacy and civic engagement. It is located at 515 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003, six blocks from the Capitol.
Indigenous Land Acknowledgement
As we bear witness and lobby in solidarity with Native Americans, we also honor the Nacotchtank tribe on whose ancestral land the FCNL, FCNL Education Fund, and Friends Place on Capitol Hill buildings stand. They are also known as the Anacostans, the Indigenous people who lived along the banks of the Anacostia River, including in several villages on Capitol Hill and what is now Washington, D.C. By the 1700s, the Nacotchtank tribe had merged with other tribes like the Pamunkey and the Piscataway, both of which still exist today.