This grant supports a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Science Festival Alliance (SFA) to allow the SFA—a network and incubator of community-based science festivals across the country—to add nine more science festivals in communities with small resource bases. Over the next two years, the collaboration will select and recruit nine community science festivals for inclusion in the network, providing nine challenge grants that facilitate expansion and development. Science festival members would then be ready to mentor future new science festivals. The project promises to accelerate the geographical spread of the science festival movement and promote science festivals as an effective instrument to advance public understanding of science.