In support of the roles and the mission described above, CARO maintains considerable flexibility in the projects that it supports. These projects include activities focused on research; art; evaluation; grant writing and proposal development; conferences, workshops, and training sessions; or consultation of various kinds.

Projects may be short term (e.g., two weeks or less), run as long as a fiscal year, or be multi-phasal (e.g. run into 2 or 3 fiscal years). The fiscal year of CARO is the same as that of Arizona State University: from July 1 through June 30.