Written by: Meghan MacDonald, AmeriCorps*VISTA the Volunteer Center of Kalamazoo

For nonprofit organizations, demonstrating impact is not only important to educating communities about what you do, but it also helps stimulate discussion around the most critical social problems our communities are facing. When preparing for large-scale, community-wide projects, there are many things to consider in order to achieve real, demonstrable results.

When it comes to the success of a project or event, one key factor is starting early. The longer you have to prepare for an event, the more time you have to brainstorm and get things together. Planning events can be difficult and almost always, something unexpected pops up. The more time you give yourself, the more time you will have to work through any 'surprises.' Some questions that may help you begin are:
 

-Who does this project aim to serve?

-What kind of change do you want to see?

-What activities will produce that change?

Outlining the individuals a project aims to serve will help you reach out to a more specific audience when you start to recruit volunteers. For example, Global Youth Service Day is all about getting youth involved in civic engagement. Focusing your media outreach efforts on channels of communication such as social networking sites is great. Twitter and Facebook are free ways to get your information out to youth. Distributing information at local schools is another effective form of communication. The information could be in the form of an eye-catching flyer to hand out to students or even something as easy as a short speech during the morning/afternoon announcements.

Talking points are important whether your event is a large or small-scale project. Follow the 'who, what, when, where' format when passing along information about your event. For promotional material, keep it short and sweet while ensuring the pertinent information is communicated to the public. When seeking out donations and sponsorships, look at the websites of businesses you want to reach out to.  The websites can show what kind of community work the business has previously been involved with, giving you a better focus on the type of projects they are likely to support.

Most Days of Service have official websites that give people the opportunity to post their projects on the site for free. Most of these sites have a "register" button right on the home page where you can insert all the information about your project.  On the www.GYSD.org website I was able to input the information for each project, as well as the area code where projects were taking place so people searching could easily find the project closest to them.  Creating a page on your organization's website is another way to spread the word. For GYSD we created a page on www.volunteerkalamazoo.org that gave a brief description about what GYSD is, information on how to get involved in Kalamazoo, and a list of the available project sites. Community members were also able to sign-up for projects online. Listing projects on local online event calendars is another great way to reach the community.

Having an appropriate evaluation plan and tools is imperative to measuring project success. On the day of your event, be sure to collect quantitative information about the participants and volunteers. Keep a count of the number of people who show up, the number of hours served, the activities accomplished, and the services they are accessing. Most of this information can be gathered by creating a sign-in form for volunteers and incorporating the questions into the form. If you have additional data you need to collect for reporting requirements, that can be included on the form as well.  Numbers are an easy way to prove impact and show the positive performance of a project.

The Corporation for National and Community Service state office in Detroit would like to offer all Michigan national service program staff a unique opportunity to help grow and sustain your program. The office is sponsoring and coordinating four regional sessions called "Your National Service Program: More Money, More Mission!" specifically designed for national service project directors and program staff. The training will address the following realities often faced by national service projects here in Michigan:

a) The current funding situation at the Federal and state level is incredibly uncertain for our projects right now;

b) The burden being placed on your programs and on your sponsoring agencies (to come up with local match dollars, to help sustain your programs financially and administratively, and to grow and enhance your programs) is becoming increasingly challenging;

c) You are faced with ever-increasing reductions or elimination of local millage funding or United Way funding, and severe limitations in available operating funds by your sponsoring agencies - yet you are being asked to ensure you are operating high-quality programs and addressing CNCS strategic priorities (and both of those factors require additional funding and resources);

d) Any local funding sources you have been aware of are facing record-levels of funding requests because of the increased competition, they are forced (in many cases) to be non-committal about supporting your Senior Corps project;

e) The tax base in your local communities is probably plummeting, which may also be directly or indirectly affecting the ongoing viability of your program.

The "Your National Service Program: More Money, More Mission!" sessions are being held in four regional locations form 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. each day (content will be the same at each location):    

· Mon/Tues, July 11-12, 2011

Location: Gaylord (Catholic Diocese)

· Mon/Tues, July 18-19, 2011

Location: Grand Rapids (Heart of West Michigan United Way)

· Mon/Tues, August 1-2, 2011

Location: Dearborn (Univ. of Michigan-Dearborn conference facility)

· Upper Peninsula: there is a place on the form where U.P. Project Directors and staff can indicate a desire for a U.P.-specific session.

The price to attend is $175, which includes breakfast and lunch. You do not have to attend the session closest (geographically) to your home/office, but the goal is for you to not have to incur lodging expenses in most cases.

Each session will be facilitated by Edward Wollman, who is the principal grant writing seminar facilitator for High Impact! Grants Inc. He has been developing grant proposals for nonprofit organizations for almost 20 years and has been awarded more than $12 million in grant funding. More than 1,600 people have attended Edward's grant writing workshops throughout the country and more than 98 percent of past attendees have stated they would highly recommend his grant writing seminars to their colleagues. He has extensive experience with federal grant proposals, as well as a proven track record in successfully applying for foundation funding and in identifying local funding opportunities. He is very knowledgeable about national service, having served as a VISTA Supervisor for many years and having presented to national service project directors during his 20-year career.

If you know of any other nonprofit staff, government staff, or other community partners in your city or region who might be interested in attending these sessions, please forward this information to them as well.

For more information, or to register for any of these workshops, please go to

Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan
The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan is always looking for effective program and project ideas that can improve life in southeast Michigan, specifically in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, Washtenaw, St. Clair, and Livingston counties. We accept grant requests from nonprofit organizations serving southeast Michigan which are tax-exempt public charities under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Community Foundation provides grants considering various local needs and identifying those projects which promise the strongest long-term impact on the region. In general, the Community Foundation funds projects and programs in the areas of arts and culture, civic affairs, health, human services, neighborhood and regional economic development, work force development, environment and land use.

For more information, visit http://cfsem.org/apply-grant.

EarthScope
EarthScope is an Earth science program to explore the 4-dimensional structure of the North American continent. The EarthScope Program provides a framework for broad, integrated studies across the Earth sciences, including research on fault properties and the earthquake process, strain transfer, magmatic and hydrous fluids in the crust and mantle, plate boundary processes, large-scale continental deformation, continental structure and evolution, and composition and structure of the deep Earth. In addition, EarthScope offers a centralized forum for Earth science education at all levels and an excellent opportunity to develop cyber infrastructure to integrate, distribute, and analyze diverse data sets.

The EarthScope Facility, consisting of the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD), and the USArray, is a multi-purpose array of instruments and observatories that greatly expands the observational capabilities of the Earth sciences and permits us to advance our understanding of the structure, evolution and dynamics of the North American continent. This Solicitation calls for single or collaborative proposals to conduct scientific research associated with the EarthScope Facility and support activities that further the scientific and educational goals of EarthScope.

For more information, visit http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=83713.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention invites community mentoring partnerships or collaboratives that target youth with disability-related challenges that heighten their risk for delinquency to apply for a funding opportunity. This initiative builds upon the foundation of evidence-based practices for effective mentoring and encourages communities to implement and enhance mentoring programs for youth with disabilities. These mentoring efforts will integrate best practices and proven principles into mentoring service models, including efforts to systematically recruit, train, and support mentors in their efforts to encourage individual youth to maximize personal strengths and to develop compensatory skills in specific areas of disability.

For more information, visit http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=83634.

CarMax Foundation
The CarMax Foundation helps nonprofit organizations that are either national in scope or have a presence in several CarMax market areas. $100,000 was donated to national organizations this past year. These programs should either: address and improve auto safety for children and families; or build a competitive workforce through automotive technical training.

For more information, visit http://www.carmax.com/enus/the-carmax-foundation/grants.html.

KaBOOM! Playful City USA Grants

A total of 103 grants worth $2.1 million are available to Playful City USA recognized cities and towns between courtesy of KaBOOM! Grants range in values of $30,000, $20,000, and $15,000 and will be awarded to existing Playful City USA communities as well as communities receiving Playful City USA recognition for the first time. Communities wishing to receive grants and apply for Playful City USA status must meet five core commitments of the program: Create a local play commission task force; Design an annual action plan for play; Conduct a playspace audit of all publicly accessible play areas; Identify current spending on capital projects and maintenance of playspaces; and Proclaim and celebrate an annual "KaBOOM! Play Day".

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/eM5MCz.

Be Big In Your Community Contest

Scholastic's Be Big Fund will help bring the winning BIG Idea that helps make your community a better place to life with help from Clifford, HandsOn Network and American Family Insurance. Awards include 1 $25,000 Grand Prize honoree, 10 $2,500 first place honorees and 19 $1.315 second place honorees will be selected. Be Big Fund prizes must be used to implement the winning proposals.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/eSU7Om.

Net Literacy Financial Connects Contest