Proejct sketch on the community garden

The ultimate goal of my grant writing and fundraising class this semester is to be able to construct a real grant proposal for a local nonprofit in San Antonio. Through some previous volunteer experience, I have decided to work with the San Antonio Food Bank on their Community Garden. With the aid of an excerpt from the book "The Art of Funding and Implementing Ideas: A Guide to Proposal Development and Project Management," I have been able to find my footing toward the final grant proposal by beginning with a project sketch.

The Spurs Community Garden is an extension of the San Antonio Food Bank's already well

Image found at safoodbank.org

established Nutrition Education program. The garden is 5.5 acres of land located right on sight with the San Antonio Food Bank and has a wide variety of healthy living elements including fruit trees, a large production garden and a walking trail. It was created to help contribute to a healthier San Antonio through the goals of producing large quantities of organic fruits and vegetables to be distributed to the food insecure, provide nutrition education as well as positive ways to improve the environment and promoting community service through numerous volunteer opportunities in the garden itself. Through these opportunities and more, the Spurs Community Garden can impact a large number of San Antonio residents in a positive manner.

The San Antonio Food Bank Spur Community Garden has already reached impressive goals, including having produced 2,640 pounds of produce in the first year of operation. The costs of the program include the cost of seeds, compost, gardening tools, building materials and at times, labor. In partnership with the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, the community garden is funded through sponsorship with businesses in the San Antonio and South Texas area as well as through some grant funding. In order to maintain and grow the Spurs Community Garden, the San Antonio Food Bank needs to maintain current relationships with sponsors as well as finding new ones and seeking out grant opportunities. 

For more information on the Spurs Community Garden, please visit these sites:

• http://www.safoodbank.org/index.php/programs/nutrition/community-garden
• http://www.safoodbank.org/images/pdf/community-garden.pdf

Creating a Balanced blend- Data and Stories combined

Every aspect of life is more than what we can see at face value. Over the past six weeks, one of the things that has become very apparent about fundraising and grant-writing is the important role personal stories play into everything. That personal connection that is felt universally serves as an extra force in favor of your organization as was explored in a review of direct mailers previously on this blog. But stories can only take an organization so far. Data is needed to help reinforce the value of an organization's goods and services and can help enhance the power storytelling has in the nonprofit sector. In order to get a better understanding of how to weave stories and data into one fluid piece, I looked at a New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg titled "On the Edge of Poverty, at the Center of a Debate on Food Stamps." Within the article, Stolberg discusses the potential cutbacks the food stamp program (SNAP) may be facing and how it will effect Americans.

Image found on sustainfloyd.org

By focusing in on SNAP recipients in Dyersburg, Tennessee, Stolberg incorporates the recipient's stories and projects the potential implications of the government's actions onto their lives while incorporating statistics and numbers from various sources. One of the things I really liked about this article was how Stolberg book-ended the piece with the human interest factor. She opens with an introduction to two families who are average Americans- the Rigsby and Adams families- who seem to be just like everyone else but in reality, barely scraping by. Over the course of the article, these families go on to expand upon their situation with how much value in stamps they are credited each month and their behaviors in respect to this dollar amount. Both families confess that the parents often limit themselves to one meal a day, if that, in order to make sure their children can eat. Another confesses that she does not purchase milk or cheese-- items the vast majority of us consider to be staple items-- because they are too expensive. Stolberg uses these families and their stories to reinforce her opinion that the proposed budget cuts would be detrimental to families across the nation who are already barely scraping by.

To strengthen the personal stories Stolberg uses to really shape her article, she incorporates numerical statistics and data. This information, while is presented with a personal bias at times, includes general facts about the SNAP program already decreasing in size due to the provision expiration of the 2009 stimulus bill, statistics on the SNAP program itself and other organizations that help families in need, as well as the stances of certain political leaders involved in this decision making process. This data and information is included to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the issue at hand and give them the opportunity to combine these numbers with the family stories to form their own opinion on the outcome of these programs. Focusing in on the number of impacted individuals, Stolberg sites data from the 2012 Department Agriculture survey and an analysis completed by Feeding America to highlight the number of U.S citizens impacted by food insecurity. One of the most effective ways Stolberg incorporated this percentage data was by presenting the statistic for Dyersburg, Tennessee's county against that of the nation in terms of food insecurity, really bringing the local problem onto a big picture scale.

In all, I found Stolberg's article to be an interesting snapshot of the reality of hunger in America that is much closer to home than any of us realize. I think she incorporated the hard facts with her human interest stories in a manner that validated her argument that the diminishing of the SNAP program will only lead to more families suffering. 

Intermission- a Time to Stretch our Legs and Think about What We've Seen

       There are a few things people forgot to mention to me about what my senior year would be like. I came in expecting it to be like any other year I've had at Trinity but I was wrong. It has been an incredibly challenging time for not only my academics, but also for my looming future that seems to be pressing closer with each day. This semester, I have found that taking the time to look back and reflect on what I have done has been a valuable activity. And so at this time, I will reflect on the past six weeks in my Grant Writing and Fundraising course.

      This whole semester has felt like a whirlwind of activity and non-stop running from one place to the next. The same feeling can be applied to the wide variety of activities and discussions we have had in my Grant Writing and Fundraising class. We have had the wonderful opportunity of having multiple guest speakers ranging from University/Community members to recent Trinity Graduates come and talk about how their roles are connected to the nonprofit sector. These informal interviews of sorts, paired with the readings (some focusing on the theories of donors and how nonprofits work in terms of the IRS) and the activities we have completed in groups have given me one of the most unique and enjoyable experiences I have had at Trinity to-date. 

      The internet is an amazing thing and I never knew how useful it would be as a tool when researching a nonprofit organization. Through an exercise exploring the web database GuideStar, I was able to research nonprofits I am familiar with or related to the sector I am interested in joining upon graduation to gain a better understanding of IRS forms required of nonprofits. Specifically, I looked at

Image found at www.guidestar.org

the 990 Form and learned that it is there to provide the public with valuable information about a nonprofit's financial activities (including items like the total assets and how much employees of the organization are paid). The website also provides great resources to compare multiple organizations at once and download up to 5,000 990 Forms of organizations a month so that your research is never limited! I feel as though this activity was a valuable lesson on the foundations of what make organizations nonprofits and was a wonderful way to lay the framework of my learning in the course.

Image found at
www.amazon.com

      Another valuable take away from the past six weeks came about when we read a selection from the The Seven Faces of Philanthropy. The portions I read provided me with a brief history and the importance of donor segmentation and presented the concept of the Seven Faces Framework. Utilized as a way to group donors into giving personalities, the Seven Faces Framework is very interesting and applicable to my personal life as well as the donors I have worked with in the past. It was a great opportunity to reflect upon my own habits of giving and realize why I do what I do. I feel as though the results of this assignment will be what I utilize in my post graduate life regardless of the field I go into. It provided a clear and approachable breakdown of donor habits and really emphasized the overarching theme of the importance of building relationships with other people in order to achieve our end goals-especially in the world of fundraising for nonprofits.

Image found at www.habitat.org

      I learn best when given the opportunity to work hands on with a topic. I love to organize, highlight and really get into the grit of a project. I had the opportunity to do just that with an assignment focusing on Habitat for Humanity. I was given a stack of donor appeal letters from the organization and sorted through the items, identifying commonalities and strategies that were implemented to essentially "ask" donors for monetary donations or the giving of time. Using what I had learned about storytelling in fundraising, I was able to recognize consistent patterns concerning families, emotional pulls and the "ask" portion of the letter for the organization. From this activity, I learned that Habitat for Humanity knows how to reach out to their donors and effectively communicate a need for donor's gifts. From now on, I will forever look at direct mailing pleas from organizations in a more analytical light when they come to my mailbox.

      After looking back on the first half of the semester, I realize I have learned more about nonprofits and how to work within them than I knew before. I hope to continue gaining more knowledge about nonprofits as well as getting into the process of grant writing for these organizations as the semester continues. Ultimately, for the remainder our time together, I want to be more proactive and prompt with my blog posts as well as gaining experience with writing for a grandiose grant proposal like that of the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation.

   

What were they thinking?- Looking at Scholarly Peer Review

Image from ww.amazon.com

      Most of us have experienced peer review in an academic setting during some point of our lives. Whether it was a when you traded papers in a writing workshop class in college or a friend came to see a concert you performed in, you received feedback at the end of the activity from your peers. While it follows the same idea of essentially being judged by the people you live and work with, the peer review process has the potential to play a large role in grant proposal evaluations. To gain a firmer understanding on the process of peer review, I looked to a chapter in Michele Lamont's book How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgement. In the chapter titled "Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence," Lamont highlights criteria that scholars she interviewed said they employed during the process of evaluating proposals. The criteria include clarity, quality, originality, significance, methods and feasibility and range in varying levels of emphasis.

       As with any proposal for a project, it should be about something that is not only worth doing but something that will grab the attention of the panel of reviewers from the very beginning. It's like the hook of a college application essay or what makes you choose to not change the channel on TV. Another level of the proposal is that it needs to be clear it is something you're passionate about. Lamont states that a panelist can tell when an individual has been immersed in the work and that level of commitment creates a more interesting and strong proposal. Lamont's text discusses grant proposals  through the scope of research funding which I have always associated with dry, science filled talk with grandiose words that no one really knows the meaning of. But I was pleasantly surprised by the emphasis she placed on passionate works within the frame of the process.

      The focus and passion of a proposal are the first items Lamont identifies as signs of a good proposal. But those aren't enough to get your proposal through to the top. If your proposal lacks clarity and direction, panelists will not follow through: they do not want to have to work to understand your end goal. It seems that creating a clearly defined path is the best way to create an ideal proposal: research question --> theory behind research question --> the method of the research --> resulting evidence from research. This seemingly cookie cutter format makes it seem simple and easy to do, right? Wrong.

      While you may follow those steps to a tee and have the "perfect" proposal, the panelist may not all agree on the definitions of the 6 pieces of criteria. And on top of that, their personal opinions play a much larger role in the decision making process than I expected. It makes perfect sense that opinions would come into play but I have always associated peer review with unbiased decision making. But we're all human-- even those review panelists-- and it is within our human nature to be biased. This is where writing for a specific audience comes into play. If you are familiar with the giving history of the grant, you can try and frame your proposal in a way that flows in a similar vein. I feel as though writing to your audience is something that also plays a role in other grant proposal processes, not just research funding.

I have never written a grant proposal before (but will very soon) and I feel as though this chapter will help me in the execution of it. I will be sure to keep the list of clarity, quality, originality, significance, methods and feasibility in my mind as I approach a proposal and begin to define my end goal. 

Why do I give?- A Reflection on Donor Relations

      In my opinion, one of the most frequently asked questions across a large number of disciplines is "why did they do that?" For the purpose of my Fundraising and Grant Writing course at Trinity University, I shall reflect upon some selections from the book Seven Faces of Philanthropy to try and answer the previously stated question in respect to myself and giving money to organizations. As an overview, the portions of the book that I read outlined donor segmentation, the history of the analysis of donor segmentation and presented the concept of the Seven Faces Framework. Within this concept, all major donors were split into seven types: communitarian, devout, investor, socialite, altruist, repayer, and dynast.

Image found at www.positivemed.com

       When reading this text, I couldn't help but think about my own personal motivations and reasons for donating my time and money to non-profit organizations. I would categorize myself as an communitarian, altruist and socialite combination donor. I don't think I am more one than the other but instead blend all three together in the same vein of community service. As a communitarian donor, donating of my time and money to certain organizations just makes sense to me. If I have the ability to give to something I believe in, why wouldn't I?  As an altruist, my only motivation of giving stems off of that of communitarian in that I want to give because I find it satisfying and I simply want to. My favorite quote is "Be the change you wish to see in the world" and I think it perfectly encapsulates the mentality of an altruist donor. As a socialite donor, my participation in a national service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, has given me an opportunity to have a leadership role and use both planning skills and my social network to make some good in the world happen.
      
      Now that I've define what my perspectives are, I think its appropriate to think about if I were to ask a donor for time or money. Who would I feel most comfortable asking to give? Who would I dread asking because it would be the most difficult? 

      Considering these questions, if I were placed in a position of fundraising, I think I would be most comfortable asking a donor most like myself to give money- so communitarians, altruists and socialites. If I had to rank them, I would place communitarians as the easiest to approach across a range of circumstances. Communitarians are the largest group of donors and they see giving as a two dimensional thing: not only does it look good for them to donate their money and time but it also serves the greater good of the community. These donors would respond positively to an ask from stable nonprofits that impact the community, offer some sort of leadership position for donors on boards and  are a reliable organization based on their history and IRS nonprofit status. Depending on the organization and the circumstances of the ask, I would place altruists and socialites as easy to ask, as well. Altruists make up a small percentage of the greater donor circle with only 9% of donors holding this "personality" type. These donors give selflessly simply because they consider it the right thing to do and ask nothing in return from the organization. Depending on the organization's mission and area of work, I feel as though these donors would be approachable and ready to give if our goals and mission matched up with their morals and personal beliefs. Socialites come in just above altruists at 10.8% of all major donors and typically belong to social groups that already work with and benefit nonprofits. Given the circumstances of an opportunity to give for a large event for a nonprofit, I think these donors would be happy to help contribute.

      Addressing the other end of the asking spectrum, I think the investor donors would be the most difficult to ask for a monetary donation. As described in the 7 Faces Framework, investor donors are affluent individuals who do want to give back to the community but in a way that best suits their tex deductible outcome. These donors value professionalism and well known nonprofits. Given those desires, I imagine it would be difficult to convince an investor donor to give to new and lesser known nonprofits that need the most help. Without an established system of operations and a positive history of the work their nonprofit has done, investor donors would not see the desire in giving to that nonprofit and would funnel their dollars elsewhere.

      Just like all things in life, I do not think this list of 7 stereotypes is complete and definitive. Like myself, I think donors can be a mixture of these 7 faces that creates their own unique mentality behind giving back. When making an ask, its just a matter of creating a personal relationship with your donors so you can identify their habits and ask them in the best way possible.

5 minutes to Curtain- The Status of Nonprofit Arts in America

Image found on barnesandnoble.com

       I am currently in rehearsals for Trinity University's production of Pippin and being in rehearsals for an upcoming production does many things to a person. Not only does it take away almost all of the free time an individual has, it also brings to light some of the challenges that theatre and the arts are facing in the world today. In Lester Salamon's The State of Nonprofit America, Stefan Toepler and Margaret Wysomirski provide us with a condensed overview of the history and trends of nonprofits related to the arts, culture and heritage in America. This chapter excerpt from the book does focus on a particular
portion of the nonprofit world but the take aways are applicable to all nonprofit organizations. In the end, all nonprofits --regardless of their focus in society-- need to look at the trends happening in social, economic and political spheres to understand how those trends impact the actions of the nonprofit.

       Here I am, in the fall of my Senior year and I am planning to pursue a career in the theatre world. Given my precarious perch on the cusp of school and the real world, I found this chapter very interesting and applicable to my life. I have been involved in theatre for a very long time and one of the things I love most about theatre is that every aspect of the creation of a production is intertwined. Nothing is isolated and then thrown in at the end for the final product- every aspect from the acting and building of sets to the production of marketing materials and ticket sales grow and evolve together in an effort to make the show happen. Similar to how everything within theatre is connected, the theatre itself is greatly affected by and intertwined with external factors in society. One of the things that Toepler and Wysomirski mention within the chapter "Arts and Culture" in The State of Nonprofit America, is that artistic elements are scattered throughout the culture of America and therefore are affected by the economic turns just as much as any other organization. Arts organizations experience periods of booms and busts based on the ever winding cash flow of our country which affects participation in the arts. One of the largest obstacles that all of the arts are facing presently is the declining audience pool. While people from many different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities participate in the arts, the majority are much older and that older age group is dwindling. In light of this reality, the arts are trying to adapt and find ways to appeal to a more diverse audience base of all ages, but specifically to generations X and Y. This is a challenge that I am trying to help solve at Trinity and I will continue to grapple with out in my post-grad life.

Image found at www.arts.gov

    Audiences will forever be a puzzle we must strive to solve. While they play a big part in the success of arts organizations, there is also aid in the form of government funding. The  Endowment for the Arts, created in 1965, provides an outlet of government funding for an estimated 5,000 local arts agencies across the country. Most arts organizations are considered to be nonprofits and for some, this government funding can be very valuable to continuing their craft. But as we recently experienced with a two week hiatus of our government, nothing in life is 100% reliable and nonprofits need to understand that federal grants may fall victim to political turbulence at the national level, while state and local support tends to wax and wane with the economic cycles (Toepler and Wysomirski). Understanding the bigger picture and how we fit into it was the focus of a special topics Arts Management class offered at Trinity in the Spring of 2011. We went through the steps of creating our own nonprofit organization related to the arts and thoroughly discussed how to survive utilizing NEA and our audience pool. In all, the need for awareness of the political and economic spheres, financial planning and diversifying the revenue stream of a variety of sources ranging from government funding to individual donors is vital to any nonprofit.

   

Image found at www.ccss.jhu.edu

  Within Salamon's text, he identifies four factors that shape the nonprofit sector: voluntarism, civic activism, professionalization, and commercialization. Since I plan to spend the rest of my life in the arts, I found the description of these factors to be helpful and one of those things that seems obvious but you never thought to write it out. Each aspect plays a key role in the day-to-day running of an arts nonprofit and is vital for it to "survive and thrive." Opportunities to volunteer time in any respect provides an opportunity of like minded individuals to join up over a n activity they enjoy. In regard to civic activism, it is stated in the text that most often the arts fight for themselves as opposed to groups raising awareness about another external cause not affiliated with the organization (i.e. greek organizations that have specific philanthropy projects). Just within the past 4 years, the funding of arts education was threatened and supporters of the arts gathered in downtown San Antonio to fight for something they believed in- arts in public schools. Fighting for ourselves to raise awareness of our presence and offerings to the general public will always be an obstacle nonprofit arts must face. Professionalization and the commercialization of the arts were presented as going hand-in-hand in that nonprofit art organizations are striving towards the expansion of arts and culture in pursuit of artistic excellence which in turn has lead to full time careers for individuals and the spreading goal of becoming self sustaining entities. All four of these aspects will play key roles as I continue on into the real world of theatre and I am glad to have learned a little more about them.

      When you have a role in making a theatre production come together, it is important to understand your contribution in relation to the big picture. In the nonprofit world, its important to be aware of a nonprofit's role and position in a broader context. There are always going to be what seems like a million factors playing into how one nonprofit runs and it is important to be aware of the powers that be.

Understanding Guidestar 101

Just like most things today, there is a handy and easily accessible database available when researching nonprofit organizations. Specifically for the purpose of this post GuideStar USA was used to explore a variety of nonprofits. GuiseStar USA is an information service specializing in reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies and in 2010, their database contained over 5 million IRS forms 990 on 1.9 million organizations. GuideStar offers a wide variety of ways to utilize the information presented including data digitization, database management and development, nonprofit services, web site operations and research.

The 990 Form: 

The IRS requires many forms to be submitted in order to ensure that organizations maintain their nonprofit status and the 990 Form is one of them. The 990 form provides the public with financial information about an organization and is used by government organizations to ensure they are not abusing their tax-exempt status. To explore this form, I researched Trinity University on GuideStar.

A shot of Trinity University's campus.
Image by Hillary Everts.

As to be expected, the 990 form includes vital information concerning various aspects of the organizations finances. Here are some pieces about Trinity:

• Trinity spent $2,251,645 on fundraising for the 2011 fiscal year.
• Trinity held $1,200,388,142 in total assets for the 2011 fiscal year.

The 990 includes not only fiscal information but also information about employees and members of the Board of Directors. Here are a few items about the people of Trinity:

• At Trinity, the highest paid employee for the 2011 fiscal year was Professor Phillip Cooley, the Prassel Distinguished Professor who earned $244,553.
• Out of the listed Board of Directors, Sharon J. Bell  serves as the Honorary Vice Chair.

Branching out the Search: 
GuideStar also offers the ability to search nonprofits based on a specific location or field of interest. I have been interested in pursuing fine arts management for a while now and utilized the the advanced search page to see what nonprofits were available in that field. Based on that search, this is what I found:

Outside of Bass Performance Hall in Ft Worth, TX.
 Image by James Brandon.

• "Fine Arts" originally turned up 2,826 results but then chose to narrow down the results even further by specifying fine arts nonprofits located in Fort Worth, Texas which yielded only 10 results.
• Out of those 10, I was familiar with only 4 of the organizations.
• While I wasn't expecting to be surprised by this search, 2 out of the 10 organizations had their exempt status revoked. It made me wonder what had to have changed within those organizations for this to happen.

Comparing Nonprofits: 

A screenshot of the comparison of
the 3 universities.

Just like the specified search utilized above, GuideStar allows users to compare multiple organizations at once, making it all accessible in one easy document. To experiment, I decided to look at 3 private universities- Trinity University, Rice University and Southwestern University- all located in Texas. This comparison view offers the summaries of general information, financial information, mission statements and the notable people of the organization. If I were to ever consider working at these institutions, it offers a great quick glance for developing a first impression and considering if it seems like the place for me. Expanding from this comparison view, I would want to know more about the benefits and specifics of a particular organization- more than a quick summary can provide.


Download Options:
So far I've had a chance to share some of the many great things about GuideStar with you, but there  is one more! Once you have registered with GuideStar you have not only the ability to look at the vitals of over 1.9 million nonprofits but also take that information and download it to your personal computer for access to it 24/7. It may vary depending on your account information but my membership with GuideStar allows me to download up to 5,000 organizations a month. Once you have selected all of the organizations that you would like to have information on, you may download materials as CSVs which are like Excel spreadsheets but more flexible. You also have the ability to download all of their information or just pieces of it that pertain/interest you. Out of the 10 that I chose to download, a few do have the potential to lead to employment/internship opportunities while others are merely just for personal interest. From these documents, if I choose to pursue any of the organizations listed I now have an ability to speak in depth about their impact as a nonprofit organization and can continue to do research on GuideStar for other organizations in that area.