NOFO Idea Feedback

- Homelessness by Aberlyna

- Prevent Child Abuse by Aberlyna

- Racism by Jasmyne

- Group 2 NOFO - Domestic Violence Prevention

1) The Big Idea

Prevent

- "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"

- To stretch the $5000 grant, we should maximize its impact by focusing on preventative measures to problems in our community

- Whatever need we want to address in the community, our NOFO should focus on the preventative side of that issue

Compassion

"People first; then Money; then Things" ~ Suze Orman

- It's fairly easy to connect the dots between society's ills and a deficit of compassion

- Intangible as it is, we should attempt to craft our NOFO to encourage, instill, and exude the spirit of compassion

- Regardless of community need, a lack of compassion is most likely the number one cause

Pay It Forward

- "Are you saying you'll flunk us if we don't change the world?" - Trevor

- We should seriously give thought to figuring out how we can make this grant live after the $5000 is spent

- Teaching non-profits how to respond to NOFOs and write grant proposals is one way to do this

Preventing a problem with an ounce of compassion towards a person can encourage that person to pay it forward and therefore create a "giving loop" that one day might make it better for the next person.

------

2) Seed money

Regardless of cause, I think it's important our NOFO reflects a "teach a man to fish" ethic.  I'm not interested if we support a non-profit that caters to homelessness, education, drug addiction, the environment, or cancer research.  I want the money to make a difference and last well after the the $5000 is spent. 

After poking through the Google news archive, my suspicion that a $5000 grant is not a lot of money was confirmed.  It was challenging to find such a grant directed towards non-profits.  Most grants at this amount were directed towards students and towards education.  Non-profit grants are normally much higher in amount.

That said ...

I propose our group use the grant as seed money for a non-profit to train a staff of grant writers so they might be more competitive when writing grant proposals.  In this way, $5000 is invested to train grant writers who can then compete for larger grants that directly support the non-profit's mission.  Our grant would not directly impact a community need immediately, but it could potentially garner exponentially more money for the non-profit down the road.

I found a couple of places online that offer training.  There are 3 and 5-day programs.  The 5-day program cost $895 with a price break when registering more than one person.  I figure a $5000 grant could pay to train three people, the remaining money could be used to pay for travel, hotel, and food costs for the trainees.  If we prioritized grant proposals that emphasized online or local training, we could maximize the $5000 for grant writing training.

Our NOFO could narrow the focus towards non-profits who perform a specific mission (domestic violence support, homeless outreach, etc.)  But the grant would be to train their grant writers.  We could also prioritize proposals from non-profits who haven't received a large grant in a while (over a year).  In this way, we truly train non-profits that might not be as competitive as others.

For me - that's using the grant in a meaningful, impacting way.  It lives beyond us.  It literally becomes the Jack's magic beans.  Our $5000 will grow a beanstalk that puts larger grants within the reach of smaller non-profits.  It gives the little guy a leg up and truly meet a community need - regardless of the need we choose.