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Group 2- SPB NOFO

Page history last edited by jose carreto 13 years, 4 months ago

Team P.I.F. (Pay It Forward)

JasmyneEhleEstefiJay, Jose , & Martha

 

 

Original Problem Statement / Idea

Team P.I.F. seeks proposals to advance a non-profit's grant and proposal writing skills.

 

Community need / focus:

Addressing domestic violence

 

How to address community need:

Prevention, mentorship, education, awareness towards potential victims and perpetrators of domestic violence

 

Goals:

  • Use 5K grant as seed money to invest in a non-profit's grant writing ability so they can compete for larger grants
  • Focus NOFO towards non-profits who prevents domestic violence before it happens by educating, building confidence, and mentoring kids before they become victims and/or perpetrators; non-profits that encourage compassion in society
  • Solicit proposals that create a concrete, tangible plan of how 5K grant will build a grant writing program with a goal towards preventing domestic violence
  • Encourage the Pay It Forward ethic by soliciting mentors from domestic violence victims who escaped and became successful
  • Maximize the effectiveness of the grant; encourage the longetivity of the grant; promote a spirit of passing granting writing knowledge from non-profit member to non-profit member

 

Possible NOFO audience:

  • Non-profits who work to end domestic violence
  • Non-profits who work with kids affected by domestic violence
  • Non-profits who mentor kids
  • Non-profits who encourage compassion in society
  • Non-profits who do not have in-house grant writers
  • Non-profits who have not been awarded a larger grant in past year or two (over $100,000)

 

Intended Beneficiaries - Long-term:

  • School-aged children
  • Possibly focus on high school-aged kids
  • Possibly focus on girls only 

 

Problem Statement (Jay)

Team Pay It Forward (P.I.F.) requests proposals from non-profit organizations who need to improve their grant/proposal writing skills; specifically, Team P.I.F. is interested in assisting non-profits who use in-house, but not sufficiently trained, grant/proposal writers.  Team P.I.F.'s goal is to award the grant to a less established non-profit in order to increase its grant awards when competing with larger, more established non-profits.  Team P.I.F. restricts this grant to non-profits whose mission is to prevent, aid, educate, mentor, and/or create awareness about domestic violence within the Pinellas and/or Hillsborough areas.  Team P.I.F. is especially interested in non-profits who work with teenagers to prevent them from becoming victims or perpetrators of domestic violence.

 

Team P.I.F. seeks proposals from non-profits who have a track record of preventing domestic violence.  Team P.I.F. encourages the "pay it forward" message and innovative proposals with this ethic will be given priority for the grant.  Priority will be given to organizations who demonstrate preventing domestic violence and include more than one of the missions stated above.  Non-profits that have not received a federal grant of more than $100,000 in the past year will also receive priority status.  Proposals must clearly state how many grant writers are on staff and if none, how the non-profit currently drafts proposals in response to grant opportunities.  Finally, Team P.I.F. believes in maximizing grant dollars.  Priority will be given to organizations with an administrative and fund raising expense rate (AFR) of 20 percent or less, per their latest publicly available IRS Form 990.  Proposals must include documentation for this requirement.

 

Jay, a quick suggestion to editing this (in my opinion) great NOFO mission statement. My suggestion would be to say "Team Pay It Forward (P.I.F), and then continue to use P.I.F like you did. I suggest this because, from a journalist and editor, that is the correct thing to go about things. Kind of how in newspaper articles they say a person's full name, but from then on out refer to them by the last name. Or, as another example, you would refer to "Student Environment Awareness Society (S.E.A.S)" in a newspaper, then refer to them as S.E.A.S in the rest of the article. But, if you leave it how it is, I think it would be fine. Also, I hope you are going to be adding reasoning behind why domestic violence is a problem, because I will be interested in reading that (: - Andrea

 

Thanks, Andrea.  I agree with your comment and I've made the change.  I remember that rule from my newspaper days - thanks for the reminder :-)  We will definitely grow the problem statement with rationale and statistics backing up our claims.  Before getting too deep, I wrote this just to see what resonated within our group.  But you're definitely correct, we need evidence to show why our NOFO is directed towards preventing domestic violence.  Thanks for keeping me honest (as always :-) ~ Jay

 

Problem Statement (Jasmyne)

Team P.I.F. of USFSP is requesting grant proposals from a non-profit organization in the Pinellas County area that focuses on awareness and prevention of domestic violence. We are looking for organizations that would allocate the grant money towards grant writers. Grant writers would be put in place to create more money for the non-profit organization. This will help build the knowledge of employees within the organization. This also would provide a new job for someone without a job. In the process of the grant writing, teens will be informed of domestic violence as a source of prevention.

 

Hi Jasmyne - you included some verbiage that's not allowed by the grant.  It's not your fault - you didn't know.  But so you know, the grant money can only be used to buy supplies, training, and consultants.  Technically, the grant cannot be used to hire anyone full time as an employee of the non-profit.  So you'll have to adjust your problem statement regarding that.

 

Also - a NOFO is a type of business writing.  When you craft it, try to 'boil it down' and leave only the most necessary words to get your point across.  As an example: Team P.I.F. of USFSP is requesting grant proposals from a non-profit organization in the Pinellas County area that focuses on awareness and prevention of domestic violence.  Instead, consider: Team P.I.F. request proposals from non-profit organizations who focus on domestic violence awareness and prevention.  

 

Something I try to do when I write - and edit my writing - is to look for combinations of verbs like "is requesting".  Change it to "requests".  It sounds stronger and gets to the point with less words.  Basically, it's going from passive voice to active voice.  Also, go hunting for unnecessary prepositions like "of".  You'll notice I moved domestic violence in front of awareness and got rid of the "of".  Again, it "boils down" the sentence and leaves just the necessary words.  And of course, be sure to include information you found through research that backs up all claims made.  Hope that helps you out when you craft your final problem statement. ~ Jay

 

Problem Statement (Estefi)

Team P.I.F. "Pay it forward" from USFSP  have decided to request a grant proposal from a non-profit organization that mainly can focus on creating awareness and prevention of domestic violence. From Pinellas and Hillsborough counties team P.I.F. plans to use the grant to train grant writers. What we have planned is that by focusing our time with this we can help a non-profit and actually pass it along, change lives, "pay it forward". With the grant writers on board it'll make it easier to create more money towards the non-profit. Team P.I.F. wants non-profits who work with abused women and who will start creating awareness to younger children so it will decrease domestic violence in the upcoming years. By going to schools and letting kids know that this sort of thing isn't okay and that they CAN do something to change it.

 

Estefi - Please take a peek at my comments above with Jasmyne's statement regarding 'boiling down' your words.  Pretend it's Twitter and you only get so many words.  Get all your points across, but really try to use an economy of words.  Also, keep an eye out for consistency: ex Team P.I.F. and team P.I.F.  Be sure future drafts of your problem statement includes research info to back up every claim you make.  Hope that helps! ~ Jay

 

Problem Statement (Ehle)

Team P.I.F "Pay it forward", from the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg is accepting grant proposals from Pinellas and Hillsborough counties that focus on the prevention of domestic violence. Team P.I.F. plans on using this $5,000 grant towards a non profit organizaion that will take this money to train grant writers. Our idea in doing this is that we can help a non profit, "pay it forward" by training grant writers so the 5,000 dollars can double or triple. We believe that domestic violence in women is a growing issue all over the world. Team P.I.F. want proposals from non profit organizations that work with abused women, and bringing about awareness to children in order to prevent it from happening.

 

Focusing on prevention is important because it is a lot more work to aid the problem then to prevent it from happening. Team P.I.F. will be focusing on groups who prevent/ aid and or mentor women who deal with domestic violence. Our student pilanthropy board is interested in organizations that bring about awareness to teenagers to prevent them from being a victim or creator of domestic violence. Priority will be given to organizations who haven't recieved a federal grant of $25,000 or more in the past year. Proposals must clearly state how they will go about training grant writers or  if they already have a program for this.

 

Ehle, with a little work, I think this could be a successful problem statement. You may want to go through and replace all the 'we' statements, for I did not see that in any other mission statement (so possibly, that means, it is not allowed). Replace it with Team P.I.F. Also, consider breaking it up into two seperate paragraphs like Jay and the example NOFO's did. Replace "We will be focusing on..." with "Priority will be given to organizations addressing the prevention/aiding/mentoring of women dealing with domestic violence" (violence is spelled wrong in your paragraph, btw. While on the topic, add a 's' at the end of want in sentence 5). Oh! And I noticed you say that priority will be given to organizations who have not received federal grant of $25k +, but Jay says of 100k +...so I would discuss what number you want! -Andrea

 

thanks andrea, ya we talked about the 100.000$ in class but didn't set a specific number yet and I thought 100k was rediculous so I changed it up in my problem statement. Eventually I think we will combine them all, thanks for your suggestions I just finished editing it :) - Ehle

 

Problem Statement (Jose)

 

Problem Statement (Martha)

 

Where do we want to go with this?

Jay's Basic Ideas

 

 

PAY IT FORWARD

 

Education For Grant Writing

 

 

 

 Abused Women

 

Links:  

How to avoid issues of team- writing as a group

NOFO 101 - How to go about writing our NOFO.

PIF FEEDBACK - Feedback for our NOFO.

Comments (8)

JazzieBee:) said

at 9:33 am on Oct 26, 2010

I was wondering, are our problem statements supposed to be alike?

Ehle so fly said

at 11:18 am on Oct 26, 2010

in a way because we are all for the same proposal and problem statement. I used the other NOFO's to help me form my problem statement and then looked at Jay's and realized he must have done the same thing because ours are so similar. Similarity will make it easier when we are combining it, but the more ideas for our problem statement; the better!

JazzieBee:) said

at 11:29 am on Oct 26, 2010

ok! thats what i thought as well

Ehle so fly said

at 5:00 pm on Oct 27, 2010

did you post yours on a seperate page?

Ehle so fly said

at 10:30 am on Oct 28, 2010

i like your nofo, short and simple but to the point (to jasmyne)

Ehle so fly said

at 10:31 am on Oct 28, 2010

i meant to say problem statement not nofo lol

Ehle so fly said

at 10:47 am on Oct 28, 2010

i am very sick group, please keep me filled in with class assignments and our next step for this NOFO.

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