Grantee Meeting April 18-20, 2009
Grantee Meeting Confirmed—Mark Your Calendars!
April 18-20, 2009 in Princeton, New Jersey
Our next Grantee Meeting will take place April 18-20, 2009, at the Chauncey Conference Center in Princeton, New Jersey. We look forward to seeing you there! More information will be available soon–
November 2008
Grantee Meeting Confirmed—Mark Your Calendars!
April 18-20, 2009 in Princeton, New Jersey
Reminder about Travel Costs
While we (the national grant, separate from your campus sub-grant) will pay hotel and meal expenses at the retreat center, you will be responsible for the cost of airfare and ground transportation to and from the retreat center in Princeton for each person attending. You may request reimbursement for the cost of these expenses as budgeted in your sub-contract agreement.
*This is preliminary (and incomplete) information for planning purposes only—more details about how many people may attend from each campus, etc., will be coming soon*
Planning Committee
Thanks to those of you who volunteered to play a role in planning this meeting. I’ll send a separate email about a time for us to begin (conference call TBA). For those of you who didn’t respond earlier, there’s still time—please email me now if you would like to have a voice in planning the structure and format of the meeting.
Call for Papers Released
The Practice of Interdisciplinary CBR
The Call for Papers for the Practice of Interdisciplinary CBR is now open—the (revised) deadline is DECEMBER 15 for proposals for the working conference, which will take place in conjunction with our grantee conference in April. See the complete text on the SideBar.
Position Announcement
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Faculty Appointment in Community and Nonprofit Leadership
Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor in Human Ecology
“Demonstrated commitment to strengthening the nonprofit sector and civil society, outreach to nonprofit organizations and/or community-based education”
See the complete Announcement on the SideBar.
2009 EPICS Conference on Service-Learning in Engineering and Computing will take place in Austin, Texas this August 3-4. Proposals to present are now being accepted (see the EPICS website: https://engineering.purdue.edu/EPICSNational/Conferences/Conferences/rfp
October 2008
Spring 2009 Meeting—Your Response Needed
Thank you to those of you who responded to my first note about the proposed date for our next meeting. Several of you said you would be unable to attend a late-March meeting, so we looked for an alternative date.
Please REPLY TO THIS EMAIL to let me know your availability for each of these dates: April 18-20, Saturday-Monday, and March 27-29, Friday-Sunday so that we can see which date accommodates the most people. These are the only available dates this spring!
The meeting will take place in Princeton, at the same conference center where some of you met during the first year of the grant. It looks very comfortable, and we anticipate another excellent gathering. Again, please reply with your availability for BOTH dates so that we can select the one that works for as many of us as possible.
I’ll be checking in with those of you who volunteered for the planning group very soon.
Spending Projection for the Remainder of your Sub-Grant
To plan the best use of our remaining grant funds, we need to determine the status of each sub-grant. We are working with the Corporation/Learn & Serve to extend the grant for another academic year (with no additional funds). The original grant end date was August 31, 2009—the end of this year—but we expect to add two additional semesters. This means you have the current semester plus three others, and this summer, to complete all of your grant-funded activities. Please send me a brief plan for your use of remaining funds (Your grant amount times # of years awarded, minus funds requested to date)
Let me know if you anticipate not spending all of your award or if you have questions about this process.
NEW CBR Networking Initiative Website
Check out the new website (wiki) at: http://cbrnet.pbwiki.com/FrontPage
(There are still a few small bugs, but this will be cleaned up very soon. Meanwhile, check out all the sample documents and other resources submitted by you and your colleagues—mostly under CBR Courses & Projects). And please send electronic versions of new materials at any time so we can add to our collection.
Scroll down to the Grant Management section to find reporting documents and a link to the NEW BLOG.
September 2008
Hello Everyone,
Here are two questions we’d like your response to, and some GOOD NEWS about FUNDING (along with some general announcements):
QUESTIONS:
1) Community/Planning Councils
Paul Apostolidis at Whitman College would like to hear from you if you have worked with a Community/Planning Council. The model comes from the National Association of Planning Councils (http://www.communityplanning.org/). Please contact Paul at: apostopc@whitman.edu
2) Spring 2009 CBR Networking Initiative Meeting
We haven’t had much response for a planning committee, but I know you have opinions about what we should (or shouldn’t) do—please let me know if you’d like to help design this year’s meeting. To begin, we’d like to set a date and place so we can all put it on the calendar. Shall we say Princeton in late March?
ADDITIONAL FUNDS AVAILABLE from the CBR Networking Initiative
PRESENTATION & TRAVEL
If you would like to present CBR work at the CCPH conference (or others), we have some funding available to support travel costs. We may also have limited funding available for visits between campuses for the purpose of sharing knowledge about the practice of CBR—let me know if you’re interested by emailing a short synopsis.
DATA COLLECTION
(Note this applies only to the first 20 “Institutionalization” grantees that had a “data collection” line item on their approved budget)
Many of you have found that you do not need all of the data collection funds to track progress on CBR activities. You MAY reallocate those funds to other line items supporting the goals outlined in your Scope of Work. Let me know if you have any questions on this or other budget issues.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
CALL FOR PAPERS & CCPH CONFERENCE
The call for proposals for Community-Campus Partnerships for Health’s 11th Conference “Creating the Future We Want to Be: Transformation through Partnerships,” April 29-May 2, 2009 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: www.ccph.info.
GRANTS AVAILABLE
State Farm® Good Neighbor Service-Learning grants Deadline: October 15, 2008
Grants of up to $1,000 are available for youth-led community improvement. Grantees are encouraged to design semester-long projects launched on Martin Luther King Day (January 19, 2009) extending through Global Youth Service Day, April 24-26, 2009. Electronic application, grant guidelines, and budget spreadsheet are available at www.YSA.org/awards.
Free Course Management Website
http://ninehub.com/ (recommended by John Sarvey at Northeastern University)
Urban Institute Research Reports
(This site includes current reports on housing, homelessness, health, juvenile justice, domestic violence, crime, courts and policing, corrections and prisoners, etc.):
http://www.urban.org/toolkit/newreports.cfm
CBR and Tenure—article
Moving Beyond the Big Three http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/09/03/read Additional material on the subject: John Braxton’s reworking of Boyer is helpful, see: Institutionalizing a Broader View of Scholarship through Boyer’s Four Domains and Weimer’s Enhancing Scholarly Work on Teaching & Learning. (recommended by Jerry Pattengale, Assistant Provost at Indiana Wesleyan University)
FAQs
(answers to questions frequently asked by our sub-grantees; note that this document was created for the 07-08 academic year and will be updated for 08-09)
2007-2008
1. Can our campus “roll over” unspent grant funds from the first year to this year?
Yes, you may use unspent funds from last year in this year. “Campus” sub-grantees require a no-cost extension of their grant. CBLI staff submitted this request to Princeton’s Office of Research and Project Administration (ORPA) for each of the 20 “Campus” sub-grantees. When ORPA revises those awards (beginning 10/26/07), your administrative contact will receive an electronic notification of the extended date.
Note: If you want to change the way the funds will be used (or if your activities will change), you will need to submit a budget revision request (and a revised Scope of Work, if that applies). Depending upon the degree of change, Princeton’s ORPA may issue a new Subaward Agreement. Please contact the Project Coordinator
2. What is the status of my payment?
In order to release grant funds, Princeton’s Office of Research & Project Administration must receive both your signed Subaward Agreement and a request for payment (invoice). If you have submitted both, more than one month ago, please email the Project Coordinator.
3. Can I continue my grant for a second year?
Yes, as long as you are making progress toward your Year 1 goals.
4. Do we need a new budget/statement of work/contract for the second year?
Yes—see Question #5 for process.
5. What is the process for continuing the grant for Year 2?
Please submit the following documents to the Project Coordinator via email:
1) Statement of Work for Year 2: revise last year’s statement to reflect any changes—including staff names, dates, etc.—for Year 2. If the activities will remain exactly the same, and no edits are necessary, you may submit a copy of last year’s Statement.
2) Budget for Year 2: we need a complete budget for Year 2 even if the activities are the same. This may be a copy of last year’s budget if that information is accurate for Year 2.
NOTE: if you are “rolling over” any Year 1 funds, do not add them to your Year 2 budget in this step. Your Year 2 budget should reflect only the new funds awarded for Year 2.
3) A revised Attachment A (Collaborator Contact list) from last year’s Agreement to indicate any staff changes related to the contract.
Find all the documents you need on the “Hub” https://bonner.grouphub.com/login or contact the Project Coordinator.
6. Why does the old budget form have so many tabs/sheets? Do we need to fill out every sheet?
Each sub-grantee campus is required to maintain “source documentation” (original receipts, invoices, copies of checks or electronic payments, etc.) to support your expenditures of federal Learn & Serve grant funds through this award.
Last year, you were asked to submit a budget that included several spreadsheets in order to assist you in tracking that documentation. This year, although you are still required to maintain the same documentation for your files, you may submit a single-page budget for Year 2 funds.
7. Can I change my grant activities?
The purpose and goals of the CBR Networking Initiative remain the same for Year 2 and 3. However, individual grant activities may be refined to achieve the same outcomes. Please email your proposed changes to the Project Coordinator.
8. Can I change my budget for Year 2?
Yes—see Question #5 regarding Year 2 process and Question #7 regarding changes to grant activities.
9. Our Principal Investigator/Program or Project Coordinator/Administrative Contact person has changed—who should I inform?
Please submit a revised Attachment A (Collaborator Contact list) with your Statement of Work and Budget for Year 2. If changes occur after that time, please email the new Contact person’s information (name, title, address, phone, fax, and email) to the Project Coordinator.
10. Where can I find the Learn & Serve Provisions?
The Provisions govern activities, management, and reporting requirements of Learn & Serve grantees and subgrantees. The Provisions may be found on the Learn & Serve website:
http://www.learnandserve.gov/pdf/highered_prov_06.pdf
11. Do we need to report data every year in the LASSIE system? When can we have access to the system?
Yes, annual data for your project/program must be entered into the national Learn & Serve database (LASSIE). The Project Coordinator will inform you when the system is open for data collection for 07-08, which is expected to be in the early spring.
12. What data do I need to collect for LASSIE?
The LASSIE system is intended to collect information about all Learn & Serve-funded programs and projects. The activities reported may be partially or fully funded by Learn & Serve—including Matching funds for Learn & Serve grants—but you should not report on activities for which no Learn & Serve funds were used. The LASSIE survey includes 36 questions, including fiscal, operational, and demographic information. Last year’s survey is available at: http://lsareports.org/ for your information and planning purposes. Note that the survey is being revised (slightly) by the Corporation for National and Community Service and the new version is expected in spring 2008.
The survey requests demographic data on all participants, including students (Higher Ed and K-12), campus staff, volunteers, etc. These data include characteristics such as Ethnicity, Race, Gender, Disability, Age (adults, baby boomers), and “Disadvantaged Youth” (foster children, adjudicated youth). Please collect and report this information to the extent possible.
13. Do I need to use the Learn & Serve logo on my program/project materials? Where do I find the Learn & Serve logo?
All project and program materials supported by grant funds should include the Learn & Serve logo. Downloadable logos are available on the Corporation for National & Community Service website: http://www.learnandserve.gov/about/media_kit/logos.asp
(scroll down to the Learn & Serve logos—with L in the center—and select “Higher Education.”
14. How can we request a campus site visit or Faculty Workshop?
Several visits are planned during each year of the grant. If you would like to host a visit, send an email to the Project Coordinator with your request. Include information about the date, event, purpose, and number of expected participants.
15. What are the reporting requirements for 07-08?
There are three major reporting deadlines for the 07-08 program year:
December 15, 2007
- Narrative Report on activities between 7/1/07 and 12/15/07
- Fiscal Report (Budget-to-Actual expenses) for the same period
- Student, Faculty, and Community Partner Questionnaires
- Course and Project Reporting
May 1, 2008 (TBA—waiting for release date from CNCS)
- LASSIE survey
June 15, 2008
- Narrative Report on activities between 12/16/07 and 6/15/08
- Fiscal Report (Budget-to-Actual expenses) for the same period
- Student, Faculty, and Community Partner Questionnaires
- Course and Project Reporting
- Institutionalization Checklist
16. Our budget originally included $1,000 for “Data Collection.” Can this be used for any type of data collection—or for a different type of expense?
In Year 1, these funds were added to budgets as a separate line item to support data-collection tasks associated with Student, Faculty, and Community Partner Questionnaires as well as Course and Project Reporting (see Reporting Requirements, above). While these funds may partially support additional data collection and/or analysis, they are primarily intended to ensure that CBR courses and projects entered into the database AND that surveys are completed by students, faculty, and community partner participants in your program. Note that these surveys and reports are requirements of the grant.
The Data Collection funds may not be used for other purposes.
17. Where do I find reporting documents?
Reporting documents (along with summaries of prior year grant activities and other resources) are available on the password-protected Group Hub site hosted by the Bonner Foundation: http://bonner.grouphub.com. Contact the Project Coordinator if you do not yet have a profile or if you need assistance logging into the system.
18. Can grant funds be used to support research projects outside the United States?
“Grant funds may not be used for international travel or projects where the primary beneficiaries of an activity are outside the United States.” (p.7, Special Provisions, 2,b.)
19. Can grant funds be used to support projects in which “community” or “beneficiary” is defined as the on-campus community or beneficiary (such as students, campus organizations, students, or faculty members)?
The Corporation for National and Community Service interprets the terms “community” and “beneficiary” as an off-campus entity.
20. How can I find resources from the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse?
Resources developed by programs funded through Learn & Serve by the Corporation for National and Community Service are available at: http://www.servicelearning.org/index.php
21. Are there specific IRB (Institutional Review Board) guidelines that I need to follow? Were the Questionnaires reviewed by an IRB?
Research involving human subjects must be reviewed by your university’s IRB.
For the purposes of this grant, each campus must follow its own IRB guidelines.
The Questionnaires were not submitted to an IRB for review; however you may do so on your campus.
22. Who is the first point of contact for grant-related questions?
The first point of contact is the Project Coordinator at Princeton:
Denise Keller
(609) 258-9750
August 2008
Happy Summer, Everyone:
Here are some updates—and requests for your input—from the CBR Networking Initiative, and some general announcements about funding and resources available (scroll down).
FYI, Trisha is out of the office now until August 20 and I will be out September 1-12.
Grantee Meeting
We’re planning for a spring 2009 meeting—not fall 2008—and would like to convene a group to develop that meeting’s format and content, including setting the date. Please email me now if you would like to be a part of that planning group.
Anticipating the opportunity to develop and share additional resources at our next meeting, we also want to invite participation in two new projects:
Practice of Interdisciplinary CBR
Trisha is working with Beth Paul from The College of New Jersey to develop a collection of interdisciplinary CBR papers (as discussed at last fall’s meeting). We anticipate providing more information and a call-for-papers soon and look forward to your feedback and participation (writers and reviewers).
Community Assessment Working Group
We would like to bring together a group of campus (and perhaps community) representatives who have gained some experience assessing the impact of CBR on their local community organizations. Our goal is to develop a practical, efficient, and effective assessment tool for use within and outside this network. Please email me with a short overview of your current community assessment activities if you would like to be a part of this group. If you have suggestions for format, topics, timing, etc., please include those as well.
Reporting completed for 2007-2008
Thank you for your help in meeting our reporting deadlines with CNCS, the Corporation for National and Community Service (Learn & Serve). We submitted our LASSIE report and our Progress Report for the entire project on July 30, one day before the deadline (whew!!) Next reporting deadline: December 15, 2008.
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
Funding for Research that Supports Social Change
The Sociological Initiatives Foundation provides grants of $10,000 to $20,000 to support research that supports social change.
The Foundation specifically supports research that focuses on:
· Clear social policy objectives
· Institutional and educational practices
· Legislative and regulatory changes
· Organizing previously unorganized groups
· Building collective community capacity and/or power (such as expanding membership base)
· Linguistic issues, such as literacy, language maintenance and expansion, multilingualism and its implications, and their possible intersection with social and policy issues.
The Foundation supports projects that address institutional rather than individual or behavioral change and/or research and initiatives that provide insight into sociological and linguistic issues that may be useful to specific groups and or communities.
It supports projects that have an explicit research design and a concrete connection to public or community impact. The research should ideally build an organization or constituency’s potential to expand public knowledge, impact policy, and create social change. Complete guidelines and on-line concept application for the August 15, 2008 deadline are available at http://comm-org.wisc.edu/sif . Contact Prentice Zinn at pzinn@grantsmanagement.com or 617-426-7080×307.
New: Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship
The University of Alabama is the inaugural home for a new research journal that will disseminate scholarly works from all academic disciplines with the goal of integrating teaching, research, and community engagement. The journal website is under construction at http://www.jces.ua.edu/. For more information, contact the editor at jces@ua.edu or 205-348-4586.
Imagining America’s Tenure Team Initiative Report
In case you have not had an opportunity to read “Scholarship In Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy In the Engaged University,” you can access it here:
http://www.imaginingamerica.org/IApdfs/TTI_REPORT%20FINAL%205.2.08.pdf
Looking forward to our next opportunity to work together—remember to let me know which projects you would like to play a role in developing.
June 2008
URGENT—overdue CBR reports
I hope all is well with you. I know it’s a busy time of year, but I haven’t heard from you regarding the Progress Report (which was due June 15) or the LASSIE survey, due online by June 30. According to my records, neither has been submitted.
We are required to report on our annual progress, across all 30 campuses, next month. I need your information to compile our reports, and the LASSIE system will be closed to new entries after the deadline of 6/30.
Note that this semester’s Progress Report is shorter than the previous semester, and it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to complete. LASSIE will take a bit longer, but neither of these is difficult. Note that for Question #3 in LASSIE (organizational profile) you should answer “no” to the first two options and yes to the third option.
The new Progress Report form is on the Hub (https://bonner.grouphub.com/login) along with the Fiscal Forms workbook and the Institutionalization Checklist.
I’m requesting a separate email from the LASSIE system with your user name and password—you should receive that shortly.
Please let me know immediately if you are having trouble accessing information or need other assistance.
Thanks for your help in meeting our reporting deadlines!
May 2008
I hope everything is going well for you as summer approaches!
Reminder
Progress and fiscal reports and this year’s Institutionalization Checklist are due soon—by June 15. You’ll find a new (slightly shorter) Progress Report form on the Hub (https://bonner.grouphub.com/login) along with the Fiscal Forms workbook and the Institutionalization Checklist.
Also, LASSIE reports must be completed online by June 30. Log-in information was sent to you (each campus’s primary contact) via email in late March/early April.
If you need help accessing any of this information, please let me know right away. We do need your reports so that we can send complete year-end information to our funder, Learn and Serve at the Corporation for National and Community Service.
News
Imagining America Conference
The 2008 Imagining America Conference, “Layers of Place, Movements of People: Public Engagement in a Diverse America” is taking place October 2-4, 2008 in Los Angeles, California (see website: http://imaginingamerica.org/index.html) Imagining American also has a tenure initiative: http://imaginingamerica.org/TTI/TTI.html and has just posted their report, Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University.
Council on Undergraduate Research Conference/Paul Apostolides
The 12th Conference on Undergraduate Research (CUR) conference will be held June 21-24 in Minnesota (http://www.cur.org/conferences.html). Note that your colleague, Paul Apostolides from Whitman College, is speaking about CBR at one of the plenary sessions!
Getting Your Message Across
The Stanford Social Innovation Review has an interesting article this month on storytelling with a purpose: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/i_want_you_to_meet_joe/
April 2008
Social Media Networking & Grant Opportunity
The Corporation for National & Community Service announced a new grant competition for campuses or networks of campuses that want to apply social media tools (often called Web 2.0) to enhance and expand their community service efforts with students. Bobby Hackett is putting together a proposal (due May 7) and is looking for collaborators. See the complete memo below and on the Hub at: https://bonner.grouphub.com/login
LASSIE Database
Please send me a note if you did not receive an email with your LASSIE user name and password (this should have arrived about a week ago). All data on your campus projects is due in LASSIE by June 30, 2008.
Progress Reports and Continuation Funding for Year 3
Our third year of funding has been approved by the Corporation, thanks to all the good work we reported from your first semester’s reports—Congratulations! We’ll be in touch soon with more information from the Corporation.
Council on Undergraduate Research National Conference and Institutes
June 21-24, 2008 http://www.cur.org/
Call for Papers & Editorial Board Members—New Journal on Civic Engagement & Community-Based Learning
The Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education has announced its first call for papers, due June 30, 2008. The Journal is also seeking qualified editorial board members. For more information, visit http://www1.indstate.edu/jcehe/.
MEMORANDUM
31 March 2008
TO: Bonner Community
FR: Bobby Hackett
RE: NETWORKING & GRANT OPPORTUNITY
The Corporation for National & Community Service announced a new grant competition for campuses or networks of campuses that want to apply social media tools (often called Web 2.0) to enhance and expand their community service efforts with students. I am putting together a proposal which is due May 7th (see basic description below).
The purpose of this email is to invite you and any students, staff, faculty, or local community partners in the Bonner and L&S National CBR Networking Initiative networks who may be interested in collaborating on the proposal. Anyone who is interested should send me an email letting me know so I can add them to the Facebook Group and get them an account on the wiki we’ve set up to facilitate this collaboration.
We believe this initiative fits well with all of our efforts to improve our recruiting, information sharing, collaboration, and program management. We will link these efforts to BWBRS 3.0, cbrnet.org, and the PolicyOptions.org websites, but develop them in ways to enhance your local campus and community partnerships while also connecting more with state and national people and organizations. We envision using the full range of Web 2.0 tools, including:
- social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, and other sites for personal sharing and networking among students, staff, and others)
- wikis (collaborative information sharing with campus wikis and national wikis for programs, policy information, etc)
- videos (profiles of campus centers, community partners, and service events and people)
- podcasts (interviews and other audio and video projects)
- blogs (personal storytelling and commentary)
- mashups (mapping community data onto Google maps, for instance)
- group calendar, email list, forums, docs (Google tools to coordinate service project team schedules, communication)
We are looking for students and staff who will serve in a variety of possible roles, including:
- evangelists who will bring the vision, leadership, and tech know-how to their campuses
- content providers who will contribute to the wikis, make videos, author blogs and podcasts, and create mashups
- moderators who will provide some quality control to the various public sites and communication
- users (meaning, just about everyone) who will actively participate in utilizing these tools at a level appropriate to their interest and role
Because we’re working on Web 2.0 technologies, we’re calling ourselves the “Serve 2.0 Working Group.” We will be using a wiki for most of collaborative brainstorming and writing, but have created a private Facebook group as well so everyone who is part of this can learn a little about everyone else on this project. Because we’re writing a proposal, we have decided to make both the wiki and the Facebook group private. Therefore, I need to invite you in personally using your email address or Facebook account. Once we submit the proposal, we’ll open both up for anyone to join.
So, please email me right away if you want to be part of the planning process. And, please pass this email on to all your Bonner and other students, faculty or staff on your campus who may be interested in participating in this initiative. We need the power of ideas and engagement of as many people as possible to make this work! And, it is important to for you to know that other than the evangelists, it doesn’t matter how Web 2.0 savvy you are at this point. The technology is changing so fast, we’re all learning new possibilities almost every day.
Also, if you have any questions or concerns or other ideas, please let me know. Or, once you get on the wiki, you can post them there.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Bobby Hackett
Vice President
—————————————————————–
The Corella & Bertram F. Bonner Foundation
10 Mercer Street • Princeton, NJ 08540
609.924.6663 • www.bonner.org
—————————————————————–
Brief Description of Learn & Serve Grant for
2008 College Student Social Media Initiative
Approximately $2.3 million is available to facilitate better engagement of college students in service through the use of social media such as Facebook, MySpace, Ning, podcasts, blogs and other social media tools. Successful applicants must demonstrate how their program can use these tools to engage increased numbers of college students, especially in partnership with other nonprofit or for-profit entities. An estimated 12 grants will be made for a project period of up to three years. Applications are due at 5 p.m. eastern time, May 7.
Description of Competition
The purpose of this competition is to facilitate better engagement of college students in service through the use of social media. Some examples of social media include: social networking (i.e., Facebook, MySpace, Ning, or integrating social networking capacity into existing sites), wikis, podcasts, blogs, RSS feeds, mashups, social bookmarking, widgets, etc. Successful applicants must demonstrate how their program can use these tools to engage increased numbers of college students, especially in partnership with other nonprofit or for-profit entities.
To meet the purpose of this grant, activities must use social media to mobilize and engage students locally, regionally, or nationally in high-quality service and should achieve at least one of the following:
• Improve communication among students, student organizations, community partners, and non-profits/institutions of higher education involved in creating social change
• Develop innovative and effective methods of providing service to or serving with community partners
• Increase institutional support for student-driven service
Grantees’ success will be measured by the way in which they:
• Develop and test innovative ideas
• Develop effective marketing and communication strategies to mobilize student volunteers
• Develop means of connecting more students to service
In addition to the quality of their proposed project plan and activities, grant applicants will be assessed on how well they:
• Use or adapt social media in an innovative way to drive student service
• Actively involve students in the grant planning process
• Include student leadership during the grant implementation
• Incorporate pre-existing technology and expertise on issue areas (e.g., education, public safety, environment, and other human needs)
March 2008
LASSIE Database for Student/Community Activities
There have been some delays in preparing the LASSIE system for this year’s entries. The Corporation for National and Community Service announced today that the system will open for sub-grantees (that’s you) on 3/18. When it’s ready, you will receive an email from me and/or from the system giving you your user name and password. All data on your campus projects will be due in LASSIE by June 30, 2008.
Grantee Meeting
We’ve summarized the evaluations from the meeting we had in Minnesota (time flies!) and are working to organize our work accordingly. We’ll be in touch soon to launch some of the follow-up work we discussed there.
Progress Reports and Continuation Funding for Year 3
Thanks to all of you who submitted your December 15 reports. With a week to spare, in mid-February we submitted our proposal to the Corporation for the third (and final) year of funding. We anticipate also requesting a no-cost extension for the final year, and we’ll keep you posted on that.
REMINDERS & Items of Interest
Charrette for Community-Engaged Faculty Teams
Call for Applications! Community-Engaged Scholarship Faculty Development Charrette May 28-30, 2008 The Rizzo Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Application Deadline: March 17, 2008 Details at: http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/pdf_files/cfa-charrette.pdf
Guidance for Political Activities from the Corporation
Grantee staff and program participants may not (1) attempt to influence legislation or (2) participate in, or endorse, political events or activities while performing activities supported by the Corporation:
http://www.learnandserve.gov/for_organizations/funding/gc_guidance.asp
—Note that non-partisan voter registration is considered an appropriate Learn & Serve (but not AmeriCorps) activity—
I’m attending a conference for the balance of this week, so I will be out of the office until Monday, March 11.
