342 Assignment 6 -

Assignment Six Homework
Online Learning
OL 342 Project Architecture: Managing for Impact.
https://csd-i.org/ol-342-adapting-climate-change/

This week’s resources:
Assignment Six Discussion
Magee Example Project Assignment 6
Field Guide: Capturing Compelling Photos from the Field

Assignment Six. How will you organize your ideas for presentation to a donor?
Getting Started.
Collect your 12 week’s worth of assignments. Clean them up in Word and in Excel (make sure they look good and there aren’t typos), and print them out carefully. Collect a few of your best photographs of the community that you worked with and print out a single sheet of card stock with 4 or 6 photos and a project title on it for the front cover.

If you read my Magee Project Example (or the video above), you can see that I have had my examples which you used in the course inexpensively bound.

It would be good to have available to show your donor your:

Photos of your community with a project title printed on card stock for the front cover
Ten Seed Results from your community needs assessment
Simple Project Outline with your research on potential interventions
Research on scientific evidence on your interventions
Field guide example on one simple activity
Lesson Plan example on one simple activity
Your How To Card
Your final logframe
Your Budget
Your Project Schedule
Your two-page fact sheet

Whether this is a potential employer, a current boss, or a potential donor, a presentation book like this has frequently made my meetings successful. Sometimes people in meetings will ask if they can ‘borrow’ it; my experience is that I never see the book again.

This is the purpose of the 2-Page Fact Sheet: give them that. A good trick if someone asks to ‘borrow’ the book is to apologize and tell them that you need it for a meeting later in the afternoon. If on the other hand it is a donor, and you think that the book might help with a donation—give them the book.

In summary the presentation book of this course clearly shows what your project is about, it shows how we have built sustainability and impact into the project, it shows how we’re going to manage the project successfully, and it gives our audience a sense of our capabilities.

Part 2. Sharing your project with a donor.
This week you will meet with an important person for sharing your project. I hope that you decided to meet with a donor. You can explain that this is an initial project concept on which you are hoping to receive feedback before you submit it.

The first thing that that you should show the donor, is your two page compelling fact sheet that brings your project to life.

They can scan this two page sheet for 30 seconds and see what the project is about. As their interest grows you can flip through your background documentation and show them the data that supports the project.

You may have met the donor before and have investigated the following things with them – but in case you hadn’t:

In the meeting they will tell you one of two things:
1. The project concept falls within their goals and that you have some good ideas. Ask them for suggestions on what you could do to improve the project based upon their experience, and how you can modify the project to best fit their programming guidelines. Find out if they have any submission deadlines and what levels of funding do they provide (?$5,000.00, $50,000.00, $500,000.00?). Ask them that if you develop the project further and incorporate their suggestions can you return in 2 weeks to show them the result?

Or…..
2. The project concept is very interesting, but doesn’t fit within their programming goals. At this point ask them: What kinds of projects fit within their programming goals? Get very specific and take lots of notes. They might not have anything that fits your organizational goals, but it is good to find out what they focus on for future reference. Ask them if they can refer you to anyone at another funding agency that might be a better fit for your project.

But they might have interest in another area that fits another one of your organizational goals. Maybe you presented a health project to them, and you discover they are more focused on agriculture. Maybe your organization also does agricultural projects. Think quickly and say that you have a similar scale project in agriculture—can you return in a week to show it to them?

In either case, you have learned valuable information, and you have learned how to begin partnering with donors.

The homework to turn in will be:
1. The name of the person you chose to visit, the organization they work for, their job title, and a short summary paragraph of their comments on your project.

Go to Magee’s Example Project Assignment Six to see what this could look like.

Tim Magee