OL 341—Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change
This week, we conclude posting samples of our light version of our most popular course: This is the last class in the course. This will allow you to have a little background on what students are posting on our Facebook page, and at our Development Community. Just click on the two links below.
Assignment 6. How will you organize your ideas for presentation to a donor?
OL 341 Assignment Six CBA Discussion
Magee Example Project OL 341 Assignment Six
| Sharing your project with a donor. | |
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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 continue with its development. |
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.
2. The project concept is very interesting, but doesn’t fit within their programming goals.
But they might have an interest in an 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?
Ask the donor if they have any special programs or interests in projects that include adaptation or other aspects of climate change. If they do, get the details—and ask them if they would comment on your project’s design from this vantage point too. Their input at this early stage can help you over the next few months frame—or posture—your project for a better chance at funding.
A benefit if you haven’t done this before is to have the opportunity to do it and to experience what a donor appointment is like without putting too much at risk. It’s perfectly reasonable to approach your local donor to say that you have the seed of an idea for a project and that you would just like to get their input on it before you proceed further. It is also perfectly valid to say this is part of a certificate course in project design and management.
Another obvious benefit is to get a different kind of feedback than what you’ve been getting from your co-workers and community members (and me!).
A donor, or your boss, or your professor may all have a different perspective on development projects than your co-workers do. They also have the power to let you proceed or not and so it’s very valuable to understand what their perspective is so that you will better be able to sell it to them when your concept is fully developed.
The Lite Version
Each week, running in parallel with the course, I will be posting a discussion sheet about community-based adaptation, and an example of the week’s homework. This is simply to give you the opportunity of seeing what these courses are like from the student’s perspective & also give you an opportunity to better understand what the students are discussing that week.
This is called the Lite Version, because the full course has a collection of online student resources, expanded discussions about that week’s assignment, and, of course, it has the course leader who works with students in reviewing their assignments and in making suggestions for their projects.
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