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This afternoon I attended an event sponsored by the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, billed as the Community Investment Grants Kick-Off Meeting. The meeting room at the Arizona Hotel in downtown Tucson was packed. We sat at round tables, each of which seated eight, and there must have been at least twenty tables. All the tables were full, plus there were a few people who found chairs near the wall and did their best to squeeze in.
The program started with a couple of short speeches about the challenges facing nonprofit organizations and the populations they serve, along with a few statistics1. The speakers moved through the material at a fast enough clip that I wasn't able to take complete notes, but some of the topics included a new grantwriting framework being developed by the Community Foundation, an overview of the community investment grants process, elements of community building, and an online survey that will be used to gather information about nonprofit groups--what their needs are, what their resources are, the types of community services they provide, etc.--as well as to determine which groups will be invited to participate in exploratory meetings and possibly to enter into grant agreement discussions with the foundation.
Following the introductory material, there was a three-part discussion session organized around a set of questions handed out by a facilitator at each table. After each section of the discussion, a spokesman from each table was encouraged to share the highlight of their group's discussion with the room at large. We were also asked to note our responses in writing and each of the facilitators took note of questions people had, as well as of the discussion. All of this is going to be part of the analysis the foundation will be doing to determine the ways in which they can best help the community weather the ongoing financial crisis.
It was very clear to me that the survey will be a pretty high-stakes situation, as all of these organizations are facing dwindling resources while those serving at-risk populations are seeing those populations grow.
I was very glad for the opportunity to meet with the people at my table and really wish there'd been a greater opportunity for networking and socializing after the program, but instead the room cleared quickly. Still, I felt very lucky to be sitting at a table where the groups primarily represented were interested in youth, literacy, and the arts, all groups whose work has great interest for me. I was particularly interested to learn of one group, Youth on Their Own (YOTO), which works to help homeless teens finish high school. According to the brochure the organized woman who represented this group gave me, YOTO has helped over 9,000 student to achieve their educational goals. Other groups with someone at our table included:
1 The statistics were drawn from a prior survey, the results of which are posted on the foundation's Nonprofit and Donor Survey Research Findings page.
The program started with a couple of short speeches about the challenges facing nonprofit organizations and the populations they serve, along with a few statistics1. The speakers moved through the material at a fast enough clip that I wasn't able to take complete notes, but some of the topics included a new grantwriting framework being developed by the Community Foundation, an overview of the community investment grants process, elements of community building, and an online survey that will be used to gather information about nonprofit groups--what their needs are, what their resources are, the types of community services they provide, etc.--as well as to determine which groups will be invited to participate in exploratory meetings and possibly to enter into grant agreement discussions with the foundation.
Following the introductory material, there was a three-part discussion session organized around a set of questions handed out by a facilitator at each table. After each section of the discussion, a spokesman from each table was encouraged to share the highlight of their group's discussion with the room at large. We were also asked to note our responses in writing and each of the facilitators took note of questions people had, as well as of the discussion. All of this is going to be part of the analysis the foundation will be doing to determine the ways in which they can best help the community weather the ongoing financial crisis.
It was very clear to me that the survey will be a pretty high-stakes situation, as all of these organizations are facing dwindling resources while those serving at-risk populations are seeing those populations grow.
I was very glad for the opportunity to meet with the people at my table and really wish there'd been a greater opportunity for networking and socializing after the program, but instead the room cleared quickly. Still, I felt very lucky to be sitting at a table where the groups primarily represented were interested in youth, literacy, and the arts, all groups whose work has great interest for me. I was particularly interested to learn of one group, Youth on Their Own (YOTO), which works to help homeless teens finish high school. According to the brochure the organized woman who represented this group gave me, YOTO has helped over 9,000 student to achieve their educational goals. Other groups with someone at our table included:
- Opening Minds Through the Arts Foundation
- Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona
- Arizona Dance Coalition (also has a MySpace page)
- Assistance League of Tucson
1 The statistics were drawn from a prior survey, the results of which are posted on the foundation's Nonprofit and Donor Survey Research Findings page.
