Grant Reflection

Grant proposal A was about implementing an expansion to ABC’s Alternative Breaks program to send groups of students to various communities around the country. Overall, I felt this grant was well written. This grant proposal is straight to the point, but gives enough information within most areas where clarification in not necessary. This grant proposal falls under the community service, and civic engagement categories. Although this grant proposal is for an expansion of preexisting program, I can see why they want to expand the program. The program is helps bring awareness to social problems, promotes physical activity, and helps entice people to engage in their communities. I feel that this expansion program would benefit communities,

In When We Fight, We Win by Greg Jobin-Leeds it says that “comparison can block compassion both for others and for ourselves.” I agree with such statement; I think that listening is a skill you learn throughout time. One can pretend to listen without really getting anything out of the conversation that one is having with that other person. In the Compassionate Listening workshop, I got to do it with Rachel Kurland and I sit and listened to her talking about the moment her friend treason her. I tried to understand her plight, why would she not cut that friendship off, I understood she loved her friend, however, I could not resist bringing my biases to our conversation. I asked myself, why is Rachel, such a good, loving, and smart person,

Overall, this group project went very well and was completed on time due to the fact there everyone including myself assigned ourselves with a task role, relational role and from the start had individual roles present such as leader, compromiser, and gatekeepers in the group that made it

I worked cooperatively with Dania Ortiz and Kassandra Concepcion to do my Senior Footprint project. I made a google document and shared it with my group members. In addition to this, I assisted with inputting some of my own pictures into the document. We each cooperated with our ideas, such as coming up with advices and the order in which the advice would go. I sent multiple song ideas to Dania Ortiz that we could utilize for the background music of the iMovie. Furthermore, I took initiative and assigned the days that we would work on the project. Once we were all together, we all took turns in arranging the pictures with the advices. I worked on the project approximately for like an hour each time we worked on the project. Additionally, I

Overall if I reflect back on our group work I believe we worked very well as a team and my contribution to the group was significantly high because I had an aim in my mind which I focused on until the end. As I worked the extra mile for our project, it resulted that it gave us, as a team, a bit more time in preparation for our presentation and finalizing the app which was crucial at that time for us.

The overall programmatic goal of the Jame Madison University Valley Scholars program is primarily to provide access to higher education and academic support to local, low-income, at-risk, and underserved middle and high school students in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. In order to establish this goal, the Valley Scholars program provides and encompasses a variety of activities for these students, which are mentioned in the previous sections.

The service learning group I was in included Claudia Hodges, Laurie Wahlstrom, Lucas Johnson, and me. We chose to volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club to fulfill volunteer work requirement. I assisted with the implementation and managing of online collaboration and communication within the group.

On October 4th, I did my first field work with Jordan Haley and Jaycie Kim. We decided to go to the Orangewood Foundation, which is in Santa Ana. We met up there at 9am and waited to meet with Mike McKenzie who is a program supervisor there. We talked to him in a small conference room for a little over 30 minutes until he gave us a small tour around. Overall, we were there for a bit over an hour.

In an attempt to monitor the continuation of the Valley Scholars programmatic duties, we intend to ensure that all planned activities are in place. The logic model below serves as a basis for evaluating implementation of the program. As seen in the model, there are several factors that contribute to the success of the Valley Scholars program. Based on program development, the Valley Scholars program is a program of James Madison University(JMU); therefore, program related updates are to reported to the university to ensure proper program success.

a. Describe valid funding source and justification for how the program plan meets the requirements of the grant

The Fellowship provides an opportunity to build relationships and seek inspiration with professionals who are leading their fields and those relationships and inspiration have fostered dozens of programs aimed at solidifying Detroit’s resurgence.

I’ll learn how to properly navigate in terms of networking with program directors at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) in terms of sharing my ideas on proposed proposals and becoming a grant reviewer. This will strengthen my networking skills and also provide a mechanism of effective feedback and criticism to ensure I’m a competitive applicant in building my research portfolio. While building my undergraduate research program, I envision building my STEM outreach program for K-12 students. My goal is for my undergraduate students and I to develop STEM outreach curricula that is related to our research for a science club afterschool

Grant Writing requires attention to detail, a creative flare, and relationship building. So many proposals read like a television manual. After the first couple of sentences the reader wants to groan and set it aside. Foundations want to feel inspired by your program. But don’t over do it. Grantors roll their eyes when you over hype a project or claim your organization is ‘for the cost of mere pennies, changing the world’. Be honest. Get to the point; tell the foundation the problem you are going to address and back up your statements with meaningful statistics. Use creativity to motivate not exaggerate.

Khuse a lot about grant writing and how I can get students involved in that process. Many of the grants Mrs. Kuhse writes are tied to students getting involved in service projects or in healthy lifestyles. Observing and participating in FCS with Mrs. Kuhse has inspired me with some new strategies to developing “window” students.

Leading this team was an incredible opportunity that has shaped my entire approach to fostering community collaboration. I continue to co-chair the advisory board of this grant, and since I have supported additional grant advisory boards, coalition meetings, and integrated resource teams to serve our local community and ensure that we are investing our dollars and time to right areas. The most important lesson I have learned when leading a team and building partnerships, is that the focus must be on collaboration not coordination.