Assignment Three Assignment Instructions
Online Learning: OL 203 Designing and Funding Non Profit Projects. The Community Focus
Center for Sustainable Development:
https://nonprofit.csd-i.org/ol-203-designing-and-funding-non-profit-programs-3/

This week’s resources:
Assignment Three Discussion
Magee Example Project Assignment Three

Assignment Three. Project Refinement
Comparing an Assessment of Capacity, Assets and Vulnerabilities with your Original Problem Matrix

Part One. Prioritize the results of the workshop

A. Community Mapping Exercise
Participants will discover spatial relationships between different components in the Community. It will also reveal different people’s perspectives about a community.

Examples could include:

• Where they live
• Church
• School
• Work
• Recreation
• Food
• Transportation
• Social Services

Please note features that were important to them and if the identified features or the participants themselves answered any of the probing questions from your lesson plan. Following my Magee Example will help. Will these local observations impact the success of the proposed project? So for instance:

• Are the challenges concentrated in one area of the community?
• What negative impacts do the challenges have on community members and their assets?
• Who in the community is the most at risk from the challenges?
• Are there safe places in the neighborhood where community members can congregate?
• Will spatial patterns and challenges impact the success of the proposed project? In my case this could be determining where community members live in helping to locate where the community garden program could go.

B. Asset Inventory
An asset inventory identifies community assets that members of the community think are important for improving challenged conditions—and reveal why people believe these assets are important.

The map exercise above will be helpful in showing assets that already exist for the community members. Your lesson plan will encourage them to voice assets that they have—including skills and capabilities—and perhaps tools. So for instance:

• Volunteer Time
• Buildings, meeting rooms or land
• Tools
• Expertise
• Donors
• A shortage of some assets which they feel could be helpful

Please note features that were important to them and if they answered any of the probing questions from your lesson plan. Following my Magee Example will help. Will these local observations positively or negatively impact the success of the proposed project?

C. Seasonal Calendar
Identify a community’s yearly patterns of labor, household income and expenditure, health and welfare, and recreation. This activity reveals changes in seasonal labor supply and demand, household income patterns, food availability, and demands on public resources, such as schools, mass transit systems, and recreational facilities. These results can be used to determine the best times of the year to begin certain projects and consider how projects will affect different groups of people.

Ask the group to imagine and discuss important events that happen during the year in their community. These could include when local schools are in session, major holidays occur, crops are being planted or harvested, the most food is available, or people tend to fall ill. Encourage them to include as many major activities as they can think of.

Are there times of the year which are particularly difficult? Are some members of the community more affected than others? These challenges could include:

• Job/labor cycles
• Food and nutrition
• Child Care
• Economically based migration
• Demands on public resources

Please note features that were important to them and if they answered any of the probing questions from your lesson plan. Following my Magee Example will help. Will these local observations impact the success of the proposed project? So for instance:

• Are some times of year busier than others?
• Are there times of the year when certain people are busier than others?
• Are there time periods in the year which are the most difficult for community members and their assets?
• Are there any times of the year when people do not have enough food or water?
• What are the most important times of the year in the community?
• Will these patterns impact the success of the proposed project? In my case, this can be to help us better understand the vegetable gardening cycle in order to better plan the community garden program.

Part Two. Comparing your project outline to new information that you may have learned at the workshop.

Without rewriting anything please go back to your very, very first project outline from week two of OL 201 and paste it in here (in the appropriate place in my example my example).

Then briefly answer these questions:

Then briefly answer these questions:

1. Do you need to modify the definition of the problem now that you have more information?
2. Do you need to add a problem that is a major priority which wasn’t included in your original outline?
3. Do you need to modify the definition of one of your underlying causes now that you have more information?
4. Does the community have individual activities that would be good to include in your outline?

Part Three. Refining your project outline.
It is possible that your original project isn’t going to change very much at all based upon the local information that you learned at last week’s workshop; they are the same people still facing the same challenges. But you might be able to tighten it a little up and make it more accurate with the information that you learned. Also, by including local knowledge you can continue to build that sense of ownership.

As you know, I am a great believer in simple, clearly defined projects. Donors are great believers in simple, clearly defined projects. Also, your boss, and your colleagues with whom you’ve been sharing this project for the past six months probably don’t want you to come back to them next week with a brand-new project. I’m going to ask you to exercise control and look upon this refining exercise as an opportunity to tighten up your project and make it a more exacting fit to the current context—and to control yourself from radically changing the project and or making it bigger. Please?

So now, taking your project outline pasted in above, make simple modifications that will empower your community to become more resilient to the challenges that they face today and may face in the future.

The homework to turn in will be:

1. A prioritized list of features identified by workshop participants on the community map.
2. A prioritized list of assets identified by the community.
3. A prioritized list of seasonal challenges/opportunities identified by community members.
4. The four questions answered about any need you may have for modifying your project outline.
5. Your project outline from A2 OL 201 with simple modifications that you may have made based upon community input.

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

See you next week.