Until a recent move my children attended a great little neighborhood school that is one of the smallest in the City of Saint Paul. Homecroft Elementary offers a thriving bi-lingual program and currently has about a 58% Spanish-speaking student population. As a past PTA President for the school I was very aware of the difficulties facing Latino parents and their interests in providing a good education for their children. In honor of the hopes and concerns of those hard-working parents, I offer this week’s grant opportunity.

This week’s pick: MTV tr3’s Voces is a campaign that “aims to empower Latino youth to graduate high school prepared for college and beyond.” They developed a partnership with Youth Venture and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to provide Venturas grants in response to the large amount of Latinos dropping out of high school here in the United States. Teams of Latino students that have new and innovative ideas for after-school programs, clubs and organizations which will assist other Latino students to graduate high school and prepare for college can receive grants of $1,000. A team can be as small as two individuals who are between the ages of 13 to 20 years old.

Venturas grants will be offered every week until June 29, 2007. A scholarship award of up to $5,000 will be given to each of the top five teams that have the most successful projects. You can learn more about funding eligibility and the application process by visiting the program’s web site at http://fconline.fdncenter.org/pnd/10005992/youthventure.

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We thought we’d share news about an interesting analysis method we recently used…

Performing construct analysis is a method you can use when analyzing survey data. First you must build “constructs” from among your survey questions, or items. Each construct may refer directly back to an overarching goal of the program you are evaluating, such as “Improve school climate.” You simply select all the survey items used to measure improvements in school climate to create your construct. Next, to perform analysis on your constructs, the survey items within your construct must be “collapsed” or summed to create a new variable.

The guiding principal behind this method is that, essentially, any one item can not tell you the whole story on complex topics or concepts. By using multiple items to assess your goal, you place less pressure on any single survey item to answer your research question.

The Improve Group recently used this technique doing survey analysis for a client. This research project had a few characteristics that were especially conducive to this type of analysis: post/retrospective pre-test survey data; a survey asking girls about specific topics they had learned in the program; and items that specifically aligned with overall client goals.

In our case, we created two groups for each construct: “After” and “Before.” We then performed t-tests to determine whether there was statistical significance in the difference between after and before for each construct as a whole.

We had to keep in mind that the final difference scores (between “Before” and “After”) represent the mean of individual items. You may want to look at scores of individual items within a construct for consistency. If one or two items within a construct had much less or much greater change than the other items, it may skew the total mean score for the overall construct.

We would like to thank James Riedel at GSUSA for asking us to perform this type of analysis. In addition, we would like to thank Sanford Weisberg of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Statistics and Robert Eichinger of Cornferry International and Loeminger Enterprises who kindly and graciously provided us with advice and assistance on this statistical project.

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For my Master’s thesis in the Department of Geography at the University of Minnesota and with the help of an Independent Research Grant from the Improve Group, I conducted a study on the accessibility of healthy amenities, primarily healthy food, in the city of Minneapolis. This study examined one aspect of how the built environment can potentially impact health. I mapped the amenities against different neighborhood demographic, economic, and crime characteristics. The maps reveal significant disparities in access to several of the healthy amenities (healthy food, large grocery stores, exercise facilities, and large parks) for neighborhoods that are predominantly minority, have low socioeconomic indicators, and high rates of violent crime. For example, this particular map depicts the near dearth of exercise facilities for south central and North Minneapolis especially when compared to southwest Minneapolis. These patterns can be found in large urban areas across the United States.

While the findings are meaningful on their own, I have decided to take the study one step further. I have acquired Hennepin County SHAPE survey data which details health indicators of the county’s residents. I plan to conduct a spatial and statistical analysis of my findings from my previous research and lifestyle-related health indicators such as Body Mass Index, diet, level of physical activity, and prevalence of type 2 diabetes for Minneapolis residents. As I move forward with my research, I have learned that obesity and diet related illnesses are complex and identifying causal relationships is very difficult. However, due to persistent racial and economic segregation in large urban areas, including Minneapolis, understanding how access to healthy amenities can potentially impact health is critical.

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Since I began working with grants in1989 one controversial change I have witnessed is in accessibility to the funder or funding opportunity. Foundations and other grant-making organizations now have gate-keeping methods to ensure that the applicant meets their funding guidelines. Some of these systems were developed to save everyone involved time and money in preparing a proposal that would not pass their requirements. However, some funding organizations have narrowed or changed the focus of their grants and now accept invitation-only proposals.

There is nothing wrong with changing focus but it comes as a systems shock to the grantee that is no longer a fit for the new guidelines. If you are not sure whether your organization is a fit, filling out pre-proposal information such as a letter of inquiry or prescreening checklist can be priceless.

The opportunity I am highlighting today not only has a very focused funding area but also uses a prescreening survey to investigate different groups and examine the services they provide. At the present time, The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation of New York makes investments in youth-serving organizations across the United States that serve young people ages 9-24 from low-income families. They concentrate on nonprofits that have larger budgets and a proven track record to show ability to handle multi-year grants. Organizations hoping to gain funding from this foundation must have evidence in achieving outcomes for youth in one of the following:

1. Improved educational skills, achievement, and attainment;
2. Preparation for the world of work and successful transition to employment and self-sufficiency;
3. Success in avoiding high-risk behaviors.

To learn more about your nonprofit's eligibility you can take the Foundation’s pre-screening survey at: http://www.emcf.org/grants/youthorg_survey.htm.

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The Arts Education Partnership's Critical Link newsletter had information about a new resource available for evaluators, researchers and educators:

The U.S. Department of Education announced the updated Federal Resources for Education Excellence (FREE) website. It now provides richer, more expansive resources to teachers and students alike. There are over 1500 resources to take advantage of at FREE, ranging from primary historical documents, lesson plans, science visualizations, math simulations and online challenges, paintings, photos, mapping tools, and more. This easily accessible information is provided by federal organizations and agencies such as the Library of Congress, National Archives, NEH, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian, NSF, and NASA.

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According to W. Paul Farmer, Executive Director of the American Planning Association, the current federal budget proposal from President Bush could have very large impacts on communities, particularly in the long term. The single biggest targets for cuts and disinvestment are community development and infrastructure. Most of the major federal programs that planners use for significant community investment are cut: Community Development Block Grants (CDBG; cut by $1.2 billion), Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF; cut by $400 million), Land and Water Conservation Fund (zero funding), HOPE VI (zero funding), and transit (cut by $300 million). Transit also loses some of the guarantees it has received in previous budgets, and the EPA's Smart Growth office is targeted for major personnel cuts.

These cuts are "backloaded", meaning they gradually increase over time. For example, an analysis by CBPP shows that for community development programs, a 25 percent cut in 2009 grows to more than 30 percent by 2012 (not adjusting for inflation). Environmental programs would see an 8 percent cut this year nearly double to 15.7 percent in 2012.

Locally in Minnesota, there are concerns that planned increases in transportation funding are being negated by something most people would consider a good thing -- conservation. A recent analysis expects gas tax receipts in Minnesota to have lower-than-expected increases (with eventual decreases), primarily thanks to better fuel efficiency in most cars that are popular today.

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To continue my primer on the best practices in blogging I would like to give another nod to Debbie Weil and her helpful book Corporate Blogging. She emphasizes that writing for a blog is neither technical nor formal in nature. Here are some of her suggestions that I felt were most helpful.

A blog should:

• Be written in a conversational tone – as if you were talking to a friend
• Be written about something you care about
• Be written in short, easy to read paragraphs
• Be interactive – solicit feedback about your subject matter
• Be frequently updated – to make the most of search engines
• Include photos, vlogs (video logs), links and podcasts

I think a blog should also be fun to read and write. I’d like to challenge my readers to send me your ideas for best blogging practices and links to some of the sites you like to visit that really exemplify the best in blog writing.

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Strategic planning has been used by public and non-profit organizations for decades. Planning has both its adherents and its detractors--those who feel it is a useful exercise find that it helps to set direction and keep varied interest groups focused on issues important to the key mission. Others find it nearly impossible to create plans that anticipate all possible future scenarios, and particularly that monitoring progress falls to the wayside as day-to-day reality sets in.

Recent research by Prof. Ralph Jasparro found that school districts experienced many benefits when undergoing strategic planning; in particular, leaders (both administrators and elected officials) had a clear sense of direction and communication was improved across groups (students, parents, teachers, administrators and community members). The broader and more meaningful the involvement of these groups (what the Prof. Jasparro terms "ownership"), the more committed were those responsible for implementing strategies. In a sense, they invited more accountability into their districts by involving more people in setting and monitoring priorities.

Over the next few months we will be working with Austin Public Schools on a strategic planning initiative. Administrators and leaders have been enthusiastic about the opportunity to engage their community through a survey, meetings and workshops. They are conscious that their community is diverse, and want to provide ample opportunities for students, parents, teachers, community members and local organizations to get involved, so have planned many opportunities to do so. In addition, they are using an extensive media campaign to let people know how they can get involved. A recent article by Superintendent Raskin invites questions and explains that the process is important for helping the district plan, and dream, for the future.

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Most of our staff spent Monday evening celebrating Becky's birthday. Chevy's is a quick block away from our office so we enjoyed some margarita's, chips and quacamole. We try not to spend too much time talking about work during social occasions, so instead "evaluated" the current TV season and "planned" some additional social events. Once again, the Office was considered a success by the measures of entertainment, humour and commitment to the characters :-)

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A recent article in Planning, the magazine of the American Planning Association, talks about how local communities are responding to rapid population growth. In Florida (where I lived for several months), school enrollment increases by nearly 50,000 students each year. To keep up with demand, districts increasingly built large schools on vacant plots of land at the edge of neighborhoods, rather than integrating schools into neighborhoods--56 new schools were built in Florida in 2000 alone.

A 2002 law required closer coordination between school districts and county planners. The results have so far been limited; coordination is evidenced by a single document signed by each party that a school site is acceptable. However, increasing constraints on public investments may force more coordinaion, as in the case of shared school site and rec center facilities (sharing fields and a gym, for example).

It will be interesting to watch whether increasing requirements for collaboration will result in actual collaborative advantage; in other words, districts and planners finding ways to accomplish their goals more efficiently and with better results than if they were working independently.

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Pretend you are listening to the radio in your car…

“Are you a nonprofit with a serious desire for evaluation or planning services? Are you extremely interested in capacity building and improved management skills for your organization? Do you have a lack of funding to obtain the assistance for these crucial management issues? Have I got a Foundation for you!”

Now you know why I didn’t go into advertising as a career. The message I am trying to convey it this: While grant gazing, I sometimes see great prospects for local nonprofits and the Improve Group to partner on a beneficial grant opportunity. This week's pick provides a source to make that partnership a reality.

The Management Improvement Fund (MIF) of The Saint Paul Foundation gives grants for technical assistance and consultation to help enrich the capacity and management of nonprofit organizations. Since 1985 this initiative has helped East Metro nonprofits become healthier businesses. The initiative funds:

• Organizational assessment
• Strategic planning
• Organizational restructuring/merger/dissolution
• Collaboration between groups and organizations
• Program evaluation
• Board development/governance
• Human resources/personnel
• Financial planning management

The application requires a technical assistance work plan, signed by a consultant and the organization, that meets the approval of a program officer of The Saint Paul Foundation. The Improve Group would welcome the opportunity to help write a clearly defined plan for this section with any applicant organization interested in partnering with us.

Please note, there are fund-matching guidelines that accompany this grant but organizations with operating budgets under $1 million are not required to make a match. Before applying it is important that you contact Foundation Program Officer Jerry Timian to determine eligibility. An advisory committee meets in March, June, September and December to review applications. Complete grant information can be found at http://www.saintpaulfoundation.org/impact/mif/.

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Today was Sarah Myott's last day as an employee --and her first day as a contractor! We are going to miss seeing her every day; she has been a pleasure to work with and has taught us a lot (she is particularly organized and has an attention to detail we all envy). We are very glad we'll still be seeing her weekly, and wish her the best in the coming months.

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The great thing about a blog is that it is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and just about everything on it becomes permanently archived somewhere in the blogoshere. The scary thing about a blog is that it is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and just about everything on it becomes permanently archived somewhere in the blogoshere. In other words, blogger be wise!

I do not want to discourage anyone from adding their thoughts and ideas to the group consciousness of the blogging world. Contributing to a blog can be a fun and powerful way to share ideas and learn new information. I recently read a very helpful book titled Corporate Blogging by Debbie Weil. It has useful information about the history, style, content and ethics of writing blogs which I feel are pertinent for business and personal blogging. Here are a few important points I would like to share with you:

 Avoid any racist or sexist commentary
 Respect other people’s confidentiality
 Give credit to sources of information/don’t plagiarize
 If stating something as a fact, check the accuracy of the information
 If writing for business, don’t use the blog to complain about your company
 Use appropriate language, no profanity
 Be respectful when disagreeing with opinions of others
 Don’t be afraid to print a correction on inaccurate or changing information
 Use spell check

Next week in part two of Blogger Be Wise! I will share the “dos" of blogging with a list of items to include in when writing.

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In our work with the Girl Scouts of the USA to evaluate the uniquely ME! program, we currently designing a blog for girls that will be used as part of the evaluation. This is a new and exciting territory for us and our heads have been buzzing with ideas of how best to collect and analyze the data. We’ve designed the blog so that girls will be able to comment on our posted questions about beauty, self-esteem and healthy living. They will have the opportunity to shape the blog by submitting questions for us to ask all girls and by participating in a variety of fun, content-relevant web activities.

Because our program is aimed at girls aged 8-17, our foremost concern in designing the blog was creating a safe place for girls online. The blog requires a password to enter and the link to the blog will only be made available to girls in the program. We also have taken steps to ensure the blog is in compliance with the Child Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 that prohibits collecting personal information (like last names and email addresses) of children under 13.

When analyzing data from the blog, we will have to keep in mind that while many girls may read the blog, a much smaller percentage will actually make postings. The web activities and polls are a way to engage a greater number of girls and direct them to girl-friendly content online.

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The drive to work today was a bear. I managed to keep it together in the freezing, snowy conditions but I can’t say that for all of my fellow commuters. The impatience of people sitting in their nice warm cars coming from their comfy homes and heading off to their jobs is amazing. Weather will always be an issue here in Minnesota but the real concern is not getting to work 15 minutes late. The real concern is not having any work to get to, or a home to return to, never mind a car to get you there. Cold, hard weather like this always makes me more conscious of the homeless population. I finally get off my duff and bring an extra bag of groceries to church or a food shelf. I know it’s not enough.

My pick this week gives grants to non-profits serving those without food or shelter. Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless (OYH) assists food shelves, food banks, shelters, transitional housing programs and permanent supportive housing programs here in Minnesota. Grants are made on an application basis and, just like hunger, they take place year round. You can read their eligibility guidelines and access application information at http://www.oyh.org/level3/Regular%20Grant%20Guidelines.doc.

Please note there are many ways to donate to OYH and some of them are as simple as Groceries for Good Causes! If you shop at Kowalski's on Grand Avenue in St Paul or West 78th in Eden Prairie, just leave your receipts in the Open Your Heart box on your way out. Donations to OYH are based on the number of receipts, and not the total amount you spend.

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I had the chance to spend Friday with the Board and Staff of the National Youth Leadership Council. The full-day retreat helped prepare the organization for a new strategic plan; we had a lively discussion about the mission and vision of the organization. Those present expressed hearfelt commitment to the shared values of serving youth and building just, socially conscious communities through youth action and leadership.

NYLC is integrating traditional and new tacticts to build a movement for youth service, including broadcasting their annual conference on Second Life for the first time. I recently blogged about Second Life and its potential for evaluation and planning; I am anxious to hear how the format worked for both users and conveners.

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