COMMON GROUND CONSULTING LLC

U.S. Grants & Awards

Do Something Be Amazing Grants (Deadline: February 2)

We know that you're doing awesome things, big and small, to make change in your community. Tell us about how you inspire other people to act and you could win a $2,000 grant or even the grand prize: two (2) tickets to the August 2011 Do Something Awards, live from Los Angeles. Yep, that's right, DoSomething.org and PBteen will fly you to Los Angeles for a weekend of fun, sun and of course a star-studded show celebrating young people who are rocking the causes they care about. Four $2,000 Grants and one Grand Prize of a trip to the DoSomething Awards will be awarded. The application deadline is February 2. Please click here for more information.

Students in Service Awards (Deadline: February 7)

The Students in Service Awards™ program (SISA) is a national search for inspirational college students who are positively impacting social and environmental challenges facing our communities. The Students in Service Awards™ share amazing stories of college student service leaders with a national audience, inspiring our communities to deepen their support of student civic engagement. The SISA include scholarships and grants to three benefactors.

• College Students: The winner will be awarded a $5,000 academic service scholarship. The runner-up and the "fan favorite" will each receive $2,500 scholarships.
• College Service-Learning Centers: $2,500 grants will go to each college or university service-learning center of each of the three scholarship recipients for the purpose of supporting their civic engagement programs for students.
• Nonprofit Partners: $2,500 grants will go to each nonprofit organization/community agency that sponsored the winning service projects of each of the three scholarship recipients for the purpose of supporting their vital community work.

Washington Campus Compact and Inspireum have partnered to provide the Students in Service Awards™ to celebrate the inspirational service work of these outstanding students. Please click here for more information.

Gannett Foundation Community Action Grants (Deadline: February 16)

The Gannett Foundation supports local organizations in communities served by Gannett Co., Inc.  Community Action Grant priorities include education and neighborhood improvement, economic development, youth development, community problem-solving, assistance to disadvantaged people, environmental conservation and cultural enrichment. The average grant amount is in the $1,000 to $5,000 range. Proposals should be submitted to the contact at the daily newspaper or television station in your area by February 16th or August 17th. Some locations have earlier deadlines, and they are listed in the Grant Contact list. Please click here for more information.

Katie's Krops Grants (Deadline: February 11)

Katie's Krops is now accepting applications to win a grant to start vegetable gardens to feed people in need. Grantees will be awarded materials necessary to create a garden (up to $400), support from Katie's Krops, and a digital camera to document the garden and the harvest. Applications for all types of vegetable gardens will be considered such as a container garden for city residents or a school, church or neighborhood garden. Applicants must be between the ages of 9 and 16 (as of February 11, 2011).  Applications must be post marked by February 11, 2011. Please click here for more information.

The mission of Katie's Krops is to start and maintain vegetable gardens of all sizes and donate the harvest to help feed people in need, as well as to assist and inspire others to do the same. The idea for Katie's Krops began with a 9 year old girl and a 40 pound cabbage.  In 2008 Katie Stagliano brought home a tiny cabbage seedling home from school as part of the Bonnie Plants 3rd Grade Cabbage Program.  She tended to her cabbage and cared for it until it grew to an amazing 40 pounds. Knowing her cabbage was special she donated to a soup kitchen where it helped to feed over 275 people.  Moved by the experience of seeing how many people could benefit from the donation of fresh produce to soup kitchens, Stagliano decided to start vegetable gardens and donate the harvest to help feed people in need.

Kids to Kids Go Peru! Challenge (Deadline: February 15)

Win an all-expense paid trip to visit Kids to Kids projects in Peru! World Connect is looking for two youth to represent the Kids to Kids Program in Peru this summer for a trip led by one of their outstanding partners, Putney Student Travel. The two winners will receive an all-expenses paid trip to Peru to serve as Kids to Kids Field Reporters on a month-long excursion. The trip will combine community service, cultural immersion and multiple site visits to Kids to Kids projects. Applications are due on February 15, 2011. Please click here for more information.

STOP Hunger Scholarships (Deadline: February 18)

The Sodexo Foundation seeks applicants for the STOP Hunger Scholarships to recognize students in the fight against hunger in America. More than 49 million people are at risk of hunger, including nearly 17 million children. The Sodexo Foundation works to ensure that every child in the U.S., especially those most at risk, grows up with dependable access to enough nutritious food to enable them to lead a healthy, productive life. The STOP Hunger Scholarships recognize and reward students who have made a significant impact in the fight against hunger in the United States.

The application period for the STOP Hunger Scholarships is from January 1 through February 18, 2011. Please click here for more information.

Huggable Heroes Awards (Deadline: February 28)

The Huggable Heroes program recognizes young leaders between the ages of eight and 18 years old, doing extraordinary things in their communities or around the world to better the lives of others.  Now through February 28, entries are being accepted for the 2011 search for Build-A-Bear Workshop Huggable Heroes. Ten Huggable Heroes will be selected and each will be awarded with a $7,500 educational scholarship and a $2,500 donation to the 501 (c)(3) charity of his/her choice. Entry forms are available at all Build-A-Bear Workshop stores in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada, and online. Please click here for more information.

Do Something Awards (Deadline: March 1)

Could you use $100,000 to change the world? The Do Something Awards (formerly the BR!CK Awards) identifies exceptional young social entrepreneurs, activists, and community leaders who are tackling a problem and changing the world.  Five nominees will be rewarded with a $10,000 community grant, participation in a live VH1 TV show, media coverage and continued support from DoSomething.org. The grand prize winner will receive $100,000 during the live broadcast!! Application closes March 1st, 2011. Please click here for more information.

Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge (Deadline: March 15, 2011 - Activities Take 3-12 Weeks to Complete)

As citizens and future stewards of our planet, today's students are in a unique position to become active agents of environmental change. Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge - Encourages students from grades K-12 to team up with their classmates to create replicable solutions to environmental issues in their schools (grades K to five), community (grades six to eight) and world (grades nine to 12). The goal of the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge is to do more than jus t give kids a chance to formulate an experiment and carry it out. Contestants explore an environmental problem that affects their community. As part of the challenge, students must also put together guidelines for how other communities could repeat the project, and they share those guidelines as part of th e contest. Prizes include scholarships, savings bonds, teacher awards, school grants, adventure trips, and green products. Please click here for more information.

ING Unsung Heroes (Deadline: April 30)

Are you an educator with a class project that is short on funding but long on potential? Do you know a teacher looking for grant dollars? ING Unsung Heroes® could help you turn great ideas into reality for students. For more than 10 years, and with $3.0 million in awarded grants, ING Unsung Heroes has proven to be an A+ program with educators. The program's "alumni" have inspired success in the classroom and impacted countless numbers of students. Each year, 100 educators are selected to receive $2,000 to help fund their innovative class projects. Three of those are chosen to receive the top awards of an additional $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000. Applications for the 2011 awards are now available. The application deadline is April 30, 2011. Please click here for more information.

Don't Stop Collaborating - Just Stop Creating New Collaboratives

 

From Youth Service America ...

"Many states and communities have multiple task forces, partnerships and councils working on overlapping youth issues, from bullying to pregnancy to dropouts. This policy brief calls attention to the problem of collaboration overload, and suggests ways to tackle it.

Check out these tips for working collaboratively without creating redundancy. Learn how states and communities are taking steps to align their collaboratives.

Click here for the brief.

 

2011 National Mentoring Summit

"On January 25, 2011 the inaugural National Mentoring Summit, 'Achieving Academic and Social Success: Supporting Youth through Mentoring,' brought together leading mentoring organizations, as well as federal and state government and civic leaders, to develop strategies that leverage mentoring to increase graduation rates among America’s youth and position them for success.

First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama delivered the keynote address and announced The Corporate Mentoring Challenge, an initiative led by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to encourage U.S. companies to launch a mentoring program, expand existing employee mentoring programs or provide resources to support local mentoring programs that help youth gain leadership skills, achieve their educational goals and increase their confidence.

Corporations have the ability to do tremendous good, strengthening the social fabric of the communities in which they operate. Allowing employees to participate in a mentoring program is an excellent way to leverage resources. Employees mentoring youth in their community offers reciprocal benefits: youth increase their confidence and academic skills while employees and employers alike enjoy unexpected rewards. Employees engaged in mentoring feel more committed to their workplace, reducing turnover and increasing productivity. Mentors model precisely the attitudes and aptitudes youth need: intellectual curiosity, compassion for others and determination to succeed.

Companies already stepping up to The Corporate Mentoring Challenge include Bank of America, Deloitte, Viacom, Comcast, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and AT&T. They are committing within the next year to one or all of the following: to continue building on existing mentoring programs through expansion, launching new programs or developing new mentor tools and resources.

Job Opening at Public Allies (DC)

The Public Allies Washington, DC Program Team is responsible for delivering the Public Allies Apprenticeship Program. They have just announced an opening for a new Program Manager.

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Program Manager is responsible for ensuring Allies and Partner Organizations have meaningful experiences with Public Allies and successfully complete the apprenticeship program, for leveraging resources and increasing Public Allies’ local impact through effective engagement of alumni and community stakeholders, and for delivering a quality program that advances the work of the organization and positions the site for growth.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service

January 17, 2011 will mark the 25th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday. This milestone is a perfect opportunity for Americans to honor Dr. King's legacy through service. The MLK Day of Service empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, creates solutions to social problems, and moves us closer to Dr. King's vision of a beloved community.

MLKDay.gov provides all the information you need to:

Plan - Action Guides are available with step-by-step instructions for planning a project that will leave a lasting impact. If you need help planning a project not in the guides here are some Tips & Tools to get you started.

Serve - Join the hundreds of thousands of people who serve on MLK Day and throughout the year. Find a project in your community or register your own project so that volunteers can find it.

Share - What are your plans for MLK Day?  We encourage you to share your plans, and then come back after MLK Day to share your project's impact. You can also share up-to-the-minute information about your planning and MLK Day activities bysigning up to become an e-Reporter or photographer.

Learn how you can make MLK Day "a day on, not a day off" at www.MLKDay.gov

NC Campus Compact recently released "Engaging College Students" MLK Day of Service Toolkit, which contains tips, tools and best practices for implementing the MLK Day of Service on college campuses. This publication is a compilation of knowledge and feedback gained from the past three years of NC Campus Compacts MLK Day work, which has engaged over 30,000 volunteers from campuses in 28 states. Download the Toolkit at http://org.elon.edu/nccc/mlk.html

YSA encourages you to use MLK Day of Service to launch a Semester of Service. Thousands of educators and students around the country will plan and implement high-impact service-learning projects throughout the semester starting on King Day and leading up to Global Youth Service Day (April 15-17, 2011). Learn more about Semester of Service and how you can continue and sustain your King Day efforts at www.YSA.org/semester

January is National Mentoring Month

National Mentoring Month (NMM), held each year in January, celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2011 by raising awareness about the important role mentoring can play in academic engagement. NMM draws a spotlight on mentoring and the positive effect it can have on young lives.  Together, the Harvard School of Public Health, MENTOR, and the Corporation for National and Community Service are working to focus national attention on the need for mentors.

10 Things To Do During National Mentoring Month

1. Become a mentor in your community.
2. Learn more about mentoring.
3. Partner with a mentoring organization.
4. Tell 5 friends about National Mentoring Month.
5. Think about the mentors in your life and post a tribute to them online.
6. Read the latest research and find resources on mentoring.
7. Serve your community on MLK Day of Service by deciding to become a mentor.
8. Make a donation to a mentoring organization in your community.
9. Go to YouTube on Thank Your Mentor Day™ (January 25) and make the National Mentoring Month videos the most popular of the day.
10. Explore ways to help children succeed academically through mentoring.

Learn more about how to do each of these 10 things at: www.nationalmentoringmonth.org

Additional information, including PSAs, is available at: www.serve.gov/mentor

Youth-Peer Mentoring Resources

A set of resources developed by the National Mentoring Center provides guidance on developing and implementing a peer mentoring program in which older youth mentor someone younger, often in a school setting. 
Click here for the resources.

Social Profit Fundraising Trends for 2011

In researching some funding prospects for one of our clients, I came across a great post on the Foundation Center's blog that pulls together some interesting trend data for 2010 and offers a few projections for 2011. Check it out ...

End-of-Year Surveys and Looking Forward to 2011

- Great charts in USA Today offer visualizations of some statistics in giving and volunteering.

- Results from a new survey conducted by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (which includes the Foundation Center) provide a detailed look (34 pages) at some of the trends in the philanthropic sector in the past year, particularly growth and decline in particular sectors.

- Moving Beyond the Economic Crisis: Foundations Assess the Impact and Their Response explores the effect of the recession on grantmaking, and at only 3 pages is a concise and informative read. Foundation giving seems to have stabilized in 2010 and may experience moderate growth in 2011.

Take a few minutes to educate yourself about some of these trends as you are starting to make plans for the new year!

- Great charts in USA Today offer visualizations of some statistics in giving and volunteering.

- Results from a new survey conducted by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (which includes the Foundation Center) provide a detailed look (34 pages) at some of the trends in the philanthropic sector in the past year, particularly growth and decline in particular sectors.

- Moving Beyond the Economic Crisis: Foundations Assess the Impact and Their Response explores the effect of the recession on grantmaking, and at only 3 pages is a concise and informative read. Foundation giving seems to have stabilized in 2010 and may experience moderate growth in 2011.

Take a few minutes to educate yourself about some of these trends as you are starting to make plans for the new year!

ISC's Climate Leadership Academy

Accelerating Local Action on Climate Disruption

Many of you know that I have a long and wonderful relationship with the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) working together with them on civil society projects around the world. Over the past couple of years their work on climate issues has really grown and I thought you might be interested in some of those projects, too.

ISC's Climate Leadership Academy serves the urgent and rapidly growing need for more support to cities and communities that are working to increase energy efficiency, create green jobs, reduce climate pollution, and strengthen their resilience to the local impacts of climate disruption. The Academy helps local climate and energy practitioners do their jobs better by connecting them to their peers in other cities and to leading national experts, providing easier access to the best available information and approaches, and facilitating dialogue and collaboration with their regional, state and federal counterparts.

Building on nearly 20 years of experience, ISC is:

• Organizing intensive two or three day workshops on effective local climate action led by experienced practitioners from leading cities and national experts in community-based climate solutions;
• Developing resource guides and case studies that compile and synthesize the best available information—tools, studies, and practices—on topics ranging from building energy retrofitting to climate-friendly transportation to climate adaptation; and
• Coordinating a virtual peer-learning and networking program that connects workshop participants as they face new challenges and apply lessons learned.

The Academy builds the capacity of communities to use American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) monies and other funding sources to take smarter, swifter, more effective action to increase energy efficiency, reduce their dependency on fossil fuels, and strengthen their communities and economies.

The topics for the academies have so far focused on: Building Energy Retrofits, Transportation Efficiency, Green Job Creation, China: Low Carbon City Development (video), and Climate Adaptation and Resilience.

You can download the excellent resource guides that have been created for each of the academies by clicking the links above.

The Shift Movie

Many of you have have watched the trailer for The Shift Movie in one of my workshops or during a during a keynote speech I've given.

Derrick Ashong is one of the stars of that film. He and his band Soulfège are launching an inaugural contest event, the "Fight On" Campaign named for the final track or their album Take Back the Mic, a "song for all the people who FIGHT ON in a world that doesn't see them..."

They have partnered with The Huffington Post to host the contest.

All are invited to Submit Music Videos for "Fight On" to compete for a $4,500 prize. Video submission as well as user voting will take place online.

You can see the invitation video and the full contest rules on Huffington Post.

• The "Fight On" Campaign is an interactive music video competition that gives young people the opportunity to share their own voices.
• HuffPost readers have been invited to remix and re-imagine the music video to "Fight On".
• Entries will be evaluated by HuffPost readers -- voting closes February 20, 2011.
• The Top 5 videos will then be graded by celebrity guest judges, and the winner will receive $4,500! See the full contest rules here.

To learn more about entering the contest and voting: Cick Here!

Statement from Edward Russell, Chairman of the Board, AED

Hey, in case you missed it, the Academy for Educational Development (AED) has been having a rough time the past month or so. They are one of the largest domestic and international development organizations in the world and if this is your area of work, you should follow this story.

First is a link to a Washington Post story explaining what happened. And then what follows is an excerpt from AED's recent Board statement on the issue. Please click here for the entire statement.

Statement: 22 December 2010

The AED Board of Directors accepts the organization’s responsibility for the mismanagement of two USAID-funded projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and more importantly, for the failure of AED senior management to provide adequate and timely information to protect the interests of the U.S. Government, taxpayers, and the public trust.

The Board and new senior leadership of AED are implementing changes designed to enhance accountability and organizational commitment to integrity.  A summary of the events leading to these changes and of changes implemented to date follows.

EVENTS LEADING TO RECENT BOARD ACTIONS:

The Board’s recent and ongoing actions have been necessitated by three key events:

1. The June 2010 termination of USAID’s funding of AED’s implementation of the management and operation of the Livelihood Development Program in Pakistan (LDP), the first termination for “cause” of a project in AED’s 50 year history.  This termination is coupled with an ongoing investigation by USAID’s Office of the Inspector General specifically looking into particular issues of fraud, inadequate management oversight, and whether AED met its reporting obligations of the fraud-related issues.
2. The identification of similar procurement issues in an AED project in Afghanistan.
3. USAID’s suspension of AED as a result of the combined issues in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and senior management’s handling of these issues.

Finally, and most importantly, the Board thoroughly examined AED’s leadership and management systems throughout the entire organization, not just related to issues in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

SUMMARY OF ACTIONS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

The AED Board of Directors believes:

• AED must be accountable for its mistakes. These mistakes include inadequate management oversight of the Pakistan and Afghanistan projects and the failure of AED senior management to provide adequate and timely information to the U.S. Government.
• AED’s management culture and structure must change. The Board and new senior leadership are committed to rapid and continual review of AED’s leadership culture, management systems, and compliance protocols with a goal of moving the institution to a new era of leadership and accountability and a renewed commitment to our organizational value of integrity.
• AED’s staff must be efficiently and effectively supported to carry out the organization’s mission. AED has an abundance of talented and committed staff doing exceptional work to implement solutions to critical social problems in the U.S and around the world.
• AED must be rigorous in the implementation and stewardship of program funding and other resources entrusted to AED by funders. This means that management processes, definitions of roles, responsibilities and individual accountabilities and human resource skill requirements and hiring decisions must be standardized, integrated and enforced between the main office and all field program locations in order to eliminate duplication and control gaps.