74: Nuts & Bolts of Community Engagement Project Creation Part 3
Q & A
with Drake DRiscoll
Hi again! And welcome back. Today in video three, we will be talking about some - and answering, I should say - frequently asked questions relating to Community Engagement Project Creation.
— — — — — — — — — —
What if I want to create my own project, but I have no idea where to start?
Step one I would suggest finding a quiet room sitting by yourself, get a piece of paper and a writing implement of your choice and just set a timer for 30 minutes and let the ideas flow. I think my main piece of advice when doing this would be to not pass judgment on your ideas as you're writing them down. Just let them flow and then at a later date you can come back and review them.
My second piece of advice would be to familiarize yourself with what's already out there in terms of people utilizing art as an agent for social change. Look up organizations. What problem are they trying to solve? What is their mission statement? Is it well crafted? What does their programing look like? Particularly focused in areas that you're already interested in and see how you might be able to provide unique value in that particular area?
How do I figure out which partner organizations I should approach?
The first step is to carefully figure out what type of organization you need to partner with in order to implement your project. In some cases, you may not need any other organization in order to get your project off the ground. In the case of the Melody Movement, we were looking to reach out to refugee settlements in central Germany.
The second step would be to create an exhaustive list of potential organizations that fit into that certain category that you're looking for. From there, you need to do your careful, thoughtful research on each one, and then you can kind of put them in order in terms of which ones are more closely aligned with your own mission and reach out to them in that particular order.
How do I approach potential partner organizations?
So there are two ways to do this. The first is through cold emails. My recommendations for cold emails are to keep them as short and sweet as possible. Make sure that it's very clear what you're asking. Really, just say who you are, what the mission of your project is. And then I would also recommend having a PDF with more information in case this particular partner organization reaches back out to you requesting more information. In some cases, I'll even include that attachment in the initial cold email just in case they want to learn more right there.
The second way of contacting a partner organization would be through calling, and in some cases where I've sent a cold email and don't get a response, I actually do follow up with a call or sometimes I even start there. Same things apply. It should be short. You should say who you are, what the mission of your project is, why you're reaching out to them and think that your values align. And then see if they're interested in learning more. Maybe you can follow up with an email with that PDF and take it from there.
Lastly, and most importantly, definitely don't get discouraged if you keep getting no's from potential partner organizations. That's happened to me a lot in cultivating The VISION Collective and the Melody Movement in these cases take it as an opportunity to go back to that organization and be like, How could I maybe edit this project to better meet the needs of this community? and kind of work together to tailor make programing that will work for both parties.
What is the most important thing to consider when reaching out to a potential partner?
The most important thing to consider when reaching out to a potential partner organization is to identify the needs of the community that you will be serving. I would say if you are a person implementing a project for a community that you're not necessarily a member of, this is particularly important and I would suggest doing a lot of research ahead of time to identify the demographics of those communities and the people that are a part of them. And if you have the opportunity to do so, interview beneficiaries who are willing to speak with you.
As I said before, I think the most impactful programing is really formed when working in partnership with the partner organization and really working together to create the most thoughtful programing for those people.
How do I secure funding for my project?
There are two main ways to secure funding for a social impact or community engagement project.
The first is through individual donations. For this, at the starting level, I would recommend creating an elevator pitch. This is like a two-minute spiel of your project, and if you're passionate about it, talk about it. You never know who you're going to meet and where that conversation may lead.
The second source of funding would be from granting organizations. For this, I would recommend doing thorough research of organizations that are funding projects like yours. I would also reach out to your school and people in your community to see what organizations they may be affiliated with.
How do I evaluate the impact of my project?
Evaluation methods vary greatly depending on what you're actually trying to measure. In the case of the Melody Movement, we are focused on improving the mental health of migrants and thus we are measuring our impact through tracking attendance numbers at our musical meetings, sending surveys to settlement administrators, and also to participants who speak English, tracking mood upon entering the meeting and then also exiting with a simple smiley, you know, half-smiley face and a frowny face, and then finally monitoring the number of conflicts that are occurring within the settlement prior to our program and then as our program is running.
In this market, I truly believe that there is no competition. I think it's important for us to pursue avenues that interest us and then find other people who are doing the same and maybe partner together to work towards a unique and unified goal.
I think that in the case of the Melody Movement, there are many, many refugees, asylum seekers, out there in the world, and the more people we have doing this work, the better. As I said at the beginning of this video, the most important thing you can do is to figure out what unique value you will be bringing to that particular niche. But aside from that, I think the more we can band together and, you know, get more people interested in doing this type of work, then we're better off.
— — — — — — — — — —
Thank you for joining me for this three-part series on Community Engagement Project Creation. I hope that you really feel inspired and feel like you have the tools to hit the ground running with your ideas. Best of luck!