October 15, 2009

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month This month, show your solidarity with victims of domestic violence and help end abuse. NCFY recommends the following ways to observe Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Listen to NCFY’s podcast on dating violence Teach youth to recognize healthy dating relationships (PDF, 240KB) Find out about national and local domestic violence prevention events Contact your state’s domestic violence coalition Tell someone about the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or the National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline, 1-866-331-9474 Learn about the Family and Youth Services Bureau’s Family Violence Prevention & Services Program

Media Clips

Club Teaches Students to Say No to Sex
Corpus Christi (TX) Caller-Times, October 11, 2009

Morehouse Prevention ‘Pioneer’ Honored
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 7, 2009

Double Take: Tips for Teens Making the Case for Abstinence
LJWorld.com, October 6, 2009

Youth Spotlight Shalanda Evans Two years ago, I was in a program called Future Seekers. They taught us different forms of hip-hop, abstinence, staying in school, what’s your goals, your purpose, and dancing. From there, I just switched over to the abstinence class, 2 Hype A Club. I learned a lot. Different people came and taught us about different things: aromatherapy, abstinence of course, relationships, peer pressure. We do hip-hop in order to get out the message about abstinence to make our community better. We go to Boys and Girls Clubs, we go to schools. We might do a skit and the skit might have a rap in it or whatever. At the end we give them a survey, what they liked, what they didn’t like, how we can improve. The best way to reach out to our audience is hip-hop, because they are, like, hip-hop kids. It’s the only thing they pay attention to. It influences them about cars, clothes and money. So we do it a different way, about education, abstinence and stuff like that. I might do a poem or lyrics. I do it on the beat. I just give to them like this: “There are millions of ways to die/but don’t let it be by having sex/either protected or non-protected/you’ll never know what to expect/ … There’s no such thing as safe sex.” If you have outstanding youth in your program, let us know about them. E-mail: ncfy@acf.hhs.gov.

Right on the Money

Ten Ways to Find Foundation Funding

In our last issue, we addressed how to write a better grant proposal. But before youth-serving organizations apply for funding, they have to pinpoint likely donors. How to do that with no fund-raising staff and barely enough time to get your to-do list done each day?

We turned to Helen Brown, president of The Helen Brown Group, a Boston-area consulting company specializing in fund-raising research, and to NCFY’s own youth policy researchers. They had the following tips for readers setting out to identify promising foundations:

1. Be focused. Be clear about your specific financial needs and identify programs that are most likely to be fundable (based on their success rates, the unique populations they serve, and so forth). Don’t chase after funds that take you away from your core mission (for instance, providing emergency shelter when your mission is to teach nutrition). But do think outside the box a bit—if you run a basketball program, could you use a grant for computers or for training volunteers?

2. Consult your board. Talk to your board and find out if they have any connections with foundation funders, even if that foundation’s guidelines don’t match the type of program you seek to fund. “You may discover hidden funding sources or a chance to speak with a foundation officer,” Brown says.

3. Check out your “competition.” Which foundations have funded them? You may be able to develop a good list of foundation candidates by noticing the funders that support similar organizations in your geographic and program area.

4. Go to the library. Besides offering libraries at its five locations, the Foundation Center cooperates with local libraries and nonprofit resource centers nationwide to provide reference materials, training courses and networking opportunities.

5. Hop on the Internet. Many foundation directories can be accessed online. The Foundation Center and GuideStar both have free and paid searching options.

6. Get training. Look for free or low cost training in your community or online. The Foundation Center offers a wide variety of free and low-cost Web seminars including Grantseeking Basics for Nonprofit Organizations and Getting Ready for Foundation Fundraising.

7. Consider asking for help. An experienced volunteer or research consultant can save you a lot of time. “While paying someone to do the work may seem expensive, their experience can hone in on the right funders, eliminate ones that just aren’t right, and eloquently make your case in a proposal in language the funders need to hear,” Brown says. Make sure you hire someone who has a proven track record of success and knows your particular funding market.

8. Start local. Local funders are more likely than, say, the Gates Foundation, to make grants to groups that serve a specific community. Once nonprofit groups have local individual, company and foundation support, then they can make a much stronger case to national funders, Brown says. “Of course, the national funders will want to see how the program or service can have an impact or be replicated nationally.”

9. Go corporate. Look for corporate foundations that might be interested in reaching the populations you serve, and pitch your funding ideas as “cause-related marketing.” For instance, you might ask a soft-drink manufacturer or a local grocery store to sponsor a talent show or fund-raising gala in return for advertising at the event.

10. Network. Once you’ve identified potential funders, ask for informational interviews or attend public forums hosted by foundations in your area. Meeting grant officers in person will help you gather information about what foundations look for in organizations that they fund. Brown notes an added bonus: “As with any profession, foundation officers network, too, and tell each other about interesting programs.”

For the grant maker’s perspective, see our interview with a former foundation officer. For additional guidance on finding foundation funding, contact NCFY.

Right on the Money is a new NCFY column about how to keep the doors of nonprofit organizations open in good times and bad. If there's a topic you'd like us to address here, please e-mail us.

Funding Opportunities

Local Funding Partnerships 2009
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Application Due Date:   November 10, 2009

Communities Putting Prevention to Work
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Application Due Date:  December 1, 2009

See NCFY’s list of potential funding sources for abstinence education program for additional opportunities.

Recent Research

Exploring Personal Responsibility

Personal responsibility means different things to different people. The collection of essays in Rethinking Responsibility: Reflections on Sex and Accountability (PDF) (National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 2009) explore topics such as whether men and women share the same level of responsibility when it comes to relationships, sex, contraception and pregnancy; how personal responsibility is taught and who should teach it; and the connection—and disconnection—between personal and social responsibility.

New Evaluation Tool

The Retrospective Pre-tests Fact Sheet, from the Center for Research and Evaluation on Abstinence Education, provides instruction for how and when to collect retrospective pre-test data rather than administering pre- and post-intervention tests. The authors suggest different methods for ensuring consistent measurement of outcomes questions related to pre- and post-program circumstances, including grouping questions about similar topics together to minimize confusion, coupling questions referring to circumstances before and after participating in the program, and directly asking about perceived change over time.

Go to the NCFY literature database for abstracts of these and other publications. Publications discussed here do not necessarily reflect the views of NCFY, the Family and Youth Services Bureau, or the Administration for Children and Families.

Know Your CBAE Contractors

Many of you have expressed confusion about the organizations that work with the Family and Youth Services Bureau to deliver CBAE training, technical assistance, and other resources. Over the past several weeks, we’ve used this space to present descriptive summaries of those organizations, how they serve grantees, and how to contact them. Here are the links to their descriptions in past issues in case you missed them.

Quote of the Day

“(C)hoosing abstinence is not a decision made out of fear of contracting STIs or conceiving a child. Instead, choosing abstinence means embracing a lifestyle committed not only to one’s own immediate well-being, but to the well-being of one’s future family.”

(Cassandra L. Debenedetto, founder, Anscombe Society, Princeton University, in Rethinking Responsibility: Reflections on Sex and Accountability, 2009)

Address Change

Do you want us to send Abstinence Education E-Update to a new e-mail address? Have additional staff who should be getting this newsletter? Drop us a line at ncfy@acf.hhs.gov.