Tuesday, December 6, 2004: Volume #2, Issue #57
The VERB Weekly Email Digest
Edited by Sophy Pich, VERB Project Associate

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NOTE: There will not be any issues from the week of December 13 to January 20.

In This Week's Issue

1. Announcements
• Immigration Office Opens in Fairfax
• Community Network for Youth Development
2. Promising Practices
• Taking a Businesslike Approach to Charity
3. News
• Vietnam to America: an 18-Hour Flight, Or an Impossible Journey?
• Graffiti Found on Hmong Homes
• A Temple Rises
• It's Time to Put a Face on Poverty—Without Color
4. Funding Opportunities
• Brookdale Foundation
• Jewish Fund for Justice
• Tiger Woods Foundation
• The National Youth Court Center
• The Points of Light Foundation
• Do Something
• Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network
5. Resources
• GovBenefits.gov

I. Announcements

Immigration Office Opens in Fairfax

The Washington Post, December 1, 2004; Pg. B03

The Washington district office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has opened at its new location in Fairfax County after moving from Arlington.

The facility, at 2675 Prosperity Ave., opened to the public yesterday. It provides services only to those who have made appointments through an Internet-based system known as InfoPass.

The new offices are across from the Dunn Loring stop on Metro's Orange Line. The immigration service closed for several days for the move from its old offices, at 4420 N. Fairfax Dr.

The Washington district office serves immigrants in the District and Virginia.

***

Community Network for Youth Development invites you to attend our last speakers forum for 2004

Youth Voices: What We Learn from Listening to Youth with Milbrey Mclaughlin

Friday, December 10, 2004
10:00am - 12:00pm
San Francisco Downtown Center
425 Market Street, Room 301 (3rd Floor)

THIS EVENT IS NOW FREE OF CHARGE!! Breakfast provided!

Register at CNYD's website: HTTP://WWW.CNYD.ORG

Community Network for Youth Development (CNYD) offers support, training and capacity building resources to youth-serving organizations and programs. We strive to strengthen programs and services for youth by providing workers and organizations with a practical link to research being done in the field.

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II. Promising Practices

Taking a Businesslike Approach to Charity: November Question of the Month Results

from GuideStar

Increasingly, donors, funders, and the media are using business criteria to measure charities' performance. They expect nonprofits to quantify their missions, programs, goals, and achievements and to be able to show how closely they have or have not met those standards.

That's exactly as it should be, Newsletter readers say.

The November Question of the Month asked, "Do you believe that charitable organizations should use business criteria to measure performance?" Some 80 percent of participants responded, "Yes." Another 14 percent replied, "No," and 5 percent were not sure.

Yes: "You Can't Deliver What You Don't Measure"

"You can't deliver what you don't measure," wrote Kathleen Olson of the Point Defiance Zoological Society. "Funders more and more are looking for outcomes. Why should we expect any less of our staff, board and volunteers?"

Performance standards are necessary to ensure delivery of services, Lois A. Smith of the Northwest Substance Abuse Treatment Center for Women and Children maintained: "Without them there isn't a chance that the consumer will receive full equivalent of the services 'promised' and as should be provided to each!!!!"

Jack Hickey-Williams, president of Empowering Resources, suggested that the nonprofit sector's very nature makes using business measurements advisable: "We are a major industry in the US; we ask individuals, corporations and foundations to invest in us. We should be willing to match our skills, talent, to any of the best corporate organization in the USA."

Nonprofits, Jeremy Gregg of Campfire USA Lone Star Council pointed out, are operating in a new environment: "Charities can no longer rely solely on the nature of their work to prove their effectiveness." He elaborated, "We exist because the public trusts us to do a job that the government would have to do otherwise; to earn that trust, we need to hold ourselves to the highest standards of accountability. Fiscal responsibility, though not the ultimate measure of success, is a very important standard by which to measure a non-profit's performance."

Read on: http://www.guidestar.org/news/features/question_nov04.jsp

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III. News

Vietnam to America: An 18-Hour Flight, or an Impossible Journey?
Pacific News Service
December 1, 2004

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Graffiti Found on Hmong Homes
WQOW
December 2, 2004

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A temple rises
The Wichita Eagle
December 4, 2004

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It's time to put a face on poverty—without color
Seattle Times
December 5, 2004

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IV. Grants

1. (National)
   Brookdale Foundation

   The Brookdale Relatives as Parents Program is designed to encourage and promote the creation or expansion of services for grandparents and other relatives who have taken on the responsibility of surrogate parenting, due to the unwillingness or inability of parents to care for their own children.

   The program awards seed grants of $10,000 over two years to local nonprofit agencies and public state agencies throughout the U.S. The Local Initiative supports the development and expansion of local agencies that provide support groups and other supportive services to relative caregivers and the children in their care, while the Statewide Initiative supports public state agencies in selected states that can generate new relative caregiver activities, locally and statewide.

   Deadlines: for the Local Initiative is January 13, 2005 and the deadline for the statewide initiative is February 10, 2005.

2. (California and DC)
   Jewish Fund for Justice

   The purpose of the Jewish Fund for Justice (JFJ) is to support nonprofit organizations working to alleviate the root causes of poverty and the disenfranchisement of low-income people. JFJ supports community-based organizing and advocacy that promotes leadership development and builds community self-sufficiency to strengthen the impact of low-income people in the public debate on issues affecting their lives.

   Areas of interest include economic justice, women in poverty, building community, investing in youth, assisting new Americans, and engaging Jews in social justice.

   Groups working in the metropolitan areas of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC and in the states of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas are eligible to apply. Support is provided for organizations throughout the country that focus on engaging Jews in social justice.

   Letters of inquiry are accepted year-round.

3. (National)
   Tiger Woods Foundation

   The Tiger Woods Foundation focuses on providing opportunities to children and families who are underserved. The Foundation primarily funds nonprofit organizations, programs and projects that are based in urban American cities. Areas of interest include education, youth development, parenting, and family health and welfare.

   Deadline: February 1, 2005

4. (National)
   The National Youth Court Center

   The National Youth Court Center will award mini-grants to provide youth court programs with funds to conduct a service project in support of National Youth Service Day 2005 in April. Fifteen of the mini-grants have been designated to fund projects that are related to traffic safety issues (including underage drinking). The additional 45 mini-grants will be awarded for any project that meets a community need.

   Deadline: December 31, 2004

5. (National)
   The Points of Light Foundation

   The Points of Light Foundation, through the generous support of the Corporation for National and Community Service, is pleased to offer MLK Day Service Grants that mobilize more Americans to observe the MLK Day holiday through service and implement high quality, high visibility service projects that engages volunteers in meaningful activities and strengthen communities on January 17, 2005.

   The Foundation plans to engage over 4,000 volunteers in at least 20,000 hours of service by distributing $125,000 (in amounts of $2,500, $5,000, or $10,000) to between 30 and 40 sub-grantees. This grant competition is open to Foundation members and nonmembers.

   Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis (Monday, Dec. 6th, 13th, 20th) and will be awarded on a rolling basis between Dec. 10th and 23rd. All applicants will receive notification no later than December 23rd.

   Grant Information conference calls will be held on Thursday, Dec. 2nd, Dec. 9th and Dec. 17th at 3:00 pm EST. These calls will provide information regarding the grant competition and an opportunity for potential applicants to ask specific questions. To participate on one of the conference calls on the dates and times listed above, call 1-800-917-9796 and enter the passcode: 312260.

6. (National)
   Do Something

   Each fall and spring, Do Something provides grants of $500 each to ten young people who submit creative proposals for solving local problems in their communities. Members of Do Something's Youth Advisory Council evaluate the proposals and award grants to the most deserving projects in three areas: community building, health, and the environment.

   To be eligible to receive a Spring 2005 Do Something grant, an applicant must be eighteen years of age or younger on February 25, 2005, and have a mentor who is willing to help with his or her project. (A mentor can be a friend, relative, teacher, coach, or anyone eighteen years of age or older as of the date of the application.) Young people may apply for a grant either individually or on behalf of a group or team.

   A proposed project can be a one-time event or an ongoing program. Projects should be designed to make lasting change in the applicant's community.

   Deadline: December 10, 2004

7. (National)
   Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network

   Family Matters is a national program of the Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network that promotes family volunteering across America. The National Family Volunteer Awards are presented by Family Matters to recognize outstanding family volunteering activities performed at any time throughout the past year. These volunteer efforts may include, but are not limited to, National Family Volunteer Day activities.

   Families, business/corporations, nonprofit agencies, and volunteer centers are all eligible to apply for the awards. National Family Volunteer Award honorees are selected based on project or program achievement, innovation, mobilization, ongoing involvement, and ability to meet community needs.

   Deadline: March 4, 2005

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V. Resources

GovBenefits.gov is a free, on-line resource that helps citizens determine their potential eligibility for benefit programs. The site provides information and links to nearly 1,000 federal and state benefit programs, including the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the Community Food and Nutrition Program, Emergency Food Assistance Program, Food Stamp Program, Housing Counseling Assistance Program, Low Income Home Energy Assistance and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

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If you wish to contribute to the VERB Weekly e-Digest, please send all materials to sophy@searac.org