Adding Impact to Your Club's District Grants
The Rotary Foundation is working with clubs around the world to be sure that all Global Grants have a significant impact on those benefitting from the grant. The District Foundation Committee wants to apply this same concept to our District Grants. If your club wants to raise the level of impact your District Grants deliver, conducting a Community Needs Assessment is a great place to start.
Why Do Higher Impact Projects?
If we as a District have more high impact projects, they will be our best public relations with our community. Clearly, this is a year for membership growth now that the pandemic is mostly behind us. What better way to attract new members than doing high impact projects?
Please remember that a District Grant does not have to be restricted to your local community, it can be anywhere in our Rotary District, country or even global. You can still get local support by making sure your community knows about the project and its results.
What is a High Impact Project?
High Impact Projects make a significant contribution to the betterment of the target community over a sustained period and increase the capacity of the community to lift themselves. Therefore, a high impact project has significance, measurable outcomes, and sustainability. Examples might be:
- Improving the facilities of a senior center has a very long-term impact for many residents. One outcome would be the quality of life of the residents and give them more activities.
- Helping to remodel a food bank facility would impact the efficiency of the program for many years. The outcome here is the effectiveness of the Food Bank to serve its clients.
- Planting trees has impactful in many ways and impacts individuals and the community. The outcome here is improved environmental sustainability, giving shade to those in the area or reduced desertification.
- Converting a facility to solar power would be very impactful in the long term. The outcome here would be improved environmental sustainability and reduced CO2 emissions.
- Aiding refugees that do not have a home. The outcome would be to convert the refugees into community members.
Much will depend on the community needs and the capacity of the club. All grants will be treated equally in terms of grant reviews.
How can we do this?
Start by conducting a Community Needs Assessment. Survey or meet with members of the target community. (a community can be defined as a town, neighborhood, school, etc.) The assessment will identify areas of need defined by the community, as opposed to what we think the community needs.
When doing a Community Needs Assessment, utilizing many individuals, non-profits, government agencies in partnership with Rotarians. This is important to extend our reach and capabilities. The assessment will identify more than one opportunity, select one that fits your club’s skills and ability to deliver. Next build a plan of how to make it happen. High Impact projects can take more than a year and District Grants must be completed within one year but this can be overcome by breaking the project into phases which can be completed within the District Grant timeline. Another approach to do a high impact project is to get several clubs working together with each club taking on one or two components of the overall project.
If you need help getting started with the Community Needs Assessment, please contact anyone on the Grants Subcommittee for assistance. We will arrange a meeting in-person or via Zoom.
District Grant Subcommittee
Bill Boon – Chair
Anne Louise Bennett
Linda Hartman
Mel Foremaster
Stefanie Scoppettoni
Patrick Crew
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