Grantees 2006
Product Grants: Turn It Up
Mission Support Grants (EMEA)
Mission Support Grants (APAC)
2006 Turn It Up Grants – Round One
Grantee: Fund for Public Schools New York City
Grant: Integration with a Teacher Grade Book: Expanding Usage of Saleforce.com in NYC Autonomy Zone Schools
How the grant will effect their mission:
The goal is to develop data-driven professional learning communities in the New York City public school Autonomy Zone. Without tools that are designed by and for teachers, this is a difficult, if not impossible, task. While the early version of our salesforce.com data portal created a powerful tool that quickly attracted 10 schools to join a pilot (and others continue to demonstrate interest and want to join) we now realize that we need to offer teachers more incentives to become active users of the system. This is the first step towards engaging teachers in the regular collection, analysis and use of data to drive instruction and decision-making in schools.
Grantee: NESsT
Grant: Improve tracking and impact measurment
How will the grant effect their mission:
As a virtual organization with offices on three continents and partners, clients, and portfolio organizations in 38 countries, NESsT has a faster and more accurate way to track program activities, and to communicate between one another through salesforce.com. The application offers an effective online system available 24-7 access to information for our staff. By "turning up" our usage of salesforce.com, we will have rich data and history at our fingertips and can accurately track history and progress through this system. Before salesforce.com, we had ample but disjointed information that required significant investments of time to sort, track and communicate. As mentioned earlier, the NESsT ¿Turn It Up¿ project will coincide with the NESsT Venture Fund¿s expansion from seven countries to over 20 in three continents, and will give us the tools to efficiently manage this transition. With systematized data available to us through salesforce.com, we can now not only track information, but tailor it and communicate it to more effectively maintain relationships with key stakeholders. For example, NESsT staff will be able to quickly find information on environmentally-focused organizations in our portfolio for funders interested in such an area. The NESsT Consulting staff will be able to pull up profiles of our work with Central Asian organizations to share with a potential client focused on the region.
Grantee: HelpArgentina
Grant: Empowering the Argentine non-profit community
How will the grant effect their mission:
Since integrating Salesforce into our operations, HelpArgentina has critically improved its ability to organize and analyze this complex network of international collaborators. HelpArgentina has grown exponentially, particularly in the past year, with 300% growth anticipated for 2006. This expansion is largely due to the implementation of Salesforce. Cultivating our ever-increasing contacts (approximately 7000 to date) in a systematic and professional manner would be impossible otherwise. In order to ensure that HelpArgentina exemplifies the importance of this powerful operational tool, part of the project funding would be invested towards continuing improvements in HelpArgentina's own use of Salesforce.
However, the program's main focus is the training of leading Argentine nonprofits that are currently ill-equipped to build a constituency and raise needed funds from a loyal donor base. As a government spokesperson for the social sector commented, a large part of the social sector was conditioned only to receiving state funds, such that any reduction in state investment would debilitate these organizations (UE 2001). Fortunately, the internet and globalization have empowered small organizations and small donors. Distance and borders are no longer obstacles. As a result, a new and growing opportunity exists for Argentine nonprofits to raise money from individual donors.
This is particularly true in light of the Argentine economic crisis of 2001, which generated a 53% rate of national poverty at its apex (World Bank 2005). The country's social sector doubled in response to the crisis. Government statistics counted approximately 6,500 official non-governmental entities in Argentina in 2001, a figure which has since jumped to almost 13,000, as of 2005 (UE 2001, CENOC 2005). Anecdotally, a middle-class professional couple founded a soup kitchen, HelpArgentina member organization Alimentar Enseñando, because they were impacted by the streams of neighbors who came to their home begging for food during the crisis. This expanded social sector is coupled with a large, financially-secure Argentine Diaspora community, many of whose members emigrated during the collapse and have since remained abroad. For example, Sales Force enabled HelpArgentina to coordinate between Alimentar Enseñando and an Argentine living in London who wanted to host a benefit dinner. Though small-scale, this single dinner generated funds critical to the continued operation of Alimentar Enseñando. Thus, with the use of Sales Force¿s CRM and other tools, HelpArgentina is in a unique position to help worthy nonprofits capitalize on sizeable and lucrative, yet dispersed, donor networks.
2006 Mission Support Grants Program Recipients
PhotoVoice, ($13,000) (Israel/Palestine)
Over one year PhotoVoice, working with Jerusalem-based NGO, The Parents’ Circle, will develop a photographic dialogue between young Israelis and young Palestinians who have lost family members in the ongoing conflict. The Parents’ Circle seeks to solve conflict between Israelis and Palestinians through dialogue and mutual understanding. The project will begin in July 2006; PhotoVoice will train local facilitators and hold workshops; throughout the following year the young people will document their lives using digital cameras. In Summer 2007 they will meet again to share their work, and an exhibition of the work will be held in Jerusalem and London in Autumn 2007 with a possible touring exhibition around the Middle East during 2008. http://www.photovoice.org
Thembanathi($10,000) (Mahlanya, Swaziland)
In Mahlanya, Swaziland, 38.8% of adults are estimated to be HIV positive. By 2010, there could be 18 million orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa. Thembanathi will establish after-school care for primary and high school students to address both the rapid spread of HIV and the increasing number of orphans and vulnerable children without care. The after-school program will integrate technology and care to give children both the necessities they need to survive in their present situation and the skills they need to succeed in the future. This grant will provide computers, internet access, and digital cameras to the students so they can learn to use technology. As an after-school activity, they will create a film about HIV prevention and illustrate the dangers of risky behaviour through digital photography.
Dublin YMCA, ($5,000) (Dublin, Ireland)
Continuing the Foundation’s excellent relationship with the YMCA, this grant will set up a revenue-generating Internet Cafe in the lobby of the YMCA as a resource for residents, plus students of the STEP program outside of the opening-hours of the technology suite, and as a facility for the local community, particularly local youth. Any income generated will be injected back into the YMCA’s youth service program to fund upgrading of facilities and support programme. This grant will also replace the chairs bought by the Foundation last year, which were inadequate.
Mashava Tova, ($10,000) (Israel)
Mashava Tova will train representatives of vulnerable sectors of young Israeli society in aspects of technology, to enable them to create projects in their own communities; thus empowering young people to transfer their knowledge to others who need it. Mashava Tova work with youth from orthodox families who are at high risk of drug abuse and involvement in crime, and are also creating a coexistence group of Jews and Muslims who will make common and shared video pieces. Mashava Tova already work with Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem and cooperate with coexistence organizations such as Peres Center for Peace. Areas of training will include computer teaching, cinema groups, a computer products group - building websites, graphics, data management, and undertaking work for the local community. The projects create a positive learning and productive social frame by teaching them how to work in an empowering cooperating group communicating with individuals and representative of community institutions. Read more on the progress of this grant.
St.Joseph’s School for the Visually Impaired, ($7,000) (Ireland)
This grant will supply specialist computer equipment for visually impaired children. Currently the pre-school in St Josephs School have no computer equipment whatsoever, and funding does not allow for the provision of any equipment. The children in the pre-school all have visual impairments of varying degrees and also multiple disabilities. This means that specialist hardware and software is required for the children to be able to operate a standard computer. Computers can provide a really important role in helping kids of all persuasions grow in our world which has an increasing reliance on technology. However, for children with disabilities this can become quite difficult and expensive due to the specialised hardware and software needed to develop a standard pc into something that can be used for children with visual impairments.
FOCUS, Janus Foundation, ($8,000) (North London, UK)
The FOCUS project will be a learning hub for disadvantaged children and young people between the ages of 12 and 19 within North London who want to explore film, music, interactive and new media, and the creative world of art and performance as a visual means of expression. The project will provide diverse and rich experiences through original, fresh and exciting out-of-school creative workshops, personal mentoring and individual needs tailored training. FOCUS will provide the only multimedia-based and multidisciplinary workshops available in North London with specialised provisions for disadvantaged young people coupled with dedicated and experienced tutors/mentors to provide focused support. FOCUS aims to give youths and disadvantage young people a sure start to something extra, exciting, creative and new, over and above what is available from state services and similar organisations, whilst giving them new life opportunities.
2006 Mission Support Grants Program Recipients APAC
Kamonohashi Project (Japan / Cambodia)
http://www.kamonohashi-project.net/
Kamonohashi project aims to reduce the digital divide in South East Asia and to provide teenagers with crucial technological skills. Setting and maintaining ＩＴ schools, the Japanese NGO offers 10-week training sessions in which young Cambodians age 11 to 18 familiarize themselves with computers, communication technologies, and the internet. The organization targets particularly young Cambodian girls, whose access to computers is otherwise drastically limited. The project aims to empower students with the tools, know-how, and self-confidence that will allow them to find sustainable jobs. Following an initial grant in 2004-2005, this year's grant is supporting the establishment of a new IT lab and a 5 month training program open to 200 young people.
Tabunka Kyosei center (Japan)
http://www.tabunka.jp/tokyo/
Tabunka Kyosei is a Japanese non-profit whose goal is to foster multiculturalism and diversity and to support communication across linguistic and cultural divides. Its activities focus on migrant families and in particular on children and teenagers, who often face painful experiences as they try to integrate to the Japanese school system. The project funded by this grant will allow eight migrant children to create video works depicting their lives, challenges and hopes from a personal perspective. The children will be encouraged to take full control of the films, planning, directing, and editing them under the supervision of professionals volunteering their time at the center. In addition to being publicly screened, the films will be accessible online, both individually and in a 20 minute edited version. By placing technological tools in the hands of migrant youth, and by encouraging them to share their experiences, the project hopes to make these children's voices heard more broadly within Japanese society.
Minsai Center (Thailand, Laos)
http://www.minsai.org/
Minsai Center is a Japanese non-profit supporting education programs in Thailand and Laos. After funding the purchase of IT equipment for a rural school in Northern Thailand in 2005, this new grant will allow a second school to be similarly equipped. Computer and internet training courses will be offered alongside the schools' agriculture curriculum, and teenagers attending these two schools will be expected to report on the progress of their agricultural projects over the internet. The project will allow both groups of students and their communities to use technology to communicate efficiently and to share their knowledge. Eventually, other schools will be encouraged to join the network as well.
KIDS (Tokyo)
http://www.kids-npo.com/
For the third consecutive year, a grant will support the realization of a video project under the tutelage of KIDS, an organization working with underprivileged youth in Japan. In order to address the situation of children and teenagers growing up in orphanages, KIDS provides them with an opportunity to describe their lives via the making of a short documentary film. This year, one high school student and two junior high school students will work as a team to design, direct, and edit their film, which will then be accessible online. The making of the film will be an opportunity for the entire community - children, staff, and others involved - to reflect on life within the institution.
Project 180, Fei Yue Community Center (Singapore)
http://www.fycs.org/index.cfm?GPID=50
This project offers web space to teenagers and young adults in Singapore. The site is monitored and facilitated by counselors who encourage young participants to connect, share their concerns and ideas, and ask for advice. Through blog development, eforums and ecounseling, Project 180 seeks to build bridges across generations. This grant was allocated to the purchase of hardware and software, webhosting and broadband.
United Nations World Food Programme
http://www.wfp.or.jp/
This grant will contribute to funding WFP's Indonesia Protracted relief and recovery operations (PRRO) 10069.1: "Assistance to Tsunami and Earthquake Recovery and Nutritional Rehabilitation in Indonesia."
