As our 2015 fall Giving Tree Grant cycle closes for some of our affiliate offices across the state, we wanted to take a look at the impact that these grants have on small nonprofits making a big difference in Arkansas’ communities.

By: Kathy Phillips, Executive Director
Cleburne County Community Foundation

One of the things I enjoy most about working at Cleburne County Community Foundation is not only helping our patrons direct their charitable giving, but in getting to see the result of that giving in our own community. The “put-your-money-where-your-HEART-is” kind of impact is always the highlight of my year.

As an affiliate of Arkansas Community Foundation, one way we are able to make such an impact is through participation in the Giving Tree program. The Community Foundation holds both a fall and a spring grant cycle in the affiliate offices across the state, and in Cleburne County, we participate in the spring grant cycle.

Each year, the grant requests highlight the needs in our community and allow us to make a difference. In April of this year, the Community Foundation gave more than $20,000 in grants to alleviate these needs. One of those grants was to support a local domestic violence shelter, Margie’s Haven House. Haven House has been described as “more like a home than the standard vision of a shelter.” The shelter offers victims and their children shelter and all the other necessities that go along with it.

The Giving Tree proposal explained their need in detail. They requested funding to help purchase furnishings for the childcare area of the shelter. They explained that community members of Victims of Domestic Violence with children (both clients staying in Haven House, as well as clients that are not staying in Haven House) may be reluctant to attend support group meetings, and/or reach out to the Haven House due to concerns for a healthy, safe, comfortable environment for their children.

The grantmaking committee reasoned that meeting this need for Haven House would not only help their clients, but could potentially have generational consequences. They knew they must help with this request. The request was small – only $900 – but its ultimate impact could be huge. We will also continue to partner with Haven House throughout this fiscal year, as they have been selected as our Community Leadership Designee for 2015-16. In other ways, large and small, we hope to help them fulfill their mission. Past Community Leadership Designees have received help with event promotion, creation of PSA’s, support for Christmas food boxes and toy drives, and even assisted with landscaping at a new office. Whatever extra support we can offer, depending on the organization’s need, we try to go the extra mile for each year’s Community Leadership Designee.

These are the kinds of projects we love to fund each year in our Giving Tree grant cycle – projects that make an impact. This is “Smart Giving to Improve Communities.”

Read more about our Giving Tree.

We’re excited to welcome Carolyn Blakely, Ph.D., to the position of chairwoman of the Arkansas Community Foundation board of directors. 

Here’s what Dr. Blakely had to say about why giving back is a priority in her life:

“Having been born in a small town in Arkansas, Magnolia, and brought up by a grandmother who had reared four grown sons (one of whom was my father), I became the ward of that grandmother after my mother died.

My grandmother was determined to nurture and protect me, but at the same time she modeled and taught me that although we were poor, we had many blessings that some others did not enjoy. Therefore she introduced me to the wonderful feeling of empathy and love that resulted from giving to others and helping to make life a little better for them.

The joy that she had as a result of making a pie for someone, providing flowers for the church, being a “grandmother” to other children in the neighborhood, giving from what little money she had to charitable organizations made her look radiant because she felt that she had a purpose for her life. Her lifestyle was infectious and convinced me that it really did feel better to give than to receive.

Hence, I have spent both my personal and professional life responding to my need and desire to have some kind of positive impact on the lives of others in any way that I can. I am convinced that the success of our communal environments is dependent on the members of that community and each member’s commitment to improving the quality of life for the majority, rather than focusing on small segments.

By the way, my grandmother lived to be 105 years old, at which time she was happy and satisfied that she had “cloned” herself in me and that I would carry on her charitable work.”

Fulfilling her commitment to give back, Dr. Blakely has served or currently serves on the following Boards: United Way, Arkansas Humanities Council, Pine Bluff Symphony Orchestra Board, Sister Cities Board, Pine Bluff Convention Center Board, Pine Bluff Area Community Foundation Board, Arkansas Schools for the Deaf and Blind Board, Susan G. Komen Board, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield Board, Arkansas Blue and You Foundation Boar, UAPB Development Board, and Arkansas Community Foundation Board.

Learn more about the tools that we have for people who love to give. Schedule a visit to talk with us about your charitable goals.

This fall, dozens of Arkansas students will pursue their higher education dreams with financial assistance from scholarship funds managed by the Community Foundation. Congrats, 2015 scholarship recipients!

The Haskett Jacoway Scholarship was established by the late Mary Helen Haskett Jacoway (1916-2011), a Little Rock Central High School graduate who loved education and volunteering. Her niece, Ann Ivey, recalled, “She was not able to go to college herself, and that was her desire – she wanted to be able to help others go and thought a scholarship would be a good use of her money.”  After a career in medical records at the V.A. hospital at Fort Roots in North Little Rock, Jacoway went on to an active second career as a volunteer at St. Vincent Infirmary, logging almost 4,000 hours of service.

Celebrating Jacoway’s commitment to learning and giving back, the Haskett Jacoway Scholarship is awarded annually to a Central High graduate who has shown dedication to volunteerism and school activities, while maintaining a minimum 3.5 grade point average.   

This year’s recipient, Yvonne Dominguez Matadamas, shares Jacoway’s love of volunteerism. “I feel like helping others is important because not everybody has the same opportunities,” she said. “I know my parents struggled while I was growing up. I want to be the help for others that I wish had been available for my parents.” Dominguez plans to attend the University of Arkansas, where she will major in chemistry. Her ultimate goal, she says, is “to become a doctor and help people in my Spanish-speaking community.” While attending Central High, Dominguez interned at Baptist Health and participated in the French Club, National Honor Society and Beta Club.

“I’m very pleased that Yvonne was this year’s winner,” said Ann Ivey. “She’s just the kind of student my aunt would have wanted to receive this scholarship.”

We’re honored to partner with the local families, businesses and individuals who have created these scholarship funds to invest in Arkansas students.  Each scholarship has its own special story, encompassing the lives of the people who create and inspire the scholarship and the people who benefit from its support.

Bonita Crabtree speaks warmly of her late husband, Dr. William “Bill” Crabtree. They met on a blind date, married one year later and celebrated nearly 60 years together. But their storybook—albeit humble—life together was not without its struggles. Their personal triumphs are ultimately what stirred a desire to help others.

After working a few years as PE instructor and basketball coach in Pleasant Plains and Cave City, Ark., Bill decided to follow his dream and moved his young family to Memphis to study dentistry. A congenital kidney disease almost kept him from graduating and passing his state exams, but a fiery determination kept him on track. Dr. Crabtree was a beloved dentist and community leader in Paragould for nearly 50 years, coaching little league baseball and refereeing basketball games.

Bill battled cancer twice and ultimately lost his life to lymphoma. When he was too ill to travel commercially, the nonprofit organization Pilots for Christ flew him to and from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The couple often discussed philanthropy and a desire to give back to the organizations that helped them. Bill quoted one of his dental school professors, saying “with privileges, come responsibilities.” Bonita states her belief simply: “Leave things better than when you came.”

With the counsel of trusted friend Bill Fisher, Bonita created two endowments at Arkansas Community Foundation of Greene County. The Dr. William Lee and Bonita R. Crabtree Dental Scholarship Endowment honors her husband’s memory and “eases the financial pressure for dental students so that they can focus on their studies.” The Bonita R. and William L. Crabtree Endowment will also leave a permanent legacy to other organizations that were close to their hearts, including Pilots for Christ.

Your charitable giving is an expression of your values and life experiences. You can provide long-term support for organizations that have supported you during times of struggle in your own life; Arkansas Community Foundation can help.

Contact us to find out how you can begin your charitable legacy today.

by Dr. Rich Redfearn

It’s that happy time of the year again & the Arkansas Community Foundation Giving Tree grant cycle will be kicking off on July 10. Also, other foundations and government agencies have grant program cycles that have summer application deadlines. So it is timely for grant writers to remind each other that critical mistakes can doom your proposal, in some cases even before you apply.

These mistakes are easily avoidable – planning ought to take up at least two-thirds of any grant application. The actual writing should be the result of good planning and excellent project management – the project being the creation of your brilliant, winning proposal!

In honor of David Letterman’s recent retirement, here are my “Top Ten” grant proposal mistakes. Some acronyms are used in the list below. These are: RFP – Request for Proposal; LOS – Letters of Support; NPO – Nonprofit Organization.

10. Do not read the RFP carefully. 
Why it’s a mistake: The RFP has all of the guidance that you need to write a competitive proposal, so you need to read it carefully….then re-read it, and read it a third time. Remember, the most important advice about proposal writing is…READ. THE. GUIDANCE.

9. Procrastinate. You have plenty of time before the deadline, right? Your friend told you that she wrote a proposal in three hours, so why start so soon?
Why it’s a mistake: If you get a late start, you don’t leave enough time for an independent review of your proposal, or even time for proofreading by your own writing team (if you’re very good at procrastination). Create a timeline for your proposal writing project – and stick to it.

8. “Chase the money” without regard to the fit of the funder to your NPO’s mission.
Why it’s a mistake: Every project proposed must support your NPO’s mission. If you make this mistake, in the unlikely event that you win an award, you run the risk of doing a poor job on the funded project because your NPO’s mission is not well-suited to the mission of the funder. You will never receive funding from this source again.

7. Do not contact the funder. Since you’ve read the RFP carefully, why call the funder?
Why it’s a mistake: Remember: you want to match YOUR project to THEIR mission, and a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting will give you that insight. If possible, ALWAYS contact the funder’s staff to discuss your proposal before submitting, leaving sufficient time to revise your proposal accordingly.

6. Disregard the guidance after you have read it. Why follow all of those nit-picking rules, when your project is so obviously on-point with the funder’s mission?
Why it’s a mistake: If your proposal has formatting errors, disregards page limits, provides sketchy or non-answers to critical questions, omits required documents – it will not even be reviewed, in most cases.

5. Wait until you write the proposal to ask for letters of support.
Why it’s a mistake: Remember Mistake #9 above? The people you ask to write supporting letters (or letters of commitment) will not have that sense of urgency that you have about the deadline. Tip: ask for the LOS to be delivered to you a week or 10 days BEFORE the deadline.

4. Overstate your capacity or abilities with claims that are not substantiated with data.
Why it’s a mistake: The funding agency reviewers will be sensitized to overblown statements about your NPO’s amazing capacity and skills. Always give concrete examples of past successes that will support your claims of “world class” ability to manage the proposed project.

3. Don’t match the narrative with the budget. These are two separate documents, right?
Why it’s a mistake: Anything that you propose doing will likely have a direct cost associated with the activity. If you mention an activity in your narrative and its cost doesn’t get a mention in your budget narrative, it will be flagged as an inconsistency at best or attempted deception at worst. Related tip: double-check your arithmetic so that the total requested amount and the individual line items in your budget agree.

2. Miss the deadline.
Why it’s a mistake: This is obvious. No amount of begging or pleading will convince the funder to accept a late proposal; it would be unethical and unfair to the applicants who manage to submit by the deadline. If you DO have a legitimate reason for missing a deadline – as in, your power goes out and you have no internet access – call the funder (on your cell) ASAP and explain why you will be late with submission.

1. Blast your funder with a complaining email if you are rejected.
Why it’s a mistake: This mistake is mentioned as often as missing the deadline in conversations with funders about the biggest sins committed by applicants, and will have more long-lasting effects. Program officers are people, too, and they will remember an unpleasant contact. Grantmaking foundations and agencies have to make hard choices – they always have too little money and too many applicants. Better: be gracious in defeat. Write the funder a nice “thank you for the opportunity to participate” note, and keep a professional, cordial relationship. You want to pave the way for your re-application in the next funding cycle!

Dr. Redfearn is the Grant Programs Manager at the Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas & Past President of the Grant Professionals Association Arkansas Chapter.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Sam M. Walton College of Business or the University of Arkansas.

What Is the Most Important Statistic/Metric That Arkansans Should Be Working to Change?

by Governor Asa Hutchinson

The most important measure of success for Arkansas is whether we are creating jobs and growing our economy. That’s my No. 1 goal. That’s the reason we have focused on reducing our high income tax rate, requiring computer science to be offered in every high school, reducing burdensome regulations and increasing job-skill training in the state.

All of those things will help us create more jobs and grow our economy, and that is the most important metric that we need to change here in Arkansas.

As Governor, I started with a plan to lower income taxes for the middle class. It was a promise I made to the people of Arkansas during the campaign. In January, I signed the Middle-Class Tax Relief Act into law. This will give a tax break to some 600,000 hard-working Arkansans.

Arkansas has been an island of high taxation for too long. Every neighboring state has a lower income tax rate than we do. The Middle-Class Tax Relief Act is a significant first step toward making our income taxes more competitive. Ultimately, that will help us attract jobs, improve our economy and change the state’s metrics for the better.

By Sherece Y. West-Scantlebury
Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation

I was asked to write an essay on what are the one or two most important metrics to measure in community change initiatives.  As I began preparing this essay, the metric I am most compelled to say is the most important is . . .well, the metric.  In my 30-something years working in community change, I have observed that community leaders, stakeholders and nonprofit organizations know that data is powerful and great for informing decisions.  But we do not metrics. I know that metrics is a noun and not a verb, but indulge me for a moment.  We know we need to “metric” at the outset of any work we do in community to:

1. Make data-driven decisions to build our communities,
2. Help increase effectiveness by showing which efforts have the greatest impact, and thus, where we should spend our money and time,
3. Be accountable to our constituents, whether they are clients, donors, board members or those who believe in what we do,
4. Support fundraising, and
5. Promote our impact and tell our stories.

If we know we need to metric, we should just do it.  Seriously, just do it.  The metrics that are most important for you to track depend on your vision, mission and goals.  Communities have the power to decide which metrics to track, when to track them, how to track them and why they are important.  Do what is best, most cost effective, and metrically measurable (indulge me here, too) for your community change.  Keep metrics simple.  Keep metrics doable.  Most important, just do it.