Faithful Fundraising:
Resource Development for
Instructional Technology Projects
Liberal Arts ITS
Emily Cicchini, Special Projects Manager - June 07
Why go for external funds?
 To gain resources for use by you and your
students that otherwise might not be available;
 To grow your own personal network of likeminded people, inside and outside of higher ed;
 To expand and evaluate your own ideas about
the possibilities and limitations of instructional
technology.
Old Sage Development Sayings
 Fundraising is friend-raising/match-making
 Fundraising is sales/is not sales
 Get your ducks in a row
 It takes the same effort to ask for $1 as it does
for $1 million
 Don’t grant-chase
 Every day is a good day to fundraise!
Name This Tune
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime, you just might find…
You get what you need.
Grant writing equals project planning
 Need (fundamental, universal, compelling)
 Proposed Solution (innovative, clearly
addresses the need, the big idea)
 Project Design (logical, sequential, thoughtful)
 Overall Goal (long-range, large impact, BHA Big Hairy Audacious)
 Objectives (tasks, ordered by priority,
measurable)
Or…the usual ducks, continued.
 Timelines with milestones linked to objectives
 Budget (total project income/expense)
 Qualifications/history of project team
 Evaluation plan (how will you measure it?)
 Dissemination plan (how will you share what
you’ve learned?)
 Sustainability
Evaluating a true, pressing need
Think about what you are ALREADY DOING. Ask:
“What would an IT project that
successfully enhanced what we
are already doing LOOK LIKE?”
5 minute writing exercise:
Describe it in one paragraph.
Focus on tangible images.
What exactly would people be doing with it?
What would success look like?
Envision how you will use it.
What will make it happen?
 Time
 Talent
 Knowledge
 Equipment and Supplies (digital, video, audio)
 Software Licenses, Other Fees
 All can be expressed in terms of cash value
What do you need to get there?
What do you need first?
What do you need most?
What will be the hardest to obtain?
Bad needs statements
 Research
I lack the free time to do
my own work
I could do it if only I had
more money
I can’t get the things or
people I need from my
department chair
 Instructional
The students don’t pay
enough attention in
class
The students aren’t as
literate as they were 20
years ago
The students spend too
much free time playing
computer games
The “so what?” test…
 Funders don’t need to know the gory details.
 Funders don’t like whiny, negative language.
 Funders don’t care what problem it solves for
you, but how you are solving a problem that
effects others.
 Education funders, in general, aren’t often that
impressed by personal recognition.
What do funders want?
Finally, I know
what they
want.
 To change the world.
 To help people, generally,
the more people, the
better.
 To fix a specific problem
or issue.
 To know what the positive
impact will be.
Better needs statements
 Research
To examine and
document a previously
overlooked topic
To study and present
knowledge about a new
issue or challenge that
has developed in your
field
To test an idea, process
or procedure for
creating new
knowledge
 Instructional
To find better ways of
conveying complex
information to students
To increase evidence of
higher order thinking in
students
To find new ways to
measure and improve
student performance
Trends in Project Evaluation:
The Logic Model
Task or Inputs
activity
Outputs Short
Term
Goal
Building an
educational
website
Amount of Time
# web pages
Qualifications of
People
# of key
functions
Amount of
Money
# of students
logging in
Long
Term
Goal
To get
To improve
students more learning
engaged
To increase
To lower cost
student skill in of learning
a specific task
To increase
access to
materials
To increase
efficiency of
learning
Embracing Dissemination
 Publication
 Lectures
 Presentations
 Conferences
 Online networking
 Motto: NO dissemination really is BAD
dissemination. Tell people about your work.
Sustainability equals diversity
 Individuals (Annual Funds, Major Gifts)
 Corporate Sponsorships (Sports, Ads)
 Corporate Foundations (Strategic Giving)
 Private Foundations (Families, Legacies)
 Public Foundations (Community Efforts)
 Special Events (Sports, Parties, Sales)
 Local, County, State, Federal Gov’t Agencies
BREAK
Some trends in IT project funding
 Open Access Resources: making scholarly
literature and knowledge freely available
 Gaming, scripted, collaborative and interactive
instructional applications (hello, Second Life…)
 Extensive, comprehensive searchable
databases and digital archives of hard-to-find
materials
 Analysis tools, synthesis tools, visual motion
models, and other applied research projects
LAITS Showcase Solutions
Texas Politics: open access multimedia
textbook
Français Interactif: open access
multimedia textbook
Danteworlds: mulitimedia supplimental
instructional resource
The Daily Intelligencer: unique web-based
learning environment
IT Sites We Like
 Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, http://www.cmu.edu/oli/
 The Sloan C Consortium http://www.sloan-c.org/
 MIT’s Open Course Ware Project, http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
Top Twenty Web Sites
1 yahoo.com
2 msn.com
3 google.com
4 youtube.com
5 live.com
6 myspace.com
7 baidu.com
8 orkut.com
9 wikipedia.org
10 qq.com
11 yahoo.co.jp
12 microsoft.com
13 megaupload.com
14 sina.com.cn
15 blogger.com
16 hi5.com
17 facebook.com
18 rapidshare.com
19 ebay.com
20 sohu.com
Retrieved from alexa.com June 9, 2007
Rights and Permissions
 Inside Class, UT =
Fair Use
 Open Access = Not
Fair Use
Got Ducks?
Basic 5-step fundraising cycle
 Research - 70% of your time (including gossip,
internal coordination, and rejection).
 Cultivation - 4% of your time.
 Solicitation - 15% of your time.
 Closure - 1% of your time.
 Stewardship - 10% of your time.
 Once you start, it is a cycle, it never ends.
How to evaluate a prospect
 What do they say they want to accomplish? What is their “selfimage?”
 Who do they say they’ll give to? Who do they really give to, how
often, how many different groups?
 What things have they given for in the past?
 How much do they give/do they really have?
 Who are the people actually in charge? What’s the decision making
process?
 Are they stable or in flux? What’s the deadline/timeline?
The Usual Suspects
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Department of Education
National Science Foundation
Moody, Meadows, Brown, Houston,
Webber Foundations
Austin’s lack of philanthropic infrastructure
Online Research Tools
 Federal Register http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html and
grants.gov
 Texas Register and grant alert
http://www.governor.state.tx.us/divisions/stategrants/grantalert/view
 Chronicle of Philanthropy
 The Foundation Center/The Grantsmanship Center
Guidestar.org, or how to read a 990.
 The Internet - The Meadows Foundation
 http://www.mfi.org/grants/grant_guidelines_english.asp
Exercise: Plan a grant for…
Grantees:
wikipedia.org
openoffice.org
pbs.org
creativecommons.org
thestoryoftexas.org
gutenberg.org
moma.org
artsedge.kennedycenter.org/
Grantors:
NEH Digital Start Up
NEA Fast Track
Humanities Texas
NSF Informal Science
Education
MacArthur Foundation
IES Reading and Writing
Education Research
DOE Star Schools
The Meadows Foundation
Example: Wikipedia to NEH
Need: An online thesaurus tool
Timelines: prototype, year 1, release
Proposed Solution: an application that
Budget: $50,000 per year, 1/2 to scholar,
can search and cross reference words
by tags, use and associated meaning
Project Design: plug-in to be developed
year 2
1/2 to programmer
Qualifications: They are both fabulously
brilliant, connnected and experienced
by programmer and linguistic scholar
Evaluation: Wikipedia foundation will
Overall Goal: To create new functionality
conduct usability studies
for the world’s most used multilingual
open knowledge base
Dissemination: A press conference and
full web documentation
Objectives: to create a functional tool
that helps users create digital
thesaurus entries
Sustainability: Wikipedia Foundation will
commit to sustaining it
How to build a prospect list
 Don’t take on more than you can manage: on a
part time basis, maybe 5 at a time
 Meet on a regular basis (monthly) with a team
(student, colleagues) and go over the list
 Determine next step: more research, internal
clearance, crafting a pitch, or (lucky you!)
completing a report
 When prospects are pretty much dead ends,
replace them with new ones
Final Thoughts…
Yes, you need to know people…
but you can get to know them, particularly through web.
If you work your list, the money will come.