Thank you to our Sponsors... Interested? |
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Each year, the Denver Rotary Club Foundation awards the WCS committee a budget to use for new projects. The amount awarded for 2009-10 was $30,000 and $40,000 was awarded in 2010-11. Each project must have a “champion” within our committee: In the case of initiating a project, this is the person (or group of persons) who comes up with the project, tries to get other clubs to contribute to it, presents it to this committee for approval and processes the paperwork through the Denver Club, District and The Rotary Foundation bureaucracies. There are four basic ways that WCS Committee spends the money that is allocated to us; Matching Grants, District Simplified Grants, Health, Hunger and Humanity Grants and Committee Grants.
1. Identify the project. Ideas for new projects come in many ways. You may have a friend or family member in another country who knows of a particular need. You may hear of an organization doing good work somewhere and contact it for more information; you may learn of a project at a Rotary district conference; you may be approached by a Rotarian from another club seeking our club's participation in his or her club's project.
2. Check with Rotary International. If the project is international, before you ever start considering a project seriously, check out the eligibility guidelines, and if you are satisfied that the project would be eligible, pick up the phone and call the staff person at TRF who is assigned to projects in the part of the world where the project would be located! Discuss your idea briefly to get some feedback and direction, and to "grease the wheels" so that if and when the project application is submitted, the staff person is expecting it. One good thing to inquire about is whether your proposed host club has many open projects, as each club may have only 5 projects open at any one time. The website should have the most current staff information – note that TRF staff has a high turnover rate. It is prudent to keep good records of all names, dates and information obtained from the TRF staff.
To Check with The Rotary Foundation Staff:
On the Rotary International website, http://www.rotary.org/
Click on “Service and Fellowship” near the top
Under “Fund a Project”, click on “Stewardship and Reporting” on the left
Click on “contact Humanitarian Grants staff” in the text, near the end of the topic entitled
“Overdue Grant Reporting List”. Here you will obtain the name and phone
number of the Grants Coordinator for the country you are interested in.
3. Submit a New Project Form in order to get on the Agenda
When you wish to present the proposal, you must complete one of our Club’s “New Project Proposal” forms. Click here for a form. When it is complete, submit it to the New Projects Subcommittee. Kemp Will chairs the New Project Subcommittee this year, and its current members include Charlie Miller and Young Cho.
This is the time to get two other WCSC members on board to help lead the project, as TRF rules require that both the lead U.S. club and the project country club have at least three club members on the project. You will complete the form and submit it to the subcommittee via e-mail. The subcommittees members will review it and often will make suggestions for improving it, ask for further information, etc.
The New Projects Subcommittee does not approve or disapprove of the proposal, but only makes sure that it is well-enough thought through for presentation to the full WCS committee for approval, and that it meets applicable criteria.
You need to submit your proposed project to the subcommittee well ahead of the date set for the full committee meeting at which you would like to submit it for approval. Two weeks before the meeting is recommended. Once the subcommittee is satisfied with the proposal, they will alert the committee chair to put it on the agenda and you will be contacted.
4. Presenting the Proposal to the WCS Committee.
When your project is on the agenda you will be notified. Please bring 25 copies of the approved New Project Proposal form to the committee meeting, and be prepared to briefly “pitch” the proposal and answer questions about it. Bring your own electronic equipment and arrive with time to get it set up. Most presentations are given approximately 10 minutes on the agenda.
5. Funding Considerations
Not only our club, but the District and TRF have budgets, too, so if you have a project you are burning to do, it is important that you "get in line" as soon as possible. The deadline for a Matching Grant to be submitted to the District is February 28, 2009 and the deadline for that application to be submitted to TRF is March 31, 2009
6. General guidelines used by our Committee for funding projects
These are some of our club's general guidelines for projects:
7. Your Responsibilities as a Sponsor
As a sponsor, you are the person (or group of persons) who comes up with the project, tries to get other clubs to contribute to it, presents it to this committee for approval and processes the paperwork through the Denver Club, District and The Rotary Foundation.
If the project is approved, you are the monitor and are responsible for reporting back to the committee. You prepare and file an interim and final report with TRF. In the case of matching grant projects initiated by other clubs, you are the person who presents it to this club for approval and makes sure that our contribution gets to where it is supposed to go and monitors it for reporting back to our committee. In the case of 3-H Grants initiated by another club, you are the person within our club assigned by the committee chairs to manage our club's participation and to monitor and report back on the progress of the project. (back to top of page)
Matching Grants are ones where our Club funds are “matched” with District Funds (DDF) and The Rotary International Funds (TRF). These grants require attention to detail and perseverance however they can provide significant funding for a project.
Follow the guide lines suggested on Grant Request Procedure. As stated there, the best piece of advice we can give you is this: before you ever start considering a project seriously, check out the eligibility guidelines, and if you are satisfied that the project would be eligible, contact the staff person at TRF who is assigned to projects in the part of the world where the project would be located. Make sure your proposed host club has less than 5 open projects. Check with the eligibility of our Club and the host club relating to Future Vision status.
If our committee approves the project, then the real fun begins!
1. First call or e-mail our Area Representative to District 5450 to discuss the project and get advice and guidance. Our representative for 2010-11 is Phil Goedert, a member of our Rotary Club. Office number 303.573.5000 or p.goedert@comcast,net.
2. You must then complete the Matching Grant application form. The form (and LOTS of information) can be found on The Rotary International Website. http://www.rotary.org/ and on the District website, http://www.rotary5450.org/.
On the Rotary International website, http://www.rotary.org/:
look under “Service and Fellowship”
click on “Fund a Project”
click on “Matching Grants” (on the left side of the page)
There is lots of material on this page – browse through it! Under “How to Apply”, download the Word version of the Matching Grants application. You can also download “The Guidelines to Matching Grants” and “the terms and conditions of matching grant expenditures and activities” and “frequently asked questions”.
3. The form must first be submitted to our Area Representative to District 5450 for approval and certification to the District that it meets all of the eligibility rules. The rest of the steps in the process are clearly listed in "Steps in Processing Matching Grant Applications" on the District website. Do not jeopardize your project by not following them exactly!
The deadline for submitting the form to District is February 28, so get a big head-start!
On the District Website, http://www.rotary5450.org/:
Under “Foundation” near the top of the page, on the drop down menu, click on “Grants Sub-Committee”
You will find lots of information there, including both Matching Grant and District Simplified Grant application forms, and lots of "how to" information.
4. If a Matching Grant application is accepted for consideration it is assigned a Matching Grant number. Please let our committee Chair and Vice Chair know right away what the MG number is, and use it on everything having to do with the project from then on. Thereafter, if the project is approved by TRF, you will get a package of information from TRF, including an agreement form. Please read the form, follow all instructions, and let our committee Chair and Vice Chair know if and when you have obtained approval.
5. When you have approval, you are responsible for making sure that the money gets sent from our club to TRF, which gathers all of the contributions and then disburses the money to the project. Ask our Chair to submit a check request to our club's staff. After that you are responsible for monitoring the project by communicating with members of the project country club, being involved with filing the interim reports, and final report when the project is completed. Reports are due each 12 months from the date that funds are received from TRF. Timely filing of the reports is very important, because TRF will hold up approval of projects submitted by any club that has overdue reports. Reports for Matching Grants go to TRF, with a copy to our committee Chair.
For All Grants: The other best piece of advice that we can give you is to KEEP COPIES OF EVERYTHING! Local clubs (ours and others), Rotary District 5450 and The Rotary Foundation are bureaucracies that function with both paid and volunteer labor, and they have a lot of turnover. Applications and other paperwork have not infrequently been lost, never to appear again.
If a grant application is not approved by either the District or TRF, please advise the committee Chair promptly, so that the funds may be freed up for allocation to other projects.
In addition to the RI and District websites, experienced members of the committee who have “been there, done that” can be a great resource. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! (back to top of page)
District Simplified Grants are used for two purposes. One is to fund a local project. The other is to fund an international project in an area that does not have a local Rotary Club.
Follow the general steps listed on Grant Request Procedure.
The forms for a District Simplified Grant can be found on the District Website.
The District Website, http://www.rotary5450.org/:
• Under “Foundation” near the top of the page, on the drop down menu, click on “Grants Sub-Committee”
• You will find lots of information there as well as the District Simplified Grant application forms, and lots of "how to" information.
1. Once the form is completed, it must be submitted to our Area Representative to District 5450 for approval and certification to the District that it meets all of the eligibility rules. Our representative for 2010-11 is Phil Goedert, a member of our Rotary Club. Office number 303.573.5000 or p.goedert@comcast,net.
2. The rest of the steps in the process are clearly listed on the District website, and the report for DSG projects is there, also. Again, do not jeopardize your project by not following the rules exactly! District Simplified Grants also have reporting requirements. Check the website, and copy reports to our chair.
For All Grants: The other best piece of advice that we can give you is to KEEP COPIES OF EVERYTHING! Local clubs (ours and others), Rotary District 5450 and The Rotary Foundation are bureaucracies that function with both paid and volunteer labor, and they have a lot of turnover. Applications and other paperwork have not infrequently been lost, never to appear again.
If a grant application is not approved by either the District or TRF, please advise the committee Chair promptly, so that the funds may be freed up for allocation to other projects.
In addition to the RI and District websites, experienced members of the committee who have “been there, done that” can be a great resource. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! (back to the top of the page)
These grants involve long-term projects too large for one club or district to implement, and they are not frequently done. Our club has initiated one 3-H Grant in its history, and has contributed to others initiated elsewhere, including the recently approved Russian Health Fair Project initiated by a club in Alaska. For more information from Rotary International, click here.
Occasionally the committee decides to award a grant for a worthy international-focus cause without seeking matching from either the District or The Rotary Foundation. An example would be the Juarez housing project. Club contributions only are required because TRF guidelines do not permit the use of TRF grant funds on housing related projects.
In addition to the foregoing grants, which use money from our budget, a Rotarian may apply for an Individual Grant from TRF for the purpose of traveling internationally to plan or implement a project. Funds from our club's budget are not involved. These are flat grants of $3,000 for an individual or $6,000 for a team of up to 5 members. (back to top of page)
