Way To Go Mullens!

Congratulations to the three Beacon Award winners at the BluePrint Communities final meeting in Beckley, West Virginia last week! One of the communities, Mullens, was a community I had the honor to work with over the past six months. I am so proud of the work the team and the town put into the planning and execution of their plan. Here is a link to the press release about the honor.

Press Release

Make sure you keep an eye out for the activities happening in Mullens, which is a great little town about 20 miles from Beckley, West Virginia. Great things are happening there, and they have a great artist community forming there, with open mike night, plays, and bluegrass music. Make sure you visit and enjoy their warm hospitality!

BluePrint Communities is an inituative sponsored by the Federal Homeloan Bank. Here is a link to their website
BluePrint Communities

Monongalia County Literacy Volunteers

I had the great opportunity to work with the Board of Directors and Staff of the Mon. County Literacy Volunteer. What a great group! They have made so much progress over the past year. It was a pleasure to work with them this weekend.


http://www.boardsource.org/


I am going to add some more resources to the Board areas. The best advise I can give Boards that are wanting to start reviewing policies and proceedures and are wanting to move their organization to the next level is to go to the Community Development Partnership of West Virginia.

They have a great training on best practices for organizations, and when you sign up to take the three day class you leave with a notebook with every example for policies and proceedures you could ever want or need! Hope this helps. Check back for update! Here is the weblink for the Mon. County Literacy Volunteer: www.monliteracyvolunteers.org
Here is the weblink for the Community Development Partnership of West Virginia:
www.cdpwv.org

Funding Announcement for Child Abuse Prevention

Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia Announces Community Grant Opportunities
Those interested in strengthening families and keeping WV children safe are invited to apply.
With funding from the West Virginia Children's Trust Fund, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, and the WV Department of Health and Human Resources, Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia announces two grant opportunities for organizations and qualified individuals working to prevent child abuse and neglect in West Virginia. The purpose of these grant programs is the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect in the state.
The Good Beginnings Mini-Grant Program will provide up to 25 to 30 grants of up to $1,000 per year for community-based programs that have creative strategies for preventing or reducing the occurrence of child abuse and neglect. Applications may be submitted by public or private institutions and faith-based communities for the Good Beginnings mini-grant program.
In addition, Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia is inviting community teams to apply to participate in its successful Partners In Prevention initiative. Partners in Prevention is a statewide network of twenty-five community teams implementing various community projects and working together to keep children safe. Up to ten new community teams are expected to be added to the network this fall. The Partners In Prevention grant program requires a team of at least three organizations working together in a community. Participating teams receive annual grants of up to $7,500 to conduct local projects to strengthen families, protect children and engage the public in these efforts. Additional information, including a directory of current teams and project descriptions, is available at www.preventchildabusewv.org/partners.html
Application guidelines for Good Beginnings Mini-Grants and Partners in Prevention Community Teams are available on the Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia website at www.preventchildabusewv.org. Application deadline is August 15, 2007.
More information about these programs and ongoing efforts in West Virginia is available at the WV Children's Trust Fund website, www.wvctf.org, and the Prevent Child Abuse WV website, www.preventchildabusewv.org.
For information specific to the grant programs, contact Genny Ferri, Community Partnerships Coordinator, at 1-866-4-KidsWV (866-454-3798) or email genny@teamwv.org.

Tips for Fundraising in Multiple States

My friend Marilyn in Kentucky sent me this link to share with you about those who raise funds in multiple states (with newsletters, direct mail, and email donations).
To make compliance easier, some 35 jurisdictions (34 states and the District of Columbia) have come together to develop a Unified Registration Statement. Using this one form, available at www.multistatefiling.org , your organization may register in these 35 jurisdictions. Before you get started, however, it’s a good idea to determine the states in which your group will be raising funds from the public and look at the registration and disclosure requirements of those states (see the appendix of the Unified Registration Statement for state-by-state information).

Sorry I haven't posted in a while

Hello, sorry I have not posted in a while. Traveling has been intense. I have had lots of people ask me for more resources for Time Management and Organizational Skills. Let me share the titles for a few books that I think are just great on this topic. Julie Morgenstern is a writer that is great on this topic. I have read the following books by her and use her ideas in my trainings. They are:
"Time Management from the Inside Out"
"Organizing from the Inside Out"
"Never Check E-Mail In The Morning" (this is one of my favorites)
and by Kenneth Zeigler
"Organizing For Success"
These will help you organize everything from your home to your office. I have created a task list in my Outlook to track my personal and professional "to do" lists based on these books. It has really helped me become more organized and use my time more efficiently. I hope they help you as well. Here is a link to her website www.juliemorgenstern.com
www.juliemorgenstern.com

Grantsmanship Workshop in Morgantown

Thanks so much to Big Brother Big Sister in Morgantown for hosting the Grant Writing workshop last week. It was a great group and I enjoyed spending time with you all. I wanted to share some of the pictures from the workshop that Sylvia took. Enjoy! I will create a Flickr page for them when I get them all. Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day today.

Photos on Flickr

I have placed all of the photos from the Christain Appalachain Project's marketing training at Jenny Wiley State Resort and park on my Flickr account. Just use this addressto view all 87 pictures (www.flickr.com/photos/leadingthefuture/)! Hope you guys enjoy. I had a great time hanging out with everyone. Let me see what you create. Email me a copy so I can post it on the blog.