Valley United Way's Youth Leadership Program members met on November 20, 1996 to decide which of the eight proposals it had received in response to its recent Request for Proposal would be awarded grants under Youth Leadership's Venture Funding Program.
"Because we had nearly $6,000 in requests for funding this year," Gina Rochelle, Youth Leadership President said, "we had some very hard decisions to make. At the October meeting, evaluation teams were assembled. Each team was assigned one of the proposals to evaluate. Each of the teams spent the last month reviewing the proposal that they were assigned," Rochelle continued. "Team members visited the organization that submitted the request and interviewed key personnel to find out as much as they could about the proposed program."
"At the November meeting, each team made a presentation on its assigned proposal and presented its recommendations to the group. After all of the presentations were done, the floor was open for questions and discussion," Rochelle said. "After extensive discussion, the members reached consensus on each of the proposals, deciding whether the proposal was to be funded and at what level."
Five of the eight proposals were funded. Those proposals are: (1) "Made In Seymour," a youth jobs program submitted by the Town of Seymour; (2) "Youth to Youth Peer Advocate Program," a peer mediation/conflict resolution program offered through the Shelton Youth Service Bureau; (3) "Project J.O.B.S.," a job skills training program to be offered by and through the Seymour Public Schools; (4) Expansion of the "Teenage Abuse Prevention Program (TAPP)," a teen oriented program offered by The Umbrella, into the middle schools of the five Valley communities; and (5) "The Shelton High School Students' School Improvement Project," that was submitted by the high school's Careers In Art Club and SEED (Students Enraged at Earth's Destruction) Club.
"The three proposals that were not funded," according to Dr. Vincent Palacino, Jr., Assistant Director and Youth Leadership Staff, "were denied funding for a number of reasons. The teams that presented these three proposals each expressed various levels of concern about the viability of the proposed projects. For example, two of the teams felt that the organizations that had submitted proposals were not clear on the specific objectives of the proposed program and did not have a clear plan for implementing the proposed program."
"The bottom line for the members was that the information that had been provided on the three was not clear enough or well enough thought out to warrant funding. So, the members felt uncomfortable funding them," Palacino concluded.
This year is the seventh year in which Valley United Way's Youth Leadership Program has made grants to Valley programs that are aimed at teenagers and meet the needs that were identified through the needs assessment that the members did earlier in the Fall. Each year, the group budgets $4,000 for the Venture Grant program to fund proposals that are submitted after a needs assessment has been done.
The allocation process is a major part of the entire Youth Leadership Program's yearly activities. The Program is designed to help train the "future community volunteer leaders."
Valley United Way