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Investigate places where you could volunteer your time. Consider all the options: community needs, personal interests, and various organizations; then write a proposal to fund a volunteer project.
In planning the project, figure out how much money you'll need, what you will use the money for, how much time the project will involve, and how many volunteers will be needed. The proposal must explain why the project should be funded.
STEP 1: Initial Search
Begin your research with visits to the following websites:
Search for information about volunteerism and community service. Take notes on what services various organizations provide, community needs, approaches by other groups, and general information about volunteering. Note your thoughts about reports and charts from the sites that might add interest to your proposal. Look at different types of volunteer projects.
Choose the project that most interests you. Use cluster diagrams to organize the details you have discovered about the administration of a community service project. (See Grammar for Writing, Level Orange, page 11.)
STEP 2: Focus Your Search
Search the Internet for more information on the volunteer project you chose, and explore other resources such as newspaper and magazine articles, college and community programs, and annual reports of non-profit organizations. Collect quotes by volunteers for other projects, and facts on how to set up a community service project, as well as how to generate public interest in funding and volunteers.
STEP 3: Define Your Audience
Make your information interesting to prospective high school and college volunteers. Your audience may include people who already do volunteer work, but you will want to encourage them and others to become interested in your project. Write persuasively in order to generate interest and enthusiasm; use a serious, informative style to explain how your project will be managed.
STEP 4: Apply the 5-W and How? Questions
Before you begin writing, be sure you can answer all the questions that potential volunteers or contributors to your cause might ask. Use the 5-W and How questions to guide your note-taking process.
Incorrect subject-verb agreement can ruin a beautiful sentence. There are lots of ways to make a mistake. For example, sometimes the subject of a sentence is not easy to find. It may be separated from its verb by an "intervening phrase." A word in the phrase may appear to be the subject because it's next to the verb; however, that word is really the object of a preposition. (Review subject-verb agreement in Grammar for Writing, Level Orange, pages 189-198.)
Amid all the dry facts and figures in your proposal for a volunteer project, be sure there is a sincere, deeply felt appeal to join your cause. To touch the hearts of others, apply the importance and effect of your cause to the audience's frame of reference. For example, you might write: "At the Oakdale Soup Kitchen, the cost of a trip to the movies can provide a complete dinner for twenty-five hungry people. Yes, twenty-five people can be fed with a gift of only $8.50."
STEP 5: Organize Your Ideas and Write Your Rough Draft
An effective proposal includes all pertinent information about a service project, as well as an appeal for volunteers and contributions. Include everything you can think of about the project: its purpose (the reason for its existence); the cost to run it; how it will be run; its effect on the community; and the personal enrichment for volunteers as well as for the beneficiaries of their efforts. Never leave out the personal touch, since it's people who will make your project a reality.
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STEP 6: Revise, Edit, and Proofread Your Writing
Reread your proposal. Be sure that you have fully explained your project and how it will work, and that you have included a moving appeal for volunteers and funding. Have a friend or family member read the proposal. Ask: "Do you have a clear idea of the nature of this project? Does this proposal motivate you to donate money or become a volunteer?"
Edit your writing for grammatical errors; then proofread your work carefully for spelling, punctuation, and capitalization errors.
STEP 7: Publish Your Work
Present your proposal to the class. Have students ask questions about the plan and evaluate its potential. Perhaps your class can work together to turn one of the proposed projects into a reality.
Copyright ©2007 by William H. Sadlier, Inc. All rights reserved.