Sample Impact Week Proposal

Below is a past project proposal for your reference. Please do not copy this proposal but simply use it as an example.

What is the name of your student organization?

Kappa Sigma Fraternity

What are the mission and goals of your student organization?

The Nu chapter of Kappa Sigma was established in March 1890. The mission and goals of our Kappa Sigma chapter revolve around its brothers. Nu chapter hopes to instill in its brothers the values of fellowship, leadership, scholarship, and service. We hope to foster individual growth and development among brothers that will lead them to succeed in academics and throughout life. Finally, we hope to give back, to improve William & Mary and the community of Williamsburg, both of which are significant parts of every brother’s college career.

Approximately how many members are in your student organization?

80

What are some examples of projects/activities your group has done in the past?

The Nu chapter of Kappa Sigma Fraternity is dedicated to completing philanthropy projects as often as possible. In the 2016 Spring semester, we put on an event called Kappa Sigma Clips. A group of brothers volunteered to raise money through donations, each having a donation goal and if they met that goal, they had to shave their head. At the end of the donation period, we held a small event on campus where donors could watch participating brothers shave their heads. In total, the fraternity raised $2,200. The money for that philanthropy event was donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

In the Spring 2017 semester, Kappa Sigma held a doubles tennis tournament called Kappa Sigma Rackets. All brothers were encouraged to find two participants and coach them throughout the tournament. Brothers were also able to play themselves. All those who participated played in at least three games and received a t-shirt after the event. The fraternity raised about $600 from this event. This year we donated the money to Shatterproof, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending addiction.

Please detail your proposed community service project. Be as specific as possible.

We hope to support St. Bede’s Outreach Center, which provides yearlong support to over 3,500 in need families (last year alone) in Williamsburg and its surrounding areas. The Center, though based with the Catholic Church on Ironbound Road, works impartial to religion, and strictly serves to serve those who are hungry or homeless. The service also works to alleviate copay burdens on participating members. They do all this effectively through donations and volunteers from a wide and caring range of Williamsburg residents. For years, the Outreach Center has been a staple in the community that at-risk single residents and families can rely on for a warm bed, food, or clothes in the trying winter months. It is important to note that the in need participants of Outreach are contributing members of society, many of which have a job. However, as the information video states: “one flat tire or one sick kid, can put them over the edge, defaulting on payments and losing housing or food to put on a table.

For this reason, we are looking to involve dozens of fraternity members to help this noble cause. The timeline could not be more pressing, for the soon-to-set-in cold brings the biggest burden upon St. Bede’s program.

Our kind community advisor, Outreach Director Shannon Woloszynowski, believes the timing could not have worked out better. At this point in the year, they are looking for as many willing volunteers and partnerships as possible. The latter word in that conjunction is the operative. We would like this Impact Week proposal to form a partnership between Kappa Sigma and the St. Bede’s Outreach Program for years to come.

If granted this opportunity, we will work with Shannon to properly prepare Outreach participants for the upcoming winter. Our work will be multifaceted. We plan to use our funds to market a clothes drive on the William & Mary campus. This with both bring in unwanted, but warm clothes to the program, while also engaging the student body and reminding them to think of those less fortunate. While only using minor funds for marketing, this effort is paramount to our proposal. The William & Mary campus is an untapped mine of giving and caring people who enjoy helping those in need. However, in midterm/final season, it can be hard to remember much else besides exam dates. Our outreach strategy, of many posters and flyers, tabling, and a word of mouth campaign will help to cut through the exam noise and remind others about their struggling community neighbors.

Working in tandem with Outreach, we will hear their needs in October on clothing shortcomings and use the remainder, the majority, of our funds to purchase these items for the program. In an effort with dozens of brothers, we will donate these to Outreach and either help them organize for use soon after or pass them out to the needy day of. Ms. Woloszynowski said she will not know which is available until the week of our drop off, but that both options will foster a strong partnership between our two organizations and, of course, help the St. Bede program.

This effort is a way for us to come into contact with and meet those residents who are not as fortunate as us. All people are not created equal. Some are born into lives that are far harder than others. They face challenges that have not even crossed the minds of others. The homeless and at risk in Williamsburg are a kind and driven people. They fight through these far harder lifestyles for a better one, either for themselves or the families they have fighting with them. Organizations like St. Bede’s Outreach are some of our nation’s most noble and notable. They offer a helping, caring hand to these unfortunate people who are only trying to make it. They are only trying to not default on a payment or lose their housing or be unable to put food on a table. We at Kappa Sigma would like to both aid this effort in every way that we can and also meet these fighters. Not as distant William & Mary students, but as a friendly volunteers and friends, ones who can say “Happy Halloween,” and give a warm coat as they do so.

Please grant us this opportunity so we can remind the student body, the Williamsburg community, and those who are less fortunate how great giving can be.

Please detail a budget for the money you may be granted. Please describe how the funds will be used, why they are needed, and how they will help bolster your proposed project. Include details such as supplies, marketing, labor, food, etc. Please give us a total monetary need.

We intend to use the majority of our budget on the purchase of clothing to contribute to St. Bede’s efforts. Spending upwards of $2000 on warm clothing will help provide for some of the 3,500 families in need, just in time for the cold winter months to come. $100 will be dedicated towards marketing, with the creation of flyers and posters helping create a visual presence on campus that complements our planned social media efforts. We will also use part of the budget to buy several bins that can be strategically placed throughout campus, such as dorms, to provide an easy and accessible way for students to donate.

Provide an approximate timetable for executing your community service project.

• Week of (insert date):
  • Begin coordinating with Outreach on which materials it needs
  • Create layout design of flyers and posters to raise Clothing Drive awareness
  • Begin Sadler tabling so multiple brothers can engage the public about our Clothing Drive, with material about homeless and at risk community members
• Week of (insert date):
  • Distribute our flyers across campus regarding the Drive
  • Create drop off locations for clothes
  • Continue Sadler tabling with specific instructions about where to drop off clothes
  • Begin buying the foods and clothes Outreach needs most, donating them ourselves to the program or directly to program participants
• Week of (insert date):
  • Continue our food and/or clothes buying effort
  • Collect the Clothes Drives intermittently
  • Continue tabling, talking of how the Drive ends on the 31^st
• Week of (insert date):
  • Continue and finish our food/clothes buying effort, checking all the Outreach asked for off the list
  • Eventually ending the Clothes Drive, collecting what we have gotten and sorting it ourselves
• Weekend of (insert date):
  • Going into the Outreach location to donate both the asked for food and clothes on behalf of Kappa Sigma
  • Donating also the sorted clothing in the name of William & Mary students

How do you plan on reaching out to your fellow students to have them participate in Impact Week/vote for you?

A word of mouth campaign through the Greek life community is not enough to win. While we will be pursuing this with vigor, other efforts will be put into gaining votes. To convince those who we do not know to vote for us, we would like to have testimonials and stories from Outreach participants at our Sadler tabling.

Our tabling members will be educated on community-based stats, given to us by the Outreach program, on how many at risk people/families there are in the neighborhood and how donations like theirs can mean extra coats and extra cans of food. Enthusiasm will be our watchword. Tabling around campus is an art of not being pushy, while not being complacent. Our members will know what to say and when to say it. They will talk of all the amazing work Outreach has been doing for the community. They will talk of the thousands of families it helps every year. They will talk of how the dropping temperature creates serious problems for families living paycheck to paycheck.

Flyers will also be created by our more design savvy members, in order to get the word out on campus. Our efforts are ones that every student can sympathize with, but not ones that all think about every day. It is easy to forget the plight of others in such a busy time of the year. Our flyers, tabling, and word of mouth efforts will remind others of the importance to give back this time of year. What has frequently been called the most wonderful time of the year can also be the worst for those who cannot predict where they will sleep every night in a month.

Our efforts, from all brothers in the fraternity, will be to let it be known on campus what are efforts are and why they are. William & Mary affects the surrounding community greatly already, let us continue this trend in the name of charitable giving.