Guidance and Examples for Direct Service Applications

Please note: Word limits are imposed for all narrative fields in the online application. Each question below indicates the maximum number of words your response may contain.

Organizational Capability

1. What is your organization’s mission? If you have any principles or values that are actively used in your programs and management please include them as well. (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
We see mission as what you do and vision as the end state you wish to achieve. The best mission and vision statements are short and clear. If yours is over the length allowed here, please distill to the essence. We are especially interested in how your mission gives you concentration and focus—discouraging you from simply taking on more projects because money is available. Finally, if you have points of approach (values, principles, whatever you might call them) that guide where you go or how you work, do name them and be specific about how they shape your actions.

Example:
The mission of School Turnaround is to reverse decline in failing public schools. Our vision is of American schools in which all students achieve at or above grade level. Our strong belief is that every child achieves—no exceptions, no excuses. We are driven by the belief that a child should only be in first grade once.

2. For the specific program area for which you seek our support, what are your core strengths? In other words, what does your organization do especially well? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
We have found that a group’s ability to understand what it does especially well is a good predictor of its success over time. Core know how is often a matter of three elements that make you effective:

* Knowledge—your information and insight capital;
* Skills—what you know how to do based on what you know; and
* Persuasiveness—how to communicate what you know and do to others who need to change to reach success.

Be as specific as you can. General statements such as “We are really good at working with people” add little value to our understanding of how and why you think you are successful.

Example:
Our core know-how is twofold:

* Having an intervention pathway into schools through principals with whom we work. This hinges on the helping relationship we build with building leaders.
* Solid execution on our six strategies for turnaround. We know how to create tests and data sets where none exist that predict achievement on high stakes tests—while there is enough time left to teach to success.

3. What have you achieved in the past three years for persons in your current programs that are most similar to the program for which you seek our support? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Please know we are much more impressed with how many people have tangibly improved their life than by how much money you have attracted or what awards you may have received—unless the recognition is clearly based on participant outcomes. Also, we do not equate growth with achievement. Just focus on the tangible human gains you have created for those you serve.

Example:
We have worked in 52 schools. In 50 of these, we have realized academic achievement gains of 15% or more in numbers of children at grade level in critical subjects.

4. In your geographic area, what groups are most similar to you? What differentiates you from them? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Few groups are so unique that they have no comparable organizations. We want to know who you see as most similar so that we can look at a broader picture of groups approaching the same issues and gain a sense of how you are different. This question encourages you to tell us what we should remember that makes you stand out in some ways. Please do not do so by critiquing other groups. Speak to your own strengths.

Example:
We have several kinds of comparable groups. One is the set of alternative programs that focus on professional development for principals and other administrators. Over 100 discreet “packaged” programs exist for purchase and use by school districts and regional agencies, though none have substantial market share. The other comparable area is programs that focus on reversing failure in programmatic rather than leader-driven ways. An example is Success For All, a major reading program used in hundreds of schools nationwide. It provides a prescribed approach for using a dedicated block of time devoted daily in schools to literacy development.

We are different from these and other groups primarily because of our strong intervention approach. We literally see turnaround as a way of hitting failure hard. At the same time we are compatible in that we work with a wide variety of existing programs—be they for professional development, curriculum, or teaching. Our focus is on helping principals spark and lead change and on fully executing existing models and approaches—many of which work but only if more robustly implemented.

Your Participants

5. What problem are you addressing? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Please state the problem in clear terms as it is experienced by people who have it. You need not justify its importance or speak to national impacts. Focus on the set of people who have this problem (need, challenge, whatever you term the issue). We want to understand the problem in motion with people—not a static condition of need. When it comes to a number, we don’t want you to have to conduct original research. Just rely on existing data (often available on the internet) or even on estimates by those most in a position to know.

Example:
Failure in public schools results in young adults who cannot read, analyze, or feel successful. Many drop out at a high cost to them (well over a $1 million per person in lost earnings) and to society (an even larger amount in social and human services and other supports). We work nationally with failing public schools.

5b. About how many individuals within your focus area are affected by it?
This field only accepts numerical values.

5c. Of this total population, how many people will participate in your program?
This field only accepts numerical values.

6. What are the characteristics of the people you will include in your program and how are they different from the full set of people who have the problem within your geographic area? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Please know that we view it as a sign of strength that a program has defined the people who are most likely to benefit from a particular approach. In the non-profit world, it is rare that one program is always the best. Some kids, for example, thrive on a permissive and open learning environment while others need tight structure. We want to know if you have thought through the best fit with your treatment, approach, intervention or program by another name with specific people it will most help to achieve.

This section also gives you a place to tell us about relative degree of challenge and to relate cost to degree of barriers. We know, for example, that the difficulty and expense to get someone a job who is drug-addicted, has poor English, or lacks a high school degree is very different than for people who have none of these core issues. We also encourage you to speak to the assets and strengths of your participants on which you can build.

Example:
Our focus is on the principal and we believe we can be most successful when they share two characteristics:

* They have not been head of a failing school for more than three years. (Beyond that we think they are more likely to be part of the problem than the solution.) and;
* They must believe that their school is failing some of its students and that this is strongly unacceptable. (This eliminates the principals who acknowledge low test scores but note that the reason is demographics, not anything they could do differently.)

This means that out of a market of 12,000 failing schools, we believe our approach is fitted to about 3,000 schools. We will work with 50 schools next year within the latter group.

Your Results

“Those with targets are far more likely to succeed than those who pledge their best efforts.”

7. What results are you committed to achieving — meaning outcomes from services? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
The fact that people have completed a program, read your materials, sat through counseling or a workshop is not a result. The result is what they get from what you offer. This distinction is critical. Please focus on changes in behaviors and conditions for people, not on their activities in your programs or their level of satisfaction. Please put the number who achieve in the context of the number you serve.

In most cases, you succeed because people change their behavior—whether to quit smoking, exercise, wear a seat belt, or anything else. We urge you to focus on behaviors rather than attitudes because they are critical to success and much more readily verified. We do not know the value of increased self-esteem or creating more positive attitudes toward something until you tell us as, your result, what people can achieve with higher self-esteem or more positive attitudes than they could achieve without them.

In a few situations, you are focusing on a condition rather than a behavior. For example, the quality of a body of water or of a community’s level of social capital. In either case, the more specific you are the better.

We urge you to suggest a clear result as you develop your program but then revisit it when you have covered all elements in our format and thought it through as carefully as possible. The best targets are shaped by a complete understanding of your program.

Example:
Of the 35 schools in our program, at least 32 will achieve their turnaround targets set for one school year. The minimal gain is a 15% increase in test scores over the previous year in key specified subjects by student groups that are lagging behind.

7b. Of those that will participate in your program, for how many are you committed to delivering these results? This field only accepts numerical values.

8. How do your intended results compare with what would have happened without your program? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Our return on grant investment is not the result you set. It is the difference between your result and what would have happened without your program. If, for example, a program says that it will get 70 people out of 100 to the achievement of getting and keeping a job but evidence suggests that for people like those served, 50 generally get a job in a year, the value of the program is 20 jobs, not 70.

We are not asking you do original research. Just rely on whatever information exists about outcomes at the most specific level you can get it. Past rates of achievement at the school or neighborhood level are better than data at the district or a city level. And data at a city level is better than data at a state or national level. If no information exists, use the most educated guesses you can find. Guidance counselors, for example, can often look at a description of your participants (or, better yet, a sample of names) and tell you with reasonable accuracy about how many are likely to pass next year, become pregnant, use drugs, or experience another outcome.

Example:
The schools with whom we work have generally seen no rise in test scores in the past 2-3 years in the subjects where we set targets. Beyond this, our results of a 15% higher test score are set not to last year’s scores but what would be predicted by a trend line. For example, if a school has been going up by 5% a year in achievement in an area, we set a target of 20% to be 15% higher than what would be projected without us.

8b. How many people would get to the result you state if your program did not exist? This field only accepts numerical values.

Your Project

9. In a nutshell, what is your program? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Before we get into details with the following questions, we’d like to get a clear grasp of just what your program is for which you seek support. Think of this as a summary description. No major details are needed.

Example:
Our program works with public school principals to change their behavior to become effective turnaround leaders. To begin, turnover targets are established with each principal. We then help principals develop a turnaround design and pair them with a turnaround specialist to work in school on exactly that design. A wrap up conference with all principals focuses on results achieved and learning.

10. In greater detail, please tell us what approach you are using to achieve the results you stated? (Limit 300 words.)

Guidance:
Most programs are not a random set of activities. They are a coherent strategy to achieve a result. Please do not offer us a detailed work plan. Rather, tell us a few core elements of your particular way of solving a problem and why you think it is the best way to engage participants and help them get to the success you have stated. If you could place this in the context of other approaches you might have used but didn’t, that would add to our understanding.

Example:
Our approach is intervention—with a set of principles used in turnaround in business, hospitals, and other organizations. We focus solely on the principal as the key to a successful school and enter in the form of an intervention agent—our school turnaround specialist. We use six specific strategies: diagnosis, target-setting, messaging, use of data, alignment, and successful classrooms. These are described in the separate document conveyed with this proposal. We are not successful because we have better ideas of improving schools. Our comparative advantage lies in executing strategy within schools in a robust way—and concentrating our attention on the building leader as the key to change.

11. Is your approach backed by evidence of success? If so, what is it? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
In most cases, your approach will have been used before. In some cases it may even rise to the label of “research-based’ or “evidence-based.” On that front, please know that the only kind of research and evidence that really impresses us is information that shows that the approach achieves results. If your approach has any kind of evidence in past success, tell us what it is. Also, don’t bother to repeat information that is readily available. Just give us the link or citation so we can find it.

Example:
The turnaround approach is new to schools but we do have four years of experience that says that it works. Forty three of our 44 schools in the program to date have hit their stated turnaround targets—a record we believe to be unmatched. Indeed, we back it with a warranty: if a school uses this approach and does not achieve success, we give the money back.

Tracking to Success

12. Halfway through your program, how will you know if participants are on course to achieve results with the time and money remaining? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
The easy answer to this question is “we have spent half the money and are on course with our work plan.” This, unfortunately, says nothing about the relationship between money spent and participant progress. The key is to shift the focus from what you do to what your participants are getting. We call these interim success points milestones.

Ask yourself “What predicts success?” What do we know to look for during the middle of a program that says participants are “getting it” or in other ways on track? This approach has the value of ensuring a focus on predictive factors, which may include:

* How many people have already achieved the result;
* The number who are reflecting changes to predict later success; and
* Any key infrastructure needed for full success-whether a curriculum designed, an assumption tested, or anything else.

Example:
Our principals work with teachers to gain readings on child progress at four points during the year. These are not “practice tests” but rather clear demonstrations of the knowledge and competency that needs to build if a child is to pass the high stakes test in the Spring and become proficient in a core subject. When insufficient numbers of students are on track at these four points in time, course corrections are made, first at the individual teacher level and then with broader resource realignments as needed.

13. What information will you generate and use to track success and make course corrections in your program? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
We have learned that if an organization serves more than 50-100 persons it cannot effectively use information without a system for doing so. Please describe the software or other tools you are using and how it generates information for improving programs, not just reporting on them.

We are just as interested in what information a front-line worker gets and what kinds of changes they make based on data as how this works for a project director.

Example:
We incorporate milestone exams into our program. Results from these exams allow principals and teachers to identify areas that need to be re-taught as well as areas in which students score exceptionally high.

14. How will you know if your results have been achieved? What evidence will you use to verify success? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
Foundations often ask you for an evaluation plan. We are much more concerned with your looking at assessment as an integral part of what you do to track to and verify success. Think of this way: forget the funder — how will you know when to celebrate success?

Verification (yes or no—did you achieve stated results?) is easier and less costly than evaluation (to answer the questions about what happened) but it is not easy to approach. You may well be able to use existing data bases or rely on existing measuring instruments. Or you may be able to use observations and reports by others, or in some cases self-reported behaviors.

Example:
We use scores on the high stakes test to verify achievement. In those instances where the test is considered unreliable, we agree upon a different test. In those instances where we might conceivably focus on creative writing, problem-solving or other skills not readily measured by “tests”, we will rely on established and explicit rubrics that are competency based and verified by persons not associated with those students or our program.

15. What do you most want to learn from this project? (Limit 200 words.)

Guidance:
High performing organizations make learning intentional in everything they do. Many do this by focusing on their assumptions. In most projects, you are making one or more key assumptions in the general form of if-then. If we offer this kind of program, then that kind of person will attend. It is your expectation that an activity prompts a certain consequence but it may well be far from a certainty. In that case your learning might be to test an assumption.

Learning is important as a guide to designing a project. If, for example, you want to grow, you might well build in a test of whatever achievement you need to make growth possible. This could be hiring great people for the money you can pay them, attracting new kinds of participants, or anything else.

Example:
In our next year, we want to learn whether there are core human characteristics that we can define as associated with successful turnaround principals. If so, we can use them as predictive factors when we pre-qualify leaders of failing schools for our program. We will actually be testing more systematically the assumption that five specified characteristics (starting with degree of positive energy) are associated with turnaround success.

If you have additional questions while completing the online application, please do not hesitate to reach out to a member of our program staff for guidance.