Congratulations on receiving funding for your proposal!

Please review these documents before getting started on your Students Beyond Boundaries service-learning project. All documents described here can be found In the Award Packet folder at the “Documents” link, above.

Information for the Student Leader. The Student Project Leader is responsible for the making sure the project is carried out and for completing the mandatory online Progress and Final reports.

Information for the Faculty Sponsor. Please make sure the Faculty Sponsor has a copy of this document. The Faculty Sponsor should meet these obligations and follow these guidelines throughout the project.

Information for the Community Partner. Please give this document, along with the Community Partner Survey, to the designated contact at your partner organization.

Community Partner Survey. Please give this survey to your Community Partner, along with the Information for the Community Partner. At the end of the project, each community partner involved in the project should complete the survey. It can be completed online or on paper and returned to the Midwest Consortium for Service-Learning.

How to Use Your Project Ning Site. This document informs Project Leaders how to adapt and populate their mandatory Project Ning site set up by the Students Beyond Boundaries administrators and linked to StudentsBeyondBoundaries.org. It also provides suggestions for involving others in your online community.

Image Waiver. Each Participant who is filmed or recorded for this project must complete and return an Image Waiver in order to for his or her likeness to be published. Participants who do not complete an image waiver should not have their likeness published. If your institution has a standard waiver, feel free to use it. If one is not available, please feel free to use the Image Waiver provided.

Progress and Final Report Questions. These are questions each Project Leader will be expected to answer when he or she completes the final online report for the Students Beyond Boundaries initiative. Please review this document when you are getting started so you will It be aware of information you should keep track of during your project’s implementation.

How to Create your Multimedia Showcase. This document gives some ideas and lists some resources for creating the Multimedia Showcase for the project at the completion of the service.

You might also find the following instructions helpful:

1. When you get your NING site invitation, make the site fit your service learning project: NING is a social media collaboration site that is easy to configure and will serve as the central hub of all of your service learning activity.  After you have been assigned an administrative role by the SBB administrator, you will invite participants to build a profile on your site, upload pictures and video, and participate in your forum.  More information on managing and using NING can be found NING's help page.
2. Invite participants to create a profile on your NING site: The success of your project will be evaluated by the service that you provide to your community AND the number of individuals that you are able to engage.  This grant specifically monitors how many people take an active role in your project (service learners) as well as how many view your site and/or volunteer to serve (participants), so get the word out!  More information on innovative ways to publicize your project can be found under the "Learn" tab.
3. Purchase supplies outlined in your budget: Most projects will require a few resources in order to successfully accomplish your goals.  Go ahead and purchase the supplies that you proposed in your budget. Turn in your receipts to your faculty advisor so that he/she can submit them for reimbursement.
4. Recruit, Recruit, Recruit!: Now is the time to begin rounding up your manpower and womanpower!  Spread the word with posters, on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, online communities, offline communities.....wherever!  More information and ideas for recruiting can be found under the "Learn" tab on our site.
5. Plan how you will record your event and how you will have your workers reflect on their experience: Again, the success of your project will be determined not only by the task itself, but by reporting the personal reflections of the workers who take part. There are many creative ways to report this information.  You may choose to have your participants respond to questions afterward (have clipboards ready....), video record their reflections which will be submitted as a movie (YouTube), create a narrated photojournalistic report, a podcast--you get the idea!  For more ideas on how to submit this important conclusion to your project, check out the "Learn" tab.
6. Have a disaster plan ready: You've heard the adage, "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."  Have a plan for notifying volunteers (Twitter works great) if weather threatens or delays occur.  For more ideas of what you should consider, check out the "Learn" tab.
7. Carry out your plan!