Grants of up to $5,000 Available to Organizations that Encourage Their Members to Participate in Countywide Community Forums

As a leader in King County, you work hard every day to improve our communities and help others. We'd like to thank you by offering a grant to your organization. To be eligible, you need to be a Partner of CCF and help us generate survey responses for our upcoming Round 8 forum.

Countywide Community Forums (CCF) is a volunteer-driven organization that promotes citizen engagement and citizen discussions about issues impacting King County.  Previous CCF forum topics have included Public Safety, Equity & Economic Opportunity, Budget, and Public Transportation.  CCF's mission is to reach out to diverse communities and promote equal opportunity. CCF is overseen by King County Auditor's Office and is underwritten by Dick's Drive-In Restaurants.

To Become a Partner of CCF for Round 8:

1. Please provide a high resolution logo to CCF (CommunityForums@KingCounty.gov) by August 22, 2011. 

2. Please provide a contact person to receive our emails, be invited to our facilitator training, and coordinate communications.

3.  Partner agrees to promote CCF logo and survey via website, Facebook, Twitter, and/ or email.  CCF encourages partners to customize and forward draft partner emails prepared by CCF.

4.  Partners can be non-profit or for-profit, political or non-political.  However, for-profit organizations must designate a non-profit or charitable organization as their designated beneficiary in the grant competition.

5.  CCF retains the right to deny any partner application (for example, in the unlikely case of an applicant that encourages violent, illegal or inappropriate activity).

6.  Partners are encouraged to host at least one in-person forum during Round 8 (August 19th - October 23rd, 2011).  Round 8's in-person forum is designed to be completed in 30 minutes and can be part of your meeting or event.  Topic video DVD and paper surveys will be provided by CCF, and CCF will be happy to provide a facilitator if needed. 

 

Grants will be awarded to qualified Partners based on the following criteria:

Platinum Grant: $5,000   to the top single organization that generates the most responses (at least 500 responses). 

Gold Grants: $1,500   for each organization that generates at least 500 responses but did not receive the Platinum Grant.

**BRIGHT Silver Grants: $1000   for each organization that generates 300 - 499 responses. 

Silver Grants: $750   for each organization that generates 200 - 299 responses.

**BRIGHT Bronze Grants: $500   for each organization that generates 100 - 199 responses.

Bronze Grants: $250   for each organization that generates 50 - 99 responses. 

Bonus Grant: $1,000    to the top single organization that generates the most paper survey responses by hosting one or more live forums where the participants meet, discuss the issues, and complete the survey in person, face-to-face, in real time. Platinum Grant recipient not eligible for the bonus grant.

** New Categories

For Each Survey Response to Count:

1.  Each survey respondent must provide 1) Email Address, 2) Zip Code, and 3) Confirmation That They Live or Work in King County. (This information will be kept separate from survey responses, to ensure privacy.)  

2. Each survey respondent must select your organization from the CCF Partner list provided in the survey.  Participants must select only one CCF Partner for a selection to be counted on a paper survey.  The online survey will not allow a participant to designate multiple CCF Partners.

3. Each survey response (online or paper) will count equally towards winning the grant.

4. Only one survey response per email address will count towards the grant. If there are multiple responses to the same survey from one email address, only the first complete one will be kept.

5. Your members can double the number of completed surveys attributable to your organization for Round 8 if they share their opinions on both (a) "Unincorporated King County" and (b) "King County Budget:  Achieving Sustainability Together".  If an individual completes both surveys, and selects your organization as the CCF Partner both times, your organization will be credited for generating two responses.  In that way an organization with only 50 members could generate enough CCF participation to qualify for a Bronze Grant.

6. All surveys must be completed during Round 8:  August 19, 2011 through October 23, 2011.  Paper surveys will not be counted for purposes of the grant competition unless they are properly certified by the host and received by the King County Auditor's Office no later than 4PM on October 26, 2011.