Are you planning a service project for you, your youth group, school or community? Here’s a checklist to help you along the way:
- Determine what core societal issues matter to you most. (i.e. hunger, homelessness, bullying, women’s right, child abuse, gun control, LGBTQ equality, racial bias, literacy).
- Do some research. What organizations are already working to try and change these issues? Determine if it is important to you whether or not the organization is local.
- Check The Good People Fund grantee list by category to determine if any of our Good People are engaged in this issue. Contact us if you would like an introduction.
- Partner with someone at one of the organizations to plan a Good Service Project. If you choose a Good People Fund grantee, we will help make that match.
- Use our Good Service Model to plan a thorough approach. There are five core components to The Good Service Model. See if you can come up with at least one task for EACH of the five areas:
- Service (direct service, volunteering, client encounters)
- Philanthropy (tzedakah, fundraising, designated giving, donation of items, securing in-kind support)
- Advocacy (political action, policy impact, activism, justice work, petitioning)
- Community Engagement (recruitment, engaging others, gathering support, creating avenues for communal involvement)
- Education (learning core/system issue history and impacts, gathering background information, collecting stories, developing Jewish values connections, raising awareness in others, developing personal relevance.
- Take time for reflection throughout your project.
- What is going well?
- What challenges are you facing?
- What have you learned?
- What have you seen?
- How do you feel?
- What else could you be doing?
- Who else can you involve?
- What’s the most creative/innovative way to approach this project?
- What tools could you be using to help you?
- Who is impacting you the most during this project?
- What Jewish values/lessons have you encountered or learned?
- Evaluate the Good Service Project intermittently or as it concludes:
- Ask the charitable organization partner what you could have done differently.
- Ask them how you might measure the success and impact of the project.
- Ask others you have involved what you did well or could have done differently.
- Determine what resources you might need in order to continue.
- What new relationships have you made?
- How will you maintain them?
- Were you the most effective you could have been at planning and implementation?
