Community Development
With a focus on Community Development, your placement will be concentrated on efforts to increase the capacity of the host organization you are working with. Many of our partners persevere to advance education, provide healthcare, and deliver social services in their communities. However, they often lack the resources. Often times they simply do not have access to finances or technology. In other cases, further training might be needed. With a Community Development focus, there is a wide variety of projects you can put your time and energy towards. The most common activities in community development are grant writing and donor development, program development, and publications. All Community Development Activities are done in consultation with your host organization, and you will receive first-rate guidance from local staff. We have many current opportunities with a Community Development focus, and students may use the placement for course credit through our Internship Abroad program.
Grant Writing & Donor Development
One of the greatest challenges our partners face is a lack of financial stability. Often funds fall short. Furthermore, they may come from a few select sources. This means that if one funder stops funding a project for any given reason, the work of our partner suffers largely. In an effort to improve financial stability, our partners are looking to diversify and increase their funding base. In order to do this, participants are needed to research and write grants, as well as to identify and build relationships with donors.
Program Development
A program is a framework used to deliver a specific service. By developing a program, you will be developing a framework to be used by local staff and future volunteers. Often times our partners would like to engage in a new program, but must put all of their time into running current activities; therefore, your role will be to develop this new program. In other cases, you may be asked to improve upon an existing program. Components of program development include conducting a SWOT analysis (Assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), developing program delivery materials, estimating a budget, and creating an evaluation tool. Program development is done under the guidance of local staff.
Publications
Often times our partners have a need to increase their presence in their immediate community, city, country, or on the web. As such, the relevant print and electronic publications need to be created. In a Publications placement, you will concentrate efforts on creating and designing publications, or writing literature for publications.
Where we Have a Community Development Focus
We have Volunteer Abroad and Internship Abroad placements focused on Community Development in every location where we work. This includes the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Peru, and Colombia.