Country: United States
Organization: Random Turtle Productions
3) Strategy Summary:
To develop and conduct medical training seminars for
Physician Assistants who wish to volunteer on medical
missions in impoverished areas. PA's are currently
required to obtain 50 hours of continuing education
credits every two years and most employers pay all or a
portion of the fees associated with obtaining these
credits. My strategy is to charge the standard fee for the
conference and train the PA's in the treatment of the
types of illnesses seen in the third world i.e. cholera.
The following year of the two year cycle the PA's would
use their employers funding to travel to a medical mission
and use their new knowledge to assist those in need. In
essence, nobody will be spending any additional money to
send the PA's to volunteer!
4) How the Strategy Works:
There are many diverse organizations, government entities,
educational
facilities, and community groups in most cities and larger
towns.
Unfortunately many people simply aren't aware of this
great diversity or the
opportunities available offered by these groups. The goal
of the "Explorers'
Guide to (Your City)" book project is to:
- Collect submissions from as many local groups as
possible.
- Promote local businesses with advertisments in
exchange for monetary or
services "sponsorship" to cover printing and other costs.
- Involve the whole community in learning about their
own community.
- Create interest, and ownership, of the community.
5) Key Strategy Elements:
i. Mobilizing Citizen Support:
The Explorers' Guide to (Your Community) is innovative
because it seeks to involve as many diverse groups as
possible, and helps promote involvement and interest in
the group's own projects. The groups, the businesses, and
the general public will become more interested in being
involved, and offering assistance, to eachother in order
to make the community stonger.
ii. Generating Financial and Nonfinancial Resources:
This project can be made self sustaining, if enough groups
and businesses can be convinced to take part. And initial
sponsorships may generate further support of both monetary
and other substantial donations for all organizations
involved.
iii. Establishing Relationships with Strategic Partnerships:
The more groups can collaborate, the more powerful they
become. Many community groups operate in a vacuum, and
have no idea what other groups are doing. By offering all
these groups an opportunity to collaborate, and to get to
know oneanother, the community becomes stonger. By
collabrating on such a fun, educational project aimed at
the general public, all of the groups become heros in the
community's eyes.
iv. Engaging and Managing Volunteers:
The groups themselves become volunteers initially, and
then when the Explorers' Guide is distributed to the
public, the public will become interested in volunteering.
v. Developing Information and Spreading the Message:
The format of a printed book can be expanded to a website,
events, news articles, etc. These varying forms of media
can give the groups and businesses involved far more reach
than any one of them could have. The fun, educational
frame for the project makes the information accessable to
more people than the more traditional, serious types of
outreach many groups do.
6) Increasing Self-sufficiency and Social Impact:
By bringing together such a diverse group of community
members the coordinating organization gains strength,
publicity, and use the assets of the community to make a
significantly larger impact than one organization on it's
own could accomplish. The Explorers' Guide project is
flexible enough to be on-going, or could be limited to
just the one-time book. This flexibility helps make it
adaptable for any organization which seeks to raise
awareness of community issues, while increasing the
strength of and support for the organization.
8) Organization Mission and Vision:
Random Turtle Productions is an organization created to
promote sustainable, compassionate, rational, and fun
solutions to problems on a local and global scale. These
goals are achieved through projects that involve
education, art, and hands on activities for humans of all
ages and cultures.
Looking Forward to the Next Three Years:
This initial book for our city will hopefully be done in
less than 6 months. Borader applications may come from it,
if there is enough support,
Contact Information:
Turil Cronburg
Random Turtle Productions
15 Westminster Street, #3, Somerville, Massachuset
United States
Tel: 617-628-6250
Email: turtle@zworg.com
Website: www.randomturtle.org
Return to Home Page