*This is intended to be a sample proposal coming from a local RIF program to a community foundation or business. You can adapt this information to suit your own program’s needs. The formatting used in this sample proposal is the suggested way you format your own proposal to maximize the readability of the document. Any areas that need to be personalized with information from your particular program appear in parentheses.*

Cover Sheet

Date Submitted: May 15, 2006

Program: Smiley Elementary RIF1 Glendale AvenueSunny, PA 15555

IRS #- 00-1234567

Contact: Tom Jones1 Glendale AvenueSunny, PA 15555Phone numberE-mail

Dates for Proposed Program: August 27, 2006-June 15, 2007

Amount of Request: $3,000

Introduction

(We request $3,000 from the Kiwanis Club to help purchase 1,250 books for the 2006-2007 RIF program at Smiley Elementary. This program will provide three new, high-quality, and age appropriate books to each of 500 children in Kindergarten through sixth grade. We will also provide motivational activities through the year to encourage our students to discover the fun in reading. We share the Kiwanis Club’s mission of serving the children in our community, and our activities and book distributions are a way for us to enrich their lives by inspiring a lifelong love of reading )

Organization Information

(Smiley Elementary has organized a RIF program for 20 years. Through our history, we have served nearly 10,000 children and provided almost 30,000 books to them.)

We are a local program of Reading Is Fundamental, Inc (RIF). Founded in 1966, RIF is the oldest and largest nonprofit children’s and family literacy organization in the nation. RIF develops and delivers children’s and family literacy programs that help prepare young children for reading and motivate school-age children to read regularly.

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The National Book Program (NBP) is RIF’s flagship program. The NBP motivates children, families, and community members to read together through a triad of principles basic to the entire RIF organization: book ownership, motivational activities, and family involvement in children's reading.

Program Goals:

Provide new, free books and literacy resources to children and their families. Motivate children to read. Generate community support for literacy.

Program Components:

Books for ownership: Children have the opportunity to choose and keep three to five books per year at no cost to the children or their families.

Fun literacy-related activities: Reading really is FUNdamental in the RIF National Book Program. Volunteers motivate children to read with a myriad of festive book activities that accompany each book event.

Family and community involvement: RIF headquarters provides training and technical assistance to enable volunteer program coordinators at each site to recruit and train additional volunteers, who help run their NBP.

Statement of Need

(Over half of the children in our elementary school are considered at risk of educational failure, and at least three fourths of our community hovers near the poverty line. The reading scores on state achievement tests are just above the minimum required, but the teachers are committed to finding ways to raise student performance.) The U.S. Department of Education stated that “Offering extended learning opportunities is clearly one of the major ways that we will ensure that all children can read in this country by the end of the third grade (Bringing Education to After-School Programs. U.S. Department of Education, 1999).” RIF provides an excellent forum for to extend our reading program from the classroom to the home.

Project Description

Our RIF program will organize three book distributions for the entire school to attend. At each of these free distributions, each child will chose one book to keep. In addition to choosing a book, the children will also participate in fun literacy-related activities, such as hearing a book read aloud, learning interesting facts about children’s book authors, sharing their favorite books with others, or engaging in other specially designed, thematic activities.

Program Plan and Timeline

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As stated previously, we will hold three book distributions. Each of these distributions will have a different theme. Previous distributions have included a jungle theme, where many of the books featured wild animals, a celebration of Dr. Seuss’s birthday, and a “Celebrate America” day. (Our dedicated volunteers are already planning the first distribution, which will be a celebration for RIF’s 40th anniversary on November 3rd. Local stores have already committed to donating decorations and beverages for the “party,” and a local bakery will supply cupcakes for all the children, staff, and volunteers. Similar arrangements will be made for each of the distributions—local businesses and the parents of our students consistently provide much needed support in all aspects of the distributions. The school’s staff and faculty coordinate the planning and organizing the volunteers.)

The dates for distributions are:

(November 3, 2006- RIF’s 40th Birthday CelebrationFebruary 20, 2007- (tentative theme) Celebrate America

April 25, 2007- (tentative theme) Books on the Beach

The school has all ready reserved the rooms for us to use, and our PTA organization will begin promoting the distributions at its meetings in the late summer. Our book selection committee will place an order for books with RIF national in the first week of September, and the books will be stored at the elementary school.)

Budget

Item Grant support Community support(1,250 books $3,000 $2,000 from PTADecorations In-kind contributions from

local organizationsFood and Beverages for Distributions

In-kind contributions from local organizations)

Program Evaluation Plan

We evaluate the efficacy of the RIF program as a part of our efforts to increase reading scores on standardized tests. We also consider the children’s reactions to the RIF program and note any increases in reading for pleasure. We survey the parents of all the children to see if they notice any increase or change in their children’s reading habits.

Attachments

501(c)(3) IRS Determination Letter(Photos, newspaper articles, etc.)

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