VT Unity Project Needs Your Help

    The Vermont Unity Project, a cooperative LGBTQ fundraising project of the Samara Foundation and The Vermont Community Foundation, wants your help. It's simple: fill out the survey at:
     www.samarafoundation.org/programs_sub05.html
      The survey is part of the “needs assessment” component of the project, which hopes to use the information to educate big-money grantors and funders to the needs of our LGBTQ communities.
      “It’s the first time the questions have been asked: what are we doing well, what do we need to do better, what aren’t we doing at all that we should be,” declared Samara Executive Director Bill Lippert. “In the survey, we ask people to rate the importance of various issues and needs. What are the top three needs?” In addition, there’s space for people “to project issues we haven’t identified,” he said.
     Lippert emphasized that the questionnaire is completely anonymous. Demographic data requested will be compiled, but no single record will be released, and no answers will be associated with a specific person’s data. Every nonprofit in Vermont will have access to a report based on the aggregated data.
      The needs assessment will help the Unity Project “prioritize” grants from funds raised through the project. Organizations within the LGBTQ communities will also be surveyed.
     The survey itself and the eventual report is available online, according to Ted Looby, Administrative Director for Samara. If you'd rather sit with a hard copy of the survey, you can find it tucked into OITM this month. It'is postage paid – just fill it out, fold it, seal it and drop it in a mailbox.
      “In some sense, the needs assessment is also a gift to the community,” said Lippert. “It’s something that hasn’t been done before.”