Monday, April 22, 2002

By: Elissa Garriss, PR Intern

WILMINGTON, NC – Utilizing a $115,000 grant from the Cape Fear Memorial Foundation, UNCW will soon provide grant writing and program evaluation assistance to non-profit organizations in New Hanover County. The grant will provide the initial two-year funding to help establish the Grant Support Program (GPS) Center housed in the Department of Social Work at UNCW working in collaboration with the New Hanover County social service community.

The GPS Center will help the non-profit organizations in the community overcome their two major challenges of initial funding and sustainability. Many of the non-profit agencies in New Hanover County do not have the resources to access professional grant writers to help augment their budgets, and because of this, many are at risk of financial insolvency. The GPS Center will allow these organizations to develop the ability to find sources for grant opportunities as well as offer intensive, side-by-side, grant writing support to the agencies. The GPS center will also provide program evaluation design and implementation to help non-profits document the effectiveness of their work.

Program evaluation is a critical component for grants to be successful, explained Dr. Art Frankel, distinguished visiting professor of social work at UNCW and author of the grant to the Cape Fear Memorial Foundation. “Building in program evaluation methods helps the grantor and grantee know if the program is working as proposed,” he said.

Many faculty from UNCW are expected to be involved in the activities of the GPS Center, offering their expertise to evaluate grant-supported programs in their disciplines. “For example,” Dr. Frankel noted, “as part of a grant request dealing with delinquency and alcohol and drug abuse, we’ve included a faculty member with expertise in juvenile justice to design and be a part of the program evaluation process.

“Applying this special expertise in such areas as nursing, marine science, criminal justice, and psychology will make local grants more competitive on a national level. It also provides a tremendous resource to the local non-profits,” commented Dr. Frankel.

“There has been a tremendous support from the faculty, members of the university, and staff from non-profit organizations,” he said. “Along with the wonderful grant from the Cape Fear Memorial Foundation, Jo Ann Seiple, dean of UNCW’s College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Nelson Reid, chair of the Department of Social Work have also been particularly helpful, committing some university resources to help establish this collaborative UNCW-community support project,” he said.

There will be no charge from the university to provide this grant writing support. By building in funding within new grant requests to support program design and evaluation, the GPS Center is expected to be self-supporting after two years. The goal after two years is to be submitting 50 grants a year with non-profit organizations in New Hanover County. In addition, the center will be working with the non-profit community to develop ongoing workshops in grant writing and program evaluation.

“We are so excited about this,” said Garry Garris, president of the Cape Fear Memorial Foundation. “The Grant Support Program Center is what we have wanted to put in place for years, and the university is the perfect place to house it.

“The Cape Fear Memorial Foundation has worked with over a hundred organizations in the past five years, and we’ve noticed that many don’t have the administrative depth to run their organizations and handle the fund raising efforts needed to sustain their organization. This grant to the GPS Center at UNCW is an investment in infrastructure from our perspective,” Mr. Garris said.

Cape Fear Memorial Foundation, a private, non-operating foundation located in Wilmington, was created to serve the health and medical needs of the people of Southeastern North Carolina. Earnings on its assets of some $65 million support charitable not-for-profit organizations providing health and medical services and health education. It has invested about $12 million in the community over the past five years.

Cape Fear Memorial Foundation was founded in 1996 when Cape Fear Memorial Hospital, Inc. was sold after serving the community for forty years. Dr. R. T. Sinclair, Jr., one of the hospital’s founders, envisioned a foundation as a way to continue the hospital’s philosophy of caring.

###

NOTE TO MEDIA: For more information on the GPS Center, contact Dr. Arthur Frankel at (910) 962-4115, FrankelA@uncwil.edu.