Fall, 1996

Dear Potential Partner:

Are you interested in having high school students who are participating in "Nonprofit Prophets" create a World Wide Web page for your organization? This letter outlines your chance to have that very thing accomplished.

What exactly is it that the students might do for you? Basically, they will help you design and then they will create a World Wide Web site for your nonprofit organization. This is a win-win from all sides: you get a Web page and the students get the chance to connect with you, individuals who share their passionate concern about a social or environmental issue.

Before you commit to being a "partner," you need to be certain that you have:

1. A communication need that a Web page could satisfy.

2. Some organizational or personal resources to support working with the students. This would be a key person who will act as the contact point and mentor for students and any additional staff that might be needed to provide the students with timely feedback (1 week turnaround is the expectation). This key person should be interested in working with high school students and view the students' growth as at least as important as the completion of a Web page.

3. Access to the technologies of:
   • e-mail
   • Internet / World Wide Web
   • Video Conferencing
   • FAX (optional, but useful)

   These technologies can often be accessed via many public libraries.

4. Eagerness to make sure that the project is successful - for you, your organization and the student. This is not an opportunity to wash your hands of a problem. Nor is it appropriate to accept less than professional work from the students as they have chances to revise their products after feedback from multiple sources. Also, enough support should exist in the form of technology mentors that the final World Wide Web page should be a source of pride for all involved.

5. Time to attend an initial presentation / orientation. Groups will meet via videoconferencing to get everyone "on the same page." You will also need to allocate time for "virtual" meetings via e-mail and videoconferencing.

   In preparing to participate in this project you should be able to identify:

   • The needs of the target population served your organization.

   • Your organization's main goals in serving this population.

   • Your goals for a World Wide Web page.

   The above three key points should be typed up and e-mailed to Tom March (tmarch@mail.sdsu.edu) so that they can be posted on the World Wide Web for students to access. This will help the students decide which groups match up with their interests.

It is my job to make sure that all student groups find some organization with whom to make contact. Unfortunately, I can not guarantee that there will be a student team for each nonprofit group interested in joining the project.

Obviously, some risk exists for partners as well as students. For partners, the risk comes from the fact that these are high school students learning to be professionals. For students, they must open themselves up to strangers and to give an all-out effort. Based upon a similar, though smaller scale, project conducted the past two years, both students and partners should see Nonprofit Prophets as a win-win endeavor. Those of us in the schools are proud of what our students can do when they are presented with an authentic and compelling challenge. We appreciate your interest in making this challenge come to life.

If you are interested, please call Tom March - (619) 594-4402 - or e-mail him (tmarch@mail.sdsu.edu) if you would like to submit yourself or your organization as a partner. You may also register via the Participation Form.

I look forward to seeing you "Online" and anticipate a "prophetable" relationship.

Respectfully,

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Last revised October 13, 1996 By Tom March, tmarch@mail.sdsu.edu Applications Design Team/Wired Learning http://www.kn.att.com/wired/prophets/prophets.partners.html Copyright © 1996 Pacific Bell -- All Rights Reserved