RT2C W1D1 Capstone

Proposal Project

The Capstone Proposal Project Option

The Capstone Proposal Project provides you with an opportunity to frame a social impact project that could be funded by a foundation, corporation, venture capital firm, government agency, or other capital resource. The method used for this Capstone Proposal is to identify a service, program, or product the student believes will have a social impact in their organization, neighborhood, city, state, country, or globally. While you are encouraged to think on a large scale, you are advised to create a pilot program that if successful can be replicated on a much larger scale. For example, if you want to develop a leadership training program for a school district, the pilot might focus on one particular school, allowing you to work out the flaws and to learn from the smaller experience before moving on to the larger entity. Likewise if you have a product you believe is worthy of introducing into a market, you would be advised to field test the product in a representative area before trying to market the product more globally. In addition to being a prudent business strategy, funders or financial backers often want to field test ideas before fully investing in them on a much larger basis. If on the other hand, if you are working for an organization, you might want to take an existing idea, service, program, or product and expand it. Then you already have in effect "piloted" the program and service and are looking to now broaden its reach. In either case however, you must look at the larger picture and think in the larger more macro context as part of writing the proposal: From the larger idea comes the pilot. The emphasis for this Capstone Proposal Project is a proposal designed to create a real-world social impact should it become funded. Therefore, you must write a well-organized proposal that has real-world potential for funding. The proposal must match criteria outlined by a foundation of your choosing. There are too many potential grant makers to provide a comprehensive list; however, a brief list of selected potential funding sources is listed in the resources section of the course to give you a start. For foundations not included on the list, use the Foundation Center link in the Syllabus to obtain information on foundations of which you might be more familiar. Other helpful source links are also provided to give a head start on finding funding. You can also obtain information for venture capital firms by using the business and government libraries as an initial source. The format for this project proposal will help you develop a general proposal that can be tailored to meet the funding criteria for a major foundation proposal after the conclusion of your program here at Walden University. Every foundation and funding source has its unique criteria and application processes. However, by completing this project proposal format you will be well on your way towards being able to submit a proposal to an actual foundation. See attachment of the “Capstone Proposal Project template” to begin documenting your work throughout the duration of this course.