North-South Conference: Building Partnerships for Sustainable Development

Simulation Schedule | Teleconference Schedule | Rules
Participant Resources | Scenario: North-South Conference

Planning and Writing a Vision Statement and a Project Proposal

This document tells you how to plan and write your Vision Statement and your Project Proposal. The Vision Statement consists of Sections I, II and III, but does not name individual partners. The final Project Proposal consists of Sections I through VI .

Your project proposal will ultimately consist of five parts:

1. A description of the needs you have identified in the region. Some of the information you need to be able to write this section can probably be found in the region and country descriptions and the articles linked from those pages. However, in order to plan a project that both meets needs as perceived by the community and supports self-sufficiency and sustainability, you will need to learn more. Here is a list of some of the questions you should take into consideration in developing your detailed proposal.
   
   
2. An overview of your NGO's proposed initiative (Hint: The lower-left quadrant of your organization's SWOT analysis should list the "opportunities" your NGO has identified – the specific ways in which your project will contribute to sustainable development in the chosen region.)
   
   This section of the document should describe
   • the project's scope (identify the various parts of the project);
   • the project's objectives (what benefits each activity should bring);
   • the project's desired outcomes (commonly referred to as "deliverables" – i.e., the concrete results the project should produce)
     
     
3. A description of the "work packages," i.e., the various specific actions (or "sub-projects") to be taken in the project (e.g. "construction of bio-latrines"), the justification for each "work package," the specific partner organizations responsible for carrying out those actions and why they were chosen. You may want to refer to this table summarizing the Project IDEELS work packages to get a rough idea of what this section of your proposal should cover.
   
   Tip: Since you will have described your objectives in the previous section, a concise explanation of how each activity relates to these objectives will be sufficient in this section.
   
   Note: In the first version of this document, aka the "Vision Statement," the project partners are not identified. During the working sessions in Weeks 1 & 2, your task will be to find willing partners with the necessary skills and expertise to carry out parts of your proposed project and to work out the details of your cooperation. What will each partner do and when?
   
   For any requirements (e.g., materials, expertise or funding) of the project that cannot be met by organizations within the simulation, you should try to identify and list potential partners in the real world. The various links pages and the current list of the "100 best corporate citizens" may help with this. Of course, since the links pages are suggestive rather than exhaustive, you may need to do your own searches as well.
   
   
4. A summary of the risks, constraints, and potential threats (the things you listed in the "T" part of the SWOT diagram).
   
   Note: This section is not included in the initial "Vision Statement."
   
   
5. A time schedule in diagram form that shows graphically the planned sequence of events during the life of the project: what actions must be taken first, what actions can/should overlap, etc.
   
   Note: This section is not included in the initial "Vision Statement."
   
   
6. A project budget. This should be based on the annual income of your organization (an amount somewhere between $80,000 and $1.5 million), plus any additional funds you expect to be able to raise. If your project plan relies on additional funding, this section should identify (realistic) potential sources of that additional income and indicate how your organization plans to go about raising that money. For information on preparing your project budget, click here
   
   Note: This section is not included in the initial "Vision Statement."