PARSA CF Announces 2007 Norooz Grantees!

PARSA Community Foundation awarded grants to six powerful projects for its 2007 Norooz grant cycle. The projects include a feature-length documentary about families in Iran, conservation of ancient artifacts from Persepolis, a leadership camp for Iranian-American youth, and civil society development within the Iranian-American community.

Call for Grant Applications
In February, PARSA sent out a call for grant applications suggesting the following areas:

- Micro grants for student-run or university-based organizations;
- Youth summer or holiday camps;
- Programs for the elderly;
- Documentaries and other artistic programs with potential for broad appeal, and/or commercial success; and
- Accurate 2010 Census.


Applications Received
We were overwhelmed by the creativity and diversity of the grant applications we received. The grant requests submitted were truly impressive and reflective of the invaluable work that our community is doing. We were inspired by the high-quality applications and the organizations' burning desire to induce positive community change. There are many organizations that are trying to integrate our nascent community into American civil life, such as the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement, and their impeccably written grant application illustrated how they have made great strides towards this goal in their anti-defamation work. There were also a number of community centers who applied, built as labors of love and staffed by volunteers, such as the Persian Cultural Club in Campbell, California. Organizations representing the Persian arts and dance also submitted strong applications, such as Afsaneh Arts and Culture Society, which laudably brings in diverse sources of funding as opposed to relying solely on ticket sales. We also received a number of applications from well-established scholarship funds, and were moved by the profound impact they are making on Iranian-American youth around the United States.


Selection Process
With countless examples of the heart and soul invested in building these nonprofits and the variety of proposals we received, you can imagine how difficult it was to decide which applications to select.  This was compounded by the fact that the total amount requested was over $2.7 million and our total grant-making budget was $114,000. We followed a rigorous evaluation process using 15 criteria to measure the effectiveness of each organization and project. The applications were then ranked based on their total score and a final vote was cast. We extend our heartfelt thanks to our board members, advisory board members such as Laura Arrillaga, and independent Grant Review Committee members such as Haideh Khorramabadi who provided us with invaluable input during the evaluation process. 

While innumerable hours were spent on the part of applicants to complete their applications, PARSA staff likewise dedicated months to meticulously reviewing every detail of each organization's submissions and replying to each individual email received. In addition, staff called each organization to review the final grant decision, offer the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback, and share ideas on ways to approach the next grant cycle. We were honored to receive positive feedback from applicants such as Dr. Nasrin Rahimieh, Chair and Director of Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at UC Irvine: "In my years of making grant applications, I have rarely come across this kind of nice human touch."


Grant Recipients
The organizations we awarded are Promises Films, Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, Iranian Alliances Across Borders, Children's Hope International Literacy and Development, Stanford University, and National Iranian-American Council.

Founded in 1996, Promises Films will be producing Global Moms: Iran, the first in a series of documentaries focusing on families around the world sharing their lives and values with viewers. We were truly touched by this story of what mothers in Iran go through to raise their children and by the rich motif of Persian arts that is incorporated into the art of child rearing by the Iranian families that will be filmed. We were also impressed by Director Justine Shapiro's past accomplishments as producer of Academy Award-nominated documentary Promises and host of the PBS travel series Globe Trekker, and Executive Producer Pamela Boll's success as an executive producer of Academy Award-winning documentary Born into Brothels. Please visit www.promisesfilms.com to learn more.

The University of Chicago's Oriental Institute conducted excavations in Iran in the 1930s and discovered the artifacts that are now on loan from Iran to the institute. These 2,500 year old tablets are being studied but have not yet been fully documented. With a lawsuit pending that threatens to seize these precious artifacts for private ownership, it is critical to create a public record of this prized part of our heritage. Although the university asked for $256,000, we were only able to make a small contribution to help expedite the documentation process. The University of Chicago is also seeking grants for a Chair in Iranian Studies to focus on pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid research. For more about their project, please visit www.oi.uchicago.edu.

Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB) is a group of young Iranians that have done an incredible job of building bridges between the U.S. and Iran. Founded in 2003 by two graduates from Wellesley College and Tufts University, they have completed two youth leadership camps, held three conferences on the Iranian diaspora, and granted scholarships. Although our grant to them is also small, we are hopeful that like-minded organizations will spring up around the country and that IAAB may serve as a great role model and partner. Their organization and work illustrates the value of Iranian-American youth staying connected to their roots and building leadership skills. For more information, please visit www.iranianalliances.org.

Children's Hope International Literacy Development's (C.H.I.L.D.) Youth Ambassadors of Hope is another example of PARSA's commitment to youth and the development of leaders. In only one year, they have done a wonderful job of raising funds and building a partnership with Ashoka (www.ashoka.org). Their program fosters the development of youth in leadership, teamwork and humanitarianism, as well as giving them the tools with which to create and operate their own organization - key business skills that will help youth succeed in the future. You can learn more at www.youthambassadorsofhope.org.

Stanford University's newly formed Persian Student Association - Business Alliance (PSA-BA) emphasizes business networking to ensure our continued economic strength, one of the key elements of an empowered immigrant community. PSA-BA is one of many promising efforts around the U.S. pursuing national networking and it will leverage the power of a business-oriented university to attract members to its network. We encourage them to cooperate with business networks around the U.S. and form exchanges that result in a project such as The Indus Entrepreneurs (www.tie.org). For more information, please visit http://psa.stanford.edu/ba.

National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) is a Persian nonprofit that has created a remarkably large fee-paying annual membership. Founded in 2002, its mailing list now boasts tens of thousands of people and it is instrumental in encouraging diplomatic solutions with Iran. It has been a de facto anti-defamation body in confronting National Geographic about its use of the term "Arabian Gulf" as opposed to "Persian Gulf" and convincing the producers of Crossing Over to modify their negative portrayal of Iranian-Americans in a film about honor killings. Its legislative watch program has informed the Persian community about important legislation and how it affects them. In light of the upcoming 2008 national elections, we think it is more important than ever to engage the community to register to vote, meet with their congressional representatives to voice their opinions and learn how to effectively gain recognition in the U.S. media. PARSA's grant will enable NIAC to implement ten workshops to train up to 500 community activists who in turn will be able to mobilize their local community to act and register to vote. Please visit www.niacouncil.org to learn more and to register to vote if you haven't already.

For more information on our grant recipients, please click here.


Strategic Philanthropy
We are so fortunate to live in the most philanthropic nation in the world where nine out of ten households make a donation each year and where 77% of the $260 billion in annual giving is made by individuals. As our fellow Americans are seeking strategies to get a higher return out of every dollar they donate, we in the Persian community are also striving for higher impact and endeavoring to learn from their best practices. This unprecedented national competitive grant process was our first step in practicing strategic philanthropy:

- seeking the most innovative ideas across the U.S.;
- signaling other donors by raising the visibility of grantees;
- documenting the process and improving it continuously for everyone's benefit; and
- giving funds institutionally rather than as individuals, hoping to increase accountability and better measure results.

If you are not already familiar with them, we encourage you to learn about the recipient organizations we have given grants to as well as other organizations that applied, such as NLSCA, Iranian Scholarship Fund, and Iranian Studies Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They are deserving of our community's support, so please look them up and contribute to them in any way you can: donating, volunteering and passing on the word. For a full list of applicants, please click here.

Next Grant Cycle
We invite you to join PARSA's Grant Review Committee and help steer our grant making to best meet the needs of our community.  Please email us at grants@parsacf.org if you are interested. Together we can grow donations for all nonprofits. We look forward to receiving letters of inquiry for the Mehregan grant cycle well before the application deadline of August 15.

Wishing you and your families a joyful summer,
PARSA Community Foundation Team:  Anouk Lim, Mariam Hosseini & Radha Blackman