Are you or someone you know interested in being a Powered by Rural Presenter? Be a part of the 2013 Regards to Rural Conference. Help shape the future of rural communities with innovative and inspiring workshop presentations. Rural Development Initiatives (RDI), in partnership with Oregon State University Rural Studies Program and Extension Service, is searching for high impact presenters and programming for the Regards to Rural Conference to be held Friday and Saturday, June 21-22, 2013 at Oregon State University in Corvallis, with pre-sessions on Thursday, June 20. Download the RFP guidelines here. Submit a proposal via our online form. Deadline is October 19, 2012.

The Learn By Doing Grant Writing Workshop Series will be offered to all nonprofit organizations in Marion and Linn Counties in the Fall of 2012. The workshop is hosted by the Gates Fire District Emergency Support Services in Gates, Oregon with generous financial support from the Oregon Community Foundation and The Ford Family Foundation.

The workshop is designed to help beginning and intermediate grant writers working in nonprofit organizations increase their skills at developing project proposals and successfully plan, write and attain grant funding from local and regional funding sources.

Participants can expect the following:

• Participants will actively work on different elements of grant proposals during each session and will have opportunities for skills practice between sessions. 
• Participants will network with other local grant writers and build relationship for future work.
• Participants will meet with funders and hear about available grant programs.
• Participants can take advantage of opportunities for review of grant work (for work that is completed during the course of the series).

Nonprofit organizations are encouraged to bring more than one board member, staff or volunteer from each organization. Please bring planning work for proposals that your organization is currently working on and ideas for proposals that you’d like to start. The cost for the series (including lunches) is $95 per person. Early registration is encouraged; the series will be limited to 36 participants. Some scholarships are available for participants from rural areas of the Counties.

Series Schedule: The four part series will be held on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (each session will include a lunch). The schedule for the series will be as follows:

Session 1: October 10
Positioning Your Organization to be Grant Smart
Funder Presentation: Oregon Community Foundation

Session 2: October 24
Project Planning Tools and Practice, Grant Review
Funder Presentation: Spirit Mountain Community Fund

Session 3: November 7
Budgeting and Project Evaluation
Funder Presentation: The Ford Family Foundation

Session 4: November 28
Project Evaluation and Organizational Site Visits
Development Presentation: Rural Development Initiatives

The workshop sessions will be facilitated by Meredith Howell and Donna Chickering from Rural Development Initiatives. Both facilitators have significant experience working as grant writers for various nonprofit organizations and as nonprofit consultants helping organizations build strategic and sustainable funding plans that include grant work.

Please call Cindy Brunson at 541-684-9077, extension #1, or email her at cindybrunson@rdiinc.org to make your reservations, or to inquire about scholarship information.  Registration will not be complete without payment.  Please mail payment to Rural Development Initiatives at 150 Shelton-McMurphey Blvd, Suite 201, Eugene, OR 97401.

The Morrow County Ford Institute Leadership Program class held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday, Aug. 17, to celebrate the completion of their project, a covered picnic shelter at the Morrow County Fairgrounds.