Denver Chapter of Trout Unlimited

February 17, 2020February 18, 2020 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

The Denver Chapter of Trout Unlimited’s mission is restoring the Denver South Platte as a unique urban fishery, educating local organizations, outreach for disadvantaged youth, creating fish habitat.

The Denver Chapter of Trout Unlimited is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following project:

Information Dissemination: Rework an older website into something with a more modern, responsive design that better aligns with mobile use. The website should include integration with fundraising, events, and the organization’s other social media sites, which include Instagram and Facebook.

A Little Help

January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

A Little Help‘s mission is to help older adults thrive by connecting neighbors across generations.

A Little Help (ALH) is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Research Design: What does it take to get younger volunteers (20 – 30 year olds) involved with ALH and sustain their participation? Currently we have a hard time retaining young volunteers. Many of them sign-up to volunteer, go through the required background check, but communication drops from there.
Information Dissemination: We need help reaching younger audiences (20 – 30 year olds) to recruit as volunteers. How can we use social media to market our organization and recruit volunteers? How can we reach and engage college students?
Information Dissemination: We would like someone to review our website and marketing materials and make recommendations to improve our messaging for a diversity of audiences. We have a wide demographic of potential volunteers but we are not sure what works and does not work for them when viewing and using our website/materials.
Program Evaluation: We would like to have students look at ALH’s process in how we intake applications, match folks etc. If possible, we would like someone to assess our Help Connect online system. Is the system and process working well for volunteers? Can we be doing something better?
Program Evaluation/Creative Work: We want help assessing our volunteer orientation process and training video. We want to collect feedback from our volunteers to learn what questions they need help answering and what methods of teaching/communication work best for them. How can we improve our orientation and training processes (e.g. have a weekly open house for volunteers to chat and ask questions)? What is the best way to get our training out there and encourage interaction among volunteers?

Colorado Black Health Collaborative

December 19, 2019January 23, 2020 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

The Colorado Black Health Collaborative‘s (CBHC) mission is to achieve health equity in Colorado’s Black Community.

CBHC is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Information Dissemination: We would like help turning our in-person trainings focused on health education and screenings into online/recorded training modules to increase our reach to community members.
Literature Review: We are interested in researching the unknown/buried history of Black/African Americans who have contributed to health and wellness of the Black community here in Colorado.
Creative Work (MATCHED): We would like a DU partner to create a miniature model floorplan and (if possible) a virtual tour of a barbershop/salon to showcase CBHC’s education and screening programs held in those locations.
Research Design: We are open to working with students who want to learn more about the Black community by respectfully engaging with our community and have self-directed research project ideas.

The Nature Conservancy

August 29, 2019January 15, 2020 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

The Nature Conservancy‘s mission is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends.

The Nature Conservancy is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Research Design/ Data Collection/ Data Analysis: Collect, analyze, and/or model new or existing data related to tree canopy, the built environment, and environmental factors such as heat and air quality to better understand existing conditions in vulnerable neighborhoods (Globeville, Elyria-Swansea to start), potential future scenarios depending on varied levels of investment in new tree canopy, and associated public health outcomes.
The Nature Conservancy is working in the Globeville, Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods of Denver to develop an implementation plan to move the community from 5% tree canopy to 20% tree canopy over an urgent but realistic time-frame (e.g., by 2050). We are hoping to develop a program with the City and other partners to invest in nearly 10,000 trees in the neighborhood to be planted over the next decade.
- Data Collection/ Data Analysis: As part of that plan, we want to better understand what current social, cultural, economic, and psychological beliefs and barriers might exist regarding trees and planting trees; what strategies or resources might help the community overcome some of those challenges and influence them to plant and care for new and existing trees; and how might we be able to broadly brand and market a large tree planting initiative to encourage participation and build community interest.
- Literature Review/ Policy Review: We want to understand what policies and administrative frameworks (e.g., city rules, regulations, subsidies, accounting standards, etc.) other communities and cities have put in place to increase tree canopy and to build resilience in the face of a hotter future. This could include a high-level assessment of other cities resiliency plans, but the greatest help would be a deeper analysis of specific policies, regulations, and programs that might have the greatest applicability to Denver, and ideally would support a more robust and resilient tree canopy.
- Research Design/ Data Collection/ Data Analysis: We want to figure out how to encourage a community-led stewardship model that would support community members in the stewardship of the new trees; how to help community members develop new skills; and what would encourage greater community-wide interest and participation in the program.

Westwood Unidos

June 25, 2019June 28, 2019 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

Westwood Unidos‘ mission is “To unify and organize resident leaders and community-based organizations to take positive action on the topics residents identify as most important.”

Westwood Unidos is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Data Analysis: We are in need of research support to clean and analyze available data from the Sheriff’s Department to determine the number of evictions occurring in a particular zip code (80219) where our organization is based. Work on this project can begin in Fall 2019.
Internship: We would like technical support creating and customizing a new database using Salesforce to help us manage our organizing work.
Information Dissemination: We would like help creating a brochure to promote and share information about our organization with the public.

Girls Inc. of Metro Denver

June 25, 2019November 6, 2019 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

The mission of Girls Inc. is to inspire girls to be strong, smart, and bold. The vision of Girls Inc. of Metro Denver (GIMD) is a world in which every girl values her whole self, discovers her inner strengths, and achieves her goals.

GIMD is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects :

Research Design: We are open to discussing and developing a research project with faculty and students provided alignment of interests is mutually beneficial.
Program Evaluation (MATCHED): Faculty/student researcher would work closely with the Director of Training, Evaluation, and Advocacy to assess:
- Is our method of staff/volunteer training successful? What are our gaps and opportunities for improvement?
- What are the impacts of our engagement with the community? How can we better partner with the community to share our programs and support theirs?
- Evaluation of middle school tutoring program
Curriculum Development: We are beginning to launch a more formalized advocacy program (advocating for the issues relevant to our girls on multiple levels) and would like help in understanding how to approach this.
Internship: We are looking for students who would like to serve as dedicated mentors to the girls in our after school programs (AY 2019 – 2020) and summer programs (2020).

Generation Exchange

June 18, 2019October 11, 2019 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

Generation Exchange‘s mission is to make technology easier, more accessible, and empowering for older adults through the one-on-pairing with student mentors in workshops. We also strive to create meaningful experiences for our mentors as they benefit from the wisdom and experience of their older counterparts.

Generation Exchange is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Internship: Work with Generation Exchange to design and implement a free pilot workshop at DU where older adult (40+) mentees are paired with DU student volunteer mentors to learn about technology of interest. From this pilot, we would like to explore potential for creating a DU Chapter that sustains free technology workshops through the year.
Program Evaluation: We would like to improve our understanding of mentee needs and better inspire knowledge exchange between mentees and mentors. Some questions we want to explore include:
- How can we enhance our Mentees self-assessment of which tech questions they will explore with their Mentors? We wish to evaluate this approach in order to discover if we and they are missing additional fruitful areas of exploration because they “don’t know what they don’t know”.
- We’d like to evaluate and improve our process of pairing the needs of our self-directed older-adult Mentees with the resources and interests of our younger-adult Mentors.
- We’d like to evaluate our approach to reversing the Mentor / Mentee roles in our workshops and design more powerful techniques from that evaluation.
- We’d like to evaluate our current Mentor and Mentee outreach methodologies in order to design for broader application of outreach methods in other communities.
Research Design: We would like to conduct psychological research that explores Karl Groos’ notion of “the pleasure at being the cause” as it pertains to our older adult mentees by exploring their desire to have the ability to cause predictable effects in their world. We believe older adult’s loss of roles and technological literacy is a precursor to detachment from one’s own identity and thus subsequent experiences of isolation and depression. We wish to explore and possibly prove that: 1) Our assumptions about the correlation of “caused effect” with optimism versus isolation and depression are valid, and 2) Our techniques and methodology for enhancing “the pleasure at being the cause” are valid and effective.

Soccer Without Borders (SWB)

May 6, 2019May 6, 2019 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

The Soccer Without Border’s Mission is to use soccer as a vehicle for positive change, providing under-served youth with a toolkit to overcome obstacles to growth, inclusion, and personal success.

SWB is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Curriculum Development: SWB currently has a curriculum for socioemotional learning and development. They would like to adapt their curriculum (perhaps through developing focused skill modules) to apply to their league competitions.
Internship: SWB would like support delivering their trauma-informed education and academic support program in Aurora.
Curriculum Development: SWB is interested in developing a Leadership Program for new high school youth soccer camp counselors and would like support creating a more robust training/curriculum for these youth.

Mirror Image Arts

April 22, 2019April 23, 2019 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

Mirror Image Arts uses theatre as language to inspire dialogue, encourage awareness and promote action in order to build a strong, compassionate and empowered community.

Mirror Image Arts is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following project:

Creative Work: We are actively seeking diverse artists who share identities and lived experiences with the youth our program serves. We are always looking for Teaching Artists to be a part of our Finding Your Voice program that runs in and out of school time across Denver. Teaching Artists join facilitators in our spaces and take on the role of a character that engages in co-creative activities with the youth. It culminates in a 15 min performance that is about four middle schoolers dealing with bullying, mean moments, conflict, and joking that has gone too far. After the performance Teaching Artists lead small group mind mapping activities and then engage in Forum.

Women’s Bean Project

March 27, 2019September 23, 2019 / duscholarshop / Leave a comment

Women’s Bean Project is a non-profit organization that changes women’s lives by providing stepping stones to self-sufficiency through social enterprise.

Women’s Bean Project (WBP) is looking to connect with DU faculty and students on the following projects:

Information Dissemination: We would like help updating our strategic communications by creating personalized value propositions applicable to today’s hiring landscape for current and future community partners and potential employees. We’d like to update our collateral (e.g. flyers, website, social media, etc.) to reflect these identified value propositions for each audience.
Program Evaluation: We want help measuring the efficacy of programs offered at WBP. We have quantitative evaluation data that we need help synthesizing from some of our programs. Are the learning objectives being met? What is the value? How can we measure all program impacts from our diverse partners? What’s working and what needs to change?
Research Design / Data Collection: We would like someone to continue the work of a previous consultant who focused on answering the following research question: What is keeping women who hear the WBP presentation from applying, or who are asked to interview from showing up on the first day?
- One recommendation includes hosting a design thinking-inspired workshop with WBP participants to gather information about word of mouth referrals, ideas for info sharing, potential incentives, and the competitive advantage (i.e. “magic”) of the organization in comparison to other comparable community organizations. More information provided upon request.
Internship: Help us create a new process flow as we redesign a more expedited program process for hiring at WBP. We would like help working with our partners to prepare and plan for this change as well. Our goal is to make sure our new hires are able to take full advantage of our partner’s available programs (Dress for Success, Financial Literacy, free Eye Exams) without having to wait months to a year for the next program session.

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