Fieldwork
Non-Profit organization: Food Lifeline
SUBJECT:
Choose a public or private non-profit agency that addresses food security/sustainability issues. Get permission from the agency to visit a few times. During your visits, use observations and conversations to learn about the agency. Plan your interviews and visits so that your field research will uncover the objectives below.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Set the scene -- physical description of agency, site, neighborhood
2. History and background of agency
4. Mission and objectives of agency
5. Services/Programs
6. Character, heart, personality of agency
7. Population or types of people served
8. Organizational structure -- hierarchy, positions, staff functions
9. Volunteer opportunities
10. Source(s) of funding
11. A typical day in the life of the agency
12. Critical evaluation
How well do they do the job?
Strengths and weaknesses
Your recommendations for change or improvement
METHODS:
Translate these objectives into focused, detailed understandable questions, so that your interviews will give you relevant, usable information for your paper. Tape recording the interviews frees you up to listen and devise appropriate follow-up questions rather than busily writing notes.
FORMAT:
This is your creative challenge: to put all this information into an interesting, engaging presentation. We can talk about this in class. Like before, this is to be a 3-5 page paper.
Please write a paragraph which explains the connection and/or relevance of the agency to the issues covered in the class. Place this paragraph at the top of page one, before the formal essay begins.