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Letter of Interest Guidelines

Request for Letter of Interest: Demonstration project

DUE DATE:  Friday, July 18, 2011

The purpose of your Letter of Interest is to give FORGE enough information about your community’s sexual assault response and services, the structure and organization of the transgender community in your area (e.g. support groups, advocacy groups, developed networks, referral lists), and any previous contacts between the two (if any) so that we can form a picture of who you are. Please note that there are no right or wrong answers. Because these are pilot projects, we will be selecting a mix of communities that are at various stages of development, with various levels of already-identified resources, and from different parts of the country. It is not necessary for you to do a lot of groundwork before submitting a Letter of Interest. For example, if you are a sexual assault services provider with little or no contact with your area’s transgender community, or if you are a transgender person with little or no contact with your local sexual assault providers, do not feel you need to establish those linkages before you apply (although you are welcome to). We expect to select one or more communities where there’s been no previous contact, as well as communities where there has already been some work done.

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Letters of Intent can be 1 to 10 pages in length; no particular format is required. Some of the areas you may want to cover in your letter are:

  • Who you are (personally and organizationally). Describe why you or your organization are interested in this project.
  • Discuss why you think your community would be a good place to develop a sexual assault service provider/transgender leader working group.
  • If you are already connected (transgender community with sexual assault service providers, service providers with the transgender community), tell us about the relationships you have established and the history of your connection.
  • What contacts or experiences, if any, there have been between transgender individuals and your community’s sexual assault service providers? Sharing “positive” or “negative” experiences are welcome.
  • What experience has your community had in building transgender cultural competency in professionals (if you are a transgender applicant) or in addressing the needs of underserved/unserved/inadequately served survivors (if you are a sexual assault provider).
  • What linkages, if any, exist between you and your peers? For instance, if you are a transgender leader, tell us what kind of transgender organizations, if any, exist in your area and how they interact. If you are a sexual assault provider, tell us about coordinated response teams or other coalition efforts involving key sexual assault service stakeholders (law enforcement, prosecutors/district attorneys office, sexual assault nurse examiners or sexual assault forensic examiners (SANEs/SAFEs), victim advocates).
  • Share your organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • If any conversations have taken place between potential participants about this particular project, what were their primary responses and/or concerns? If you are an individual applicant who has not spoken to other potential participants, what are your primary hopes and concerns about a project like this?
  • Share any thoughts you may have about what might be the barrier(s) that keeps transgender sexual assault survivors from accessing sexual assault services in your community.
  • Comment on any ideas you may have about the geographic scope of your project: does it make the most sense to limit this to within a given jurisdiction’s boundaries, or should this be a regional or even statewide effort? Please describe the geographic area you serve.
  • Discuss why your community would be a good candidate for this pilot project.
  • Is there anything else you think it would be helpful for us to know?

Please note that we expect to ask applicants additional, more focused questions before we make final selections. Therefore, please give us one or more phone numbers and email addresses for a contact person.

Send cover sheet and Letter of Interest, no later than July 18, 2011, to:

AskFORGE [at] forge-forward [dot] org (email preferred) or
FORGE
PO Box 1272
Milwaukee, WI  53201