Community Building Fellowship

The Fellowship aims to use some of the lessons learned from the five local Community Building sites, on an individual basis so that teaching professionals and high-potential NJTL chapter leaders can become greater resources to their community. By developing a fellowship program that focuses on the individual and her effort, we plan to better serve our communities, and also to develop a curriculum or a set of best practices that can be shared with the USTA family and the wider recreation field.

By focusing on demographic groups that have never had access to tennis, we plan to grow tennis participation, grow membership, and improve communities through the direct and indirect benefits of structured and healthy recreational offerings. Further, we aim to support individuals with a wealth of business and or non-profit experience who will become the next generation of social entrepreneurs by creating new or by enhancing existing NJTL chapters.

This Request for Proposal begins with a set of questions for prospective candidates. Are you committed to going beyond ground strokes and footwork? Is there an additional set of tools that, if you were given, would make a noticeable difference in the lives of your students and in turn their family’s lives? How would this change in behavior or approach to tennis impact the lives of their friends and in some small way, the larger community? For seasoned business executives, what kind of support is needed in making the transition from the for-profit world to the non-profit world? How can NJTL chapters apply business principles to become self-sustaining, while providing no or low-cost programming to thousands of participants?

Supporting Innovative Change Agents

The fellowship is meant to support the work of local change agents around a given social issue affecting his or her local community. Applicants should specifically discuss how they will use tennis programming to address a social issue such as gang violence; the high school dropout rate; increasing the amount of safe recreational space for families; organizing volunteers to beautify and maintain a park; connecting alumni of a program for professional development ends; hosting a fundraising event that reinvests the money into the community.

Examples of possible projects:

Below are examples of micro-projects that would test the use of tennis programming as an approach to community development. Convene current and past multicultural tennis players and coaches in order to capitalize on relationships and connections to new and non-playing populations of (potential) players. The network can be for social purposes, playing tennis, professional development, first time jobs, etc.

• Create a simple, safe, and welcoming platform for Tennis and Leadership Camp alumni to stay connected, aware of scholarship opportunities, and aware of each other’s life achievements.
• Conduct targeted outreach to transitioning or retired business executives who want to give back, make a difference, and lead an NJTL chapter.
• Include advanced training and on-going mentoring for new pros by established pros, with a community service outreach effort required as a way to pass on knowledge and expertise.
• Gain personal awareness of vital community resources in the areas of health, nutrition, housing, foreclosure avoidance, policing, or counseling in order to pass on information to parents and families as needed.
• Partner with schools in order to provide college preparation guidance to all ages of children and parents in order to align college dreams with day to day on-court and school based behavior.
• Educate clientele on environmentally friendly and community health best practices as they relate to tennis, transportation, and recreational space beautification.
• A graduate student wanting to develop an evaluation instrument for use by NJTL chapters across the nation.

General Fellowship Program Structure

• 4-8 fellows as first 1 year cohort
• In-person meetings 2-4 x / year
• Periodic conference calls with cohort of fellows, USTA, other community development and tennis professionals
• A stipend ranging from $2,000-$8,000 per year to cover:
  • Formal university courses
  • Certification and specialty courses
  • Subscriptions/memberships
  • Project-specific supplies (internet, phone, QST tennis equipment)
  • Travel to executive mentoring sites

  Desired outcomes

  We hope to achieve a number of things by creating the Fellowship opportunity. First, we want to continue to be a resource to the NJTL network of chapters and participants which currently includes 550 chapters serving over 230,000 children across the nation. Second, we want to stay on the cutting edge of tennis programming through intentional outreach and inclusion of underserved groups. Third, we want to support new efforts to grow the game of tennis and improve communities in a manner that is low-risk for the Fellow, and high-reward for communities and the USTA. Future NJTL chapter leaders may develop from this Fellowship. Creative approaches to community development will certainly be tried, some of which may lead

  to best practices for the larger tennis community, including the USTA family, the Professional Tennis Registry and the US Professional Tennis Association. In the short term, the following intermediate outcomes will be realized:

  • New, non-tennis, seasoned business executives will be sought to become social entrepreneurs by leading an NJTL chapter
  • Excellent tennis coaches will learn new community development techniques to make a deeper impact in their community
  • Tennis coaches will gain professional organizational skills to become future NJTL or other community organization leaders
  • Coaches will gain public speaking and presentation skills and be comfortable interacting with diverse groups such as City Councils, major donors, parents, corporate executives, kids, community group leaders, gang leaders and members, and those generally disenfranchised and without a voice
  • Coaches will understand and be able to make the case for greater public and private involvement/support of tennis and education programming
  • A collection of project reports that can be bundled, shared, and replicated as an urban/Shifting Sands Curriculum/training/specialty course throughout the USTA
  • Establish social networks between Fellows, clients, community leaders and tennis social entrepreneurs
  • All coaches will be trained on the latest USTA-endorsed teaching formats including QuickStart Tennis and its benefits

  Proposal Requirements

  Each fellow will propose a micro-project demonstrating the impact that one person can have on building the human capital of individuals or the social cohesion between diverse classes of individuals, or both. Micro-demonstrations should include on-court and off-court activities with specific pre-determined goals and objectives. Work of the micro-project might include daily inclusions in pre-existing lessons or might build up to a culminating event. The USTA reserves the right to edit projects and suggest alternatives before implementation. Formal presentation of work will be required at one of any number of venues: To the cohort of Fellows, during Community Building Convenings, at the Community Tennis Development Workshop, at the Tennis Teacher’s Conference, etc.

  Proposals should include:
  

  • Personal experience motivating their proposal
  • Proposal narrative described as specifically as possible (times, dates, locations, people, process, reflection and measurement)
  • List of expected expenses, courses, and conferences required
  • Resume or Curriculum Vitae
  • Letter of recommendation from a community leader

  Submit proposals electronically in 12 point font, in no more than 5 pages all-inclusive to njtl@usta.com before October 6, 2008.

  For questions, please contact Dan Limbago at limbago@usta.com or 914.696.7038.