COM1380 Final Report: Covid-19 Pandemic
Instructions
This final assignment requires that you apply the Course Competencies from the course to write a clear and coherent document for the workplace.
Scenario
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Conestoga College has decided to donate $7,500 to a charity in the community. The Associate Vice-President of Marketing and Community Relations, Paul Osborne, has asked the Conestoga Consulting Corporation to investigate a few local charities and provide information and a recommendation to help him make a decision.
Requirements
Background
You are a student intern for the Conestoga Consulting Corporation. Your manager has asked you to write an informal email report on behalf of the Conestoga Consulting Corporation to the Associate Vice-President of Marketing and Community Relations, Paul Osborne.
Mr. Osborne has indicated that he wants a thorough report with information about the organizations selected and a recommendation that will allow him to make a decision.
The requirements for the report include
- Information about the charities
- The programs and services they offer
- How many people they help
- Financial information about the organization
The analysis to support your recommendation should include
- The impact the donation could have on the community
- The possible benefits the donation might have on Conestoga Students
- The effect the donation could have on the image of Conestoga College
Submission
For your submission, please do the following:
- Organize the information about each charity from the Investigation Notes below
- Analyse the options and provide a recommendation for the donation
- Explain the reasons for your recommendations based on your analysis
- Compose an informal report in email format that presents the information about the charities to Paul Osborne, Associate Vice-President of Marketing and Community Relations, with your recommendation and an explanation of the reasons for your choice based on the requirements
- Ask for a meeting with Mr. Osborne on the following Tuesday to discuss your findings
- Submit your email informal report as a Word document to the Final Exam Submission Folder
Please use only the information in the Investigation Notes in this document to create your report.
Investigation Notes
You have narrowed the options for the $7,500 donation from the College down to three charities: Nutrition4Kids, The Food Bank of Waterloo Region, and Supportive Housing of Waterloo.
You look up the Nutrition4Kids website and see that their total costs were $250,000 last year, with staff and administration costs being $135,000 and $115,000 spent on food for kids. The organization brought in $325,000 last year, with $170,000 coming from government funding, $85,000 from donations, and $70,000 from fundraising. That left $75,000 that was carried over into this year’s budget. You find a phone number on the website for Mary McDonald, the Executive Director of Nutrition4Kids, but get her voice mail and so you ask her to call you back and leave your number. COM1380 Final Report: Covid-19 Pandemic
You decide to look up information for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region and see on their website that they had revenues of $15.5 million last year. Wow! But when you look more closely at the numbers, you realize that $12 million of that total was the value of the food donations they received and distributed to people. Of the remaining $3.5 million, $2.5 million came from donations and $1 million came from funding from local government and other agencies. So, not including the food that was distributed, expenditures totaled $3.5 million with $3 million for staff costs, fundraising and administration; $200,000 on food purchases; and $300,000 on building costs. You find the number for the Chief Executive Officer for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region, Wendy Camp, but again get voice mail.
You look up information on Supportive Housing of Waterloo (SHOW) and see that they are a relatively new organization, started in 2007. You notice from their mission statement that they work to develop affordable housing and provide support services and assistance for people who are homeless or hard to house in the City of Waterloo. You finally find the contact information for Executive Director, Gael Gilbert, and, when you call her, she answers.
She indicated that, although the organization has a small staff of six, they receive the assistance of many volunteers from the community and co-op student volunteers. SHOW’s mission is to work for the provision of affordable housing in partnership with several local agencies in order to create new housing initiatives to serve the neediest in our community. Although the Region of Waterloo processes all housing applications, SHOW provides supportive housing services. For example, through donations from the community and grants, SHOW has opened two buildings for those in need: one with 30 one-bedroom apartments and another that holds nine tenants. COM1380 Final Report: Covid-19 Pandemic
Ms. Gilbert says that, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have been laid off from their jobs and can’t afford their rent payments. She indicated that SHOW works to support the fundamental right to safe and affordable housing for those who encounter barriers. SHOW also ensures that tenants receive the benefits that they are entitled to, such as specialized health care, income support, harm-reduction support, and recreational opportunities. There is also an emergency food pantry available to all tenants. In addition, SHOW helps individuals to find units that receive Housing Assistance With Supports (HAWS), which are apartments in the community that receive rental subsidies. SHOW also helps individuals find apartments and apply for the HAWS program rental subsidy.
You quickly write as much information as possible in your notes and thank Gael for the information before hanging up. You start looking at the SHOW website again when the phone rings. It’s Wendy Camp from The Food Bank of Waterloo Region.
Ms. Camp says The Food Bank of Waterloo Region started in 1984, and its mission is to obtain and distribute emergency food from “our neighbours to our neighbours” through community partnerships. She says that one in 20 households in the Waterloo Region struggles to put food on the table. Last year, The Food Bank of Waterloo Region distributed 4.5 million pounds of food, which is about 4.5 million meals, and helped 34,552 people.
You ask her if she has any statistics on who receives the food that is distributed. Ms. Camp explains that they do keep records of who they provide food to. She states that 25% of those who receive food are children between the ages of 0 and 11, 10% are between 12 and 17 years old, 22% are between the ages of 18 and 30, 20% are between ages 31 and 44, 19% are between ages 45 and 64, and only 4% are over 65.
Wendy says she can’t talk any longer, but if you need any more information, you can call her back. After hanging up, you decide to call Mary McDonald, the Executive Director of Nutrition4Kids, again. This time she answers. Ms. McDonald explains that Nutrition4Kids is one of four locations in Central Ontario but each is independently run and funded. The role of Nutrition4Kids is to provide packages of healthy food each weekend to kids, aged 14 years and under, who have limited or no access to food in schools in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. The Nutrition4Kids program supplements the breakfast and lunch programs that are offered in the schools. However, because of COVID-19, schools are now closed, so these kids are not getting the food they need through the school programs or Nutrition4Kids program. Therefore, Nutrition4Kids is using the money, as well as some of their extra money saved from last year, to deliver food for the entire week to these families. Nutrition4Kids has been in operation for three years and provides services to 511 children in 25 schools across the region. They have a staff of three people and rely on many volunteers to package and deliver the food packages. Since the organization is based out of the basement of a seniors’ residence, they have to take extra precautions to ensure they don’t expose the residents to the COVID-19 virus. COM1380 Final Report: Covid-19 Pandemic
As you jot down the information, you make a note to call Wendy Camp to ask her how many employees they have. You thank Ms. McDonald for the information and hang up. Then you call Wendy Camp at The Food Bank of Waterloo Region again and ask her how many staff The Food Bank of Waterloo Region has. She indicates that there are 18 staff members, but they have over 3,000 volunteers. Before hanging up, she mentions that The Food Bank of Waterloo Region supports more than 100 community programs and agency partners by providing them with food to distribute.
You finally get back to the SHOW website to look up their finances. You discover that they had expenditures of $825,000: $540,000 on staff and office costs, $85,000 on tenant support and programs, and $200,000 for building costs. Their revenue was also $825,000 last year: $550,000 of that amount was received as grants from government bodies and other agencies, $50,000 came from fundraising; and $225,000 was from rental income.