NFBV.org: The Next Online Chapter

For years the Virginia affiliate relied on the WordPress platform to render its website. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the WordPress platform, but we took our cues from the National Office and switched over to Drupal as a way to better integrate with their future web development. Also, we wanted to eventually align ourselves with their branding for consistency.

And, well, let’s face it. The website needed to be updated anyway. Over a time a website will become cluttered, and switching to a new platform helped us clean house.

Nonprofit Development: Grant Writing 101

In the coming years our affiliate will implement a diverse fundraising strategy to make it possible for us to have more services like Project RISE. One of those funding strategies will likely be grant writing, and while grant writing will make the most sense at the affiliate level, where we can project the greatest impacts, that does not mean chapters and divisions cannot pursue their own grant writing strategies to help fund activities they would like to sponsor. Here's a starting point to thinking about grant writing.

Nonprofit Development: Planning a Special Event

No aspect of fundraising should exist in a vacuum. Organizations should use grant writing, event planning, direct mail, and other aspects of nonprofit development to help build up budgets through a diversified fundraising strategy.

Project RISE: From Low Expectations to High Impacts

By Lizzy Schoen

Resilience, Independence, Self-Advocacy, Employment: that is what the RISE in Project RISE stands for.  Going into the program, I had low expectations; everything I had done so far had not prepared me for what I got.  The power of Project RISE is not in the curriculum, though it is extremely beneficial, it is in the people who you meet and the lives the mentors are willing to share with you and teach you to attain.

From a young age, a blind person is taught two universal truths that, though probably not said out loud, are said by actions:

Proposed 2021 State Convention Principles of Engagement

Nothing in these rules of engagement is intended to change Article IV, Section 2 of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia’s (NFBV) constitution. The Convention remains “the supreme authority of the NFBV. It is the legislature of the NFBV . As such, it has final authority with respect to all issues of policy. Chapter board delegates and members in attendance may participate in all convention discussions as a matter of right.

Proposed 2022 State Convention Principles of Engagement

Nothing in these rules of engagement is intended to change Article IV, Section 2 of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia’s (NFBV) constitution. The Convention remains “the supreme authority of the NFBV. It is the legislature of the NFBV . As such, it has final authority with respect to all issues of policy. Chapter board delegates and members in attendance may participate in all convention discussions as a matter of right.

Protected Class? Not So Fast: The Exploitation of Workers with Disabilities

By Sarah Patnaude

Editor’s Note: Sarah Patnaude is our affiliate’s corresponding secretary. Among other tasks, Sarah oversees our social media channels, our website, newsletter production, and promotion campaigns surrounding events like the state convention. She is a member of the Potomac Chapter and represents the chapter in the Chapter Leadership Institute. In May 2019, Sarah graduated from George Mason with a Masters in Social Work, and before leaving the halls of Academia, she wrote an article for the university newspaper that appears below with permission.

Quick Tips - Making Our Meetings and Workshops More Accessible, Productive, and Fun

By Jeremy Grandstaff

At the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia (NFBV) we have a number of meetings. At chapter meetings for example, we invite people to come to learn about NFBV, engage more effectively in our work, and to learn more about our own abilities to transform our lives to achieve what we want.

RESOLUTION 2022-1: ACCESSIBLE POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION TEXTBOOKS AND OTHER TECHNOLOGY

WHEREAS, technology has revolutionized access to information, textbooks, course materials, testing, software, interaction with college administrations, and other facets of student life in postsecondary education; and

WHEREAS, Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibit colleges and universities from discriminating against persons with disabilities and mandates equal access to educational opportunities; and

Resolutions 2022

WHEREAS, all Commonwealth of Virginia entities such as departments and agencies are subject to title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and