Students investigate real local needs and analyze global funding and support options to decide which entrepreneurial idea is most worth backing. They build evidence-based impact plans that use stakeholder voices, local data, budgets, and expected outcomes to show why their solution matters and how funds would be used responsibly. Through critique, revision, and feedback from a community foundation or nonprofit grantmaker, they strengthen a public funding pitch board and defend their reasoning in an authentic proposal process.

Students will analyze local need data and stakeholder perspectives to compare problems, determine which issue is most worth funding, and justify their choice with clear claims, relevant evidence, and sound reasoning. They will develop a realistic one-page impact plan and funding pitch board that includes a budget, simple cost estimates, expected outcomes, and a plan for measuring success over time. Students will strengthen their work through peer critique, gallery walk feedback, and questions from a community foundation or nonprofit grantmaker, using that input to revise both their evidence and funding logic. They will present and defend an evidence-based pitch by responding to questions about community need, feasibility, and projected impact.

Teams create a first-draft impact plan during the Need-to-Impact Quest that names a local problem, cites stakeholder voices, and explains the initial funding logic. Across the project, they produce annotated local-need data displays, a simple budget and cost estimate sheet, expected-outcomes measures, and peer-feedback notes from critique rounds and grantmaker input. By the end, each team presents a funding pitch board anchored by a one-page impact plan with clear claims, local evidence, budget breakdown, and measurable outcomes for a realistic community need. During the Grantmaker Gallery Walk, teams also generate a revision-ready record of sticky-note feedback and a short debrief summary identifying the strongest evidence and next changes.

Open with a Need-to-Impact Quest: teams rotate through local issue stations featuring short articles, data snapshots, stakeholder quotes, and photos about realistic community needs, then rank which problems seem most urgent and fundable. After the tour, a representative from a community foundation or nonprofit grantmaker gives a brief talk on how they judge proposals, highlighting evidence, feasibility, budget logic, and measurable outcomes. Teams then choose one issue, draft a quick first-pass impact plan on chart paper, and post it for a short peer feedback protocol naming the clearest claim, weakest evidence, and one revision to make before the next session.

Host a Grantmaker Gallery Walk where teams display their funding pitch boards with the one-page impact plan, local need data, budget breakdown, and expected outcomes. Invite a community foundation or nonprofit grantmaker to review each proposal, leave sticky-note feedback, and ask questions about the evidence, stakeholder needs, and funding logic behind the plan. End with a brief debrief circle in which teams name which evidence made their pitch strongest and what they would revise next based on partner feedback. This format creates a public audience, gives every team a clear role, and keeps the exhibition manageable within the final class session.