Review of Well-Being Festival Preliminary Letter of Inquiry

In my last blog post I reflected upon the Well-Being festival preliminary budget that Dr. Giannoulakis had given to me for review.  In this blog post, I will provide my review for the second document: a preliminary letter of inquiry (PLI).

Lack of Research:

Dr. G and I have discussed this already but it is important that any proposal submitted to a potential sponsor be equipped with research to support the project's goals and expected outcomes.  In the first sentence, it is stated that the Sport Administration Graduate program at Ball State looks to provide students "with experiential learning opportunities that are grounded in sport administration theory."  One or several theories should definitely be included regarding how the students will be engaging in experiential learning and how the participants at the Well-Being festival will be engaged.  Now that Dr. G has submitted a case study of the "inspiration behind this project" in Greece, the National Cancer Survivors Day event can be used to describe analogous goals to the Well-Being festival in Muncie.

Sustainability of Event:

Any time that one embarks on a new project that could be replicated in the future, it is critical to explain the structure of how the event will be sustained.  The only sustainability measure mentioned within this proposal is that of money from the first event being earmarked for future festivals.  I believe that further information can be given on the Grant Members to explain why this event can be sustained even without the existence of all current Grant Members in the future.  This is extremely difficult without an inaugural event as a foundation, but any future signs of support from either the Grant Members or other entities will paint a better picture of sustainability.

Estimates and Specifics of Promotion and Collaboration

I found the "Population" section to be quite intriguing, but I think the section would have been more powerful with estimations of specific group sizes.  Obviously without a previous event it would be difficult to gauge exact attendance, but by looking at similar events and comparing the community populations, one could formulate a ballpark range of participation from residents, schools, and volunteers alike.  I also think that there should have been more specific information on how the organizing committee would staff volunteers and perform presentations in local schools.  Providing some more specific information on how the event would be organized will give a potential sponsor a much stronger sense of the initial discussions about the event.

To summarize, I felt that the proposal (with its 2,000 characters per section limits) did quite a good job of providing the first snapshot of the project as a whole.  Adding a sentence or two on the points mentioned above and cutting out a few unnecessary words could help make this proposal even stronger.