Amplify Madison
Amplify Madison funds collaborative professional development projects to build skill, voice, and visibility for all people that identify as women, including trans women and in particular women of color working in the Madison region’s thriving local community organizations sector.
This 2020, Amplify Madison will continue to fund opportunities for teams of three women to travel for professional development around the United States and abroad, to then integrate their learning and wisdom from highly diverse frameworks and contexts to their work and the broader Madison community.
Professional Development
Each team can select a conference, training or workshop of their choice across the United States or abroad. Previously awarded Amplify Madison teams had transformative learning experiences in Guadalajara, Los Angeles, Rwanda, Chicago, and VIetnam.
Collaboration
Amplify Madison teams of three people from different Madison area organizations. Collaboration is a central value for social justice work and grant proposals that include individuals from different organizations will receive priority.
Community Impact
Following their completed professional development experiences, each team is expected to co-organize community engagement activities to share and put into practice their knowledge and skills as developed with the greater community of Madison.
Guidelines
Each team of three can request up to $7500 to fund professional development and community engagement activities. Examples of expenses that can be covered are: Conference fees, travel, lodging, childcare, meals, and materials.
Teams will be asked to coordinate so that one of their organizations takes responsibility for submitting Expenses Reports to YWCA Madison.
Each Expenses Report must be accompanied with itemized receipts for all expenses submitted for reimbursement. Each team will be asked to submit three reports:
- One that covers all expenses incurred in advance of the professional development opportunity, such as registration and airfare.
- A second report with all expenses incurred during the professional development opportunity.
- A third one for all expenses from their community engagement activities.
Please note that funding is meant to benefit individual awardees from community organizations in their professional development and community impact, not regular operations from their organizations.
All people that identify as women, including trans women and in particular women of color working in nonprofits, community organizations, neighborhood groups, faith communities, etc.
Applications must be submitted by teams of three women, preferably racially diverse as well as collaborating across organizations and/or sectors for their proposal.
Teams can include members from different roles at organizations, e.g. board members, direct service, volunteers, etc. Application from racially diverse, inter-organizational and/or cross sector teams are highly encouraged.
All teams awarded are expected to participate in:
- Biannual Amplify Madison Breakfasts which will be an opportunity to connect with each other, share best practices, lessons learned, and further develop their leadership skills
- End of the year Amplify Madison Celebration which will be an opportunity to celebrate awardees, their professional development journeys and community impact in Madison.
Additionally, all Amplify Madison awardees must provide information about themselves and their teams for their profiles at the Amplify Madison Academy webpage as requested.
Amplify Madison awardees will be invited to present at the YWCA Madison’s 2020 Racial Justice Summit.
A full list of commitments and meeting dates will be shared as a part of your awardee package.
Application Process
Application process this year will be carried out on a rolling basis, however, early submission is extremely recommended since the first cut for selection will be on March 22, 2020. Call for Applications will be open until May 1st, 2020 or earlier if funds are exhausted.
Applying to Amplify Madison just takes a few steps. Respond to a short survey and submit a 5 min phone quality video. Multilingual submissions are welcomed.
If your team can’t complete the application in one sitting you can download the Word document application to prepare your answers before submitting them online.
Vanessa McDowell, YWCA Madison CEO
Frequent Asked Questions
All people that identify as women, including trans women and in particular women of color working in the nonprofit sector in Madison, this also includes faith communities, neighborhood groups, community volunteers and other potential participants that focus on community impact.
Amplify Madison Academy envisions to support collaboration across organizations and sectors as well as across race and ethnic identities, in particular across communities of color. Diverse, multiracial, inter-organizational as well as cross-sector teams are encouraged to apply.
All eligible applicants will be reviewed by a selection committee.
Each team of three submits a written proposal create in collaboration with each other. This year, written applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and include a complementary submission of a phone quality video.
Due to a high number of applications, early application is highly encouraged. Grants will be awarded until funds are exhausted.
If you would like to preview and or work on your application first using a word processor (i.e Microsoft Word) you can download a Word version of the application. Full application instructions and guidelines are available here.
Each team can submit a proposal for up to $7,500 to fund both their own professional development experience as well as community engagement activities once they have returned to Madison.
There are a number of commitments for Amplify Madison Academy awarded teams. A full list of commitments and meeting dates will be shared as a part of your awardee package.
However, some of the commitments include:
- Timely providing information as requested to keep both personal and team profiles up to date.
- Following financial procedures as requested for reimbursements.
- Attend Bi-Annual breakfasts and End of the Year Amplify Madison Academy Celebration.
Applicants who were previously awarded an Amplify grant are not eligible to apply again. However, Applicants who previously applied and were not awarded are welcome to re-apply for the grant in a new application period.
New Applicants from organizations that have been awarded in the past can apply. For example, Jan and San from Peach organization were awarded in 2019; Amy and Mary from Peach organization are eligible to apply in 2020.
It will all depend on how you connect the learning in a chosen experience to your personal knowledge, skill and practice development as well as community impact as result of it.
In the past, teams have used the funds to attend conferences out of state, immersing themselves in a different culture and learning from local organizations and their programs.
Personal and professional development come in different shapes and forms and we want you to find opportunities that respond to your team’s dreams and needs as best.
