Empowerment Resource Center

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Request for Proposals and Letters of Invitation to Establish Model ETMS and Empowerment Resource Centers.

We are about ready to publish the details of the Request for Proposals that will award several of the $10,000 ETMS to organizations and communities selected for the award. Following is a conceptual letter of invitation to an elected official of a municipality we have identified as meeting the Selection Criteria provide at the end of the letter. If you are interested in receiving the RFP when it is released, please complete the Interest Survey Form.

Empowerment Resource Center Project
Expanding the Circle of Success™

August 30, 2008

Mayor Mark Behnke
10 N. Division St., Suite 215
Battle Creek, Michigan 49014

Dear Mayor Behnke:

We are writing on behalf of a strategic alliance of individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations with a shared vision of Expanding the Circle of Success. We are seeking the best location in Southwest Michigan to establish a model Empowerment Resource Center demonstration project.

We are considering Battle Creek or the surrounding area and would like to meet with you to explore the best way this might be presented to communities in the area and whether Battle Creek may be interested in hosting a Center. The nonprofit Center would provide books, training CDs, DVDs and other training materials worth well over $10,000 in every major development field including personal, professional, organizational, community and economic.

Because we are seeking preliminary demonstration sites, we would help obtain any required funding. The Empowerment Resource Center will need a space that is large enough to house the collection, and staff time to manage the collection. We estimate this could be done with 25% of an existing staff person’s time. We plan to establish Centers throughout the country. Some will be larger training centers while others, such as the center we propose for Battle Creek, will be resource centers for the community at large. Training will be available for those who staff the Center.

Members of our team have over thirty years of experience developing award-winning programs and products that have helped individuals, organizations, and communities achieve more of their potential. For over ten years, we have been producing community oriented programs with well-known experts such as Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Paul J. Meyer, Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Mark Victor Hansen, Bonnie St. John Dean, Chin-Ning Chu, Jim Britt and many others.

Enclosed is a flyer on the award-winning Success Center Partnership we developed for the Muncie, Indiana Public Housing Authority with help from Les Brown. We have reference letters from Chambers of Commerce, elected officials, United Way Executives, and business owners.

Based on our preliminary review of communities in Southwest Michigan, it appears to us that Battle Creek meets most of the criteria we have identified for determining where to offer to develop our demonstration Empowerment Resource Center.

Please review the enclosures and consider how an Empowerment Resource Center will assist you and your administration in accomplishing your goals for the City of Battle Creek. If you believe it would be mutually beneficial for us to explore the possibility of working together, we would appreciate an opportunity to meet with you in person at your earliest convenience.

During our meeting, we will present more specific information on the hundreds of tested and proven resources that we will provide through the Center. We will also introduce you to a member of our management team that has developed award-winning community resource centers for over 30 years, generated million of dollars in grants, produced successful training programs for up to 2,000 participants and developed successful micro-enterprise development programs.

If, after our meeting, you share our view that locating an Empowerment Resource Center in Battle Creek would be mutually beneficial, we would ask you to help identify community leaders from the private, public and nonprofit sectors to invite to an introductory orientation session. We would also invite you to help identify those who could serve in leadership roles on the committee that will be established to ensure the ultimate success of the Center.

We would also like your assistance to help us identify a site for this Center. The ideal facility for our demonstration project would have several hundred square feet with a meeting room with a capacity for 20 to 30 people and a larger room capable of seating at least 100 people.

This could be a partnership with an existing nonprofit organization or company that has available space that could be used by creating a mutually beneficial relationship.

Enclosed is a sample flyer of how we might introduce the Empowerment Resource Center and ETMS (Empowerment Training Mentoring System) if it were based in Battle Creek. When we meet, we will provide samples of our Empowerment Resource Showcases.

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to meeting with you to explore our vision of fostering organizational and community development and empowerment.

Sincerely,

Penny Kelly                                        Charles Betterton
Co-Director                                         Co-Director
269-624-6022                                     760-212-9931

EMPOWERMENT RESOURCE CENTER SITE SELECTION FACTORS

q Does the community have an expressed vision of being something better, larger,
and more successful in terms of the quality of life enjoyed by all its residents?

q Does the community have a diverse population with some level of poverty or significant percentage of low and moderate income individuals who could be primary beneficiaries
of the programs and resources provided through the Center?

q Does the local government have an enlightened vision of community betterment as demonstrated by where it invests its financial and staff resources?

q Does the local government demonstrate a sincere commitment to personal and community development through the allocation of HUD Community Development Block Grant funds
and other Federal and State resources?

q Does the local United Way include a primary focus on capacity building with receptivity
to funding new and innovative approaches to addressing root causes of problems?

q Do the community leaders appreciate the importance of fostering youth empowerment
as evidenced by existing well supported youth service agencies?

q Is there a Community Foundation serving the area with a demonstrated commitment to
one or more of the primary goals of the Center such as youth leadership and development, community partnerships and collaboration, capacity building, community economic development, etc?

q Is there an active Chamber of Commerce with a commitment to these same goals?

q Are there community based and or faith based development organizations such as Community Development Corporations that could benefit from having access to the Center’s resources?

q Is there an Indian or Public Housing Authority in or near the community whose residents
and staff could benefit from having access to the Center’s resources for self-help, empowerment and capacity building?

q Are there available facilities that could meet the project’s needs at reasonable rates (preferably facilities that could be provided as a donation or in trade for shares from
one of the participating corporate sponsors)?

q Are there one or more existing nonprofit organizations with a similar vision or mission with available space that would be suitable for co-locating the Center in their present facility?

q Are the local media resources supportive of positive community betterment activities to the extent that they participate as sponsors of major events and provide advertising space on a donation basis or in trade for tickets to training events?

q Is there a suitable facility in or near the community that will seat at least 1,000 to 2,000 people for the major development training programs the Center will produce in conjunction with other local nonprofits and corporate sponsors?

Copyright 2007 by CENTER SPACE, the Center for Spiritual, Personal and Community Empowerment

The CAN DO! Empowerment Resource Center is a joint venture of three affiliated non-profit organizations: Ultimate Destiny University, CENTER SPACE (The Center for Personal, Spiritual And Community Empowerment) and the Center for Conscious Sustainable Living.