see attached document. This is for a business writing class and thus must be written in a formal 3 person or passive voice as well as use an indirect strategy
charity_report_topic_description_3_6_19.pdf
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Analytical Report Assignment: A Philanthropic Problem
The report problem/situation
Minerva Gaskill is a multimillionaire and the founder of Acme, Inc. She’s also its CEO. Gaskill
would like to do more to share with others the fruits of Acme’s success and to promote Acme,
Inc. as a caring company.
You are a senior consultant at a research firm called Ronco Consultants. Gaskill has hired you to
assess three charities and report to Acme’s board of directors on whether or not those charities
would be appropriate recipients of Acme’s support. In fact, she wants your recommendations
about selecting one or more charities as recipients of Acme’s charitable giving and as partner
charities in Acme’s World of Help campaign. The campaign encourages Acme’s employees and
customers to consider partner charities when making year-end, tax-deductible donations.
In an email from Gaskill, she writes,
It is important that our partner charities deserve the funds we give to them. You need to find out
how deserving they are and whom they help. I want to do the most good—have as high an impact
as possible—without wasting funds. I hear stories about how poorly some charities are run—how
high their administrative costs are or how little they accomplish. And there are reports that some
charities raise money as fronts for those who solicit it. Specifically, I want you to check out this
charity that my brother Henry (on Acme’s board of directors) has previously supported called
A
and these two other charities that have received my personal donations in the past
B
and
C
. [See Charity Selection below].
Gaskill continues,
Find out what good the charities do, how efficient they are with their money, their financial
standing (are they broke, hoarding funds, and so on), and anything else that will help our board of
directors decide whether to favor them. Try to find a copy of their current Form 990. Your goal will
be to determine how deserving of assistance each charity is. You DO NOT need to worry about
the public relations or marketing aspect of partnering with these organizations–I’ve got another
team considering their potential on that front. When you have gathered all this information,
analyze it, compare, and conclude. Please rank these three in order of how highly you
recommend them. The board might decide to direct all its donations and/or fundraising efforts to
one, divide equally, or vary among them. They’ll do whatever appears to be right, but please offer
your recommendation based on the facts you uncover.
Also, because not all of our board members may be well versed in how to choose a charity to
support, remember that your report should also provide some basic information about how to
select a deserving charity. Be very clear about what criteria are you using to determine which
charities should get donations? Your report should provide objective measures to support your
ranking and recommendations.
Your task
Write a formal analytical report to address the report topic above. In the report, your research
findings will be addressed to the company’s board of directors. An initial, complete draft of the
report’s text (report proper with references) is due for peer and instructor feedback online (Bb
and Google Classroom) on the date listed in the Tentative Course Schedule and below. The final
report including front matter, report proper, and references is due in class and online (Bb) on the
date listed in the Tentative Course Schedule and the table below.
Report Draft Stages
I. Draft for peer review
II. Final draft for
instructor grading
Due Dates
Sun., Apr. 7
Tues., Apr. 30
Submission Format and Locations
MS Word or PDF on Bb
and
Google Docs on Google Classroom
MS Word on Bb
Hard copy in class
and
What follows is information to aid you in preparing the initial, complete draft.
Charity selection
For the report, you should select the three charities—A, B, and C–to examine where
A is a charity identified as one of the worst by either of these websites
o The 50 Worst Charities in America: How to Keep from Being Scammed
(https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-50-worst-charities-in-america-how-to-keepfrom-being-scammed)
o These Charities Are the Biggest Scammers Looking to Take Your Money
(https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/charities-biggest-scammers-takemoney.html/)
B and C are any two non-profit 501(c)(3) public charities that you want to investigate.
Donations to 501(c)(3) charities are tax deductible on U. S. federal tax returns.
Use the actual names of the charities along with their actual data in the report.
Although a charity can be defined as an organization that helps people who are in need (like the
poor, sick, or hungry) (Merriam-Webster, 2014), a charity may also address a concern such as
animal welfare, the environment, the arts, historic preservation, justice issues, human rights,
economics, social policy, and so on. Any non-profit 501(c)(3) public charities are suitable for B
and C of this project.
The charities you select may be doing similar kinds of work (such as cancer research) or
different kinds of work (e.g. feeding the poor, supporting inner-city youth, and malaria
eradication). They may be operating in the same geographic area or in different areas.
Data sources
The report should be based on seven or more sources, at least two of which must be from
periodical publications (such as newspapers, magazines, or journals). Assume that most (or all)
of your information will be available on the web.
The report topic requires that you analyze current information for the charities. For charity
data, use the most recent sources available—preferably those produced within the last two years.
Most data will likely come from secondary sources. Possible primary sources of data may be a
charity’s Form 990 or annual report, the charity’s website, or an interview with staff.
Cite all sources of data in the report text using author-date system of APA. Show direct quotes.
A folder of resources to help you use APA style is on Blackboard in COURSE DOCUMENTS.
Also, see the Online WritingLab’s (Purdue University) guidelines at
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Avoid constructing your report text by pervasively cutting and pasting from sources. This
practice plagiarizes even when original sources are cited. The cut-and-paste approach also
creates a document lacking in logical flow, clarity, and style.
Draft expectations
Your draft of the report text should be the nearly complete and long enough to cover the topic
adequately without wasting words. An estimated length is 2000-2500 words.
Your draft should
Use indirect pattern for your report, which means it will
o Begin with an introduction including a problem/purpose (topic) statement and an
explanation of how you gathered your data (sources and methods of data collection).
You may include additional typical introductory elements as needed (see Chapter 13).
o Present and discuss/analyze your research findings (the facts you found).
o Draw conclusions, but only about what these findings/facts show in relation to the
problem/purpose.
o Offer recommendation(s) as appropriate. Say what action, if any, the reader should take
in response to your conclusions.
Cite sources throughout the report using parenthetical in-text citations, APA style.
Include a complete list of references in APA style, alpha-order.
Incorporate headings and subheadings for each section and subsection.
Use a professional and impersonal language style appropriate for a formal report.
A satisfactory draft is available on-time for peer review and meets all the expectations listed
above in terms of length/completeness, organization, citations, references, headings/subheadings,
and language style.
An unsatisfactory draft is less than complete; submitted too late to share with peers; poorly
organized; missing parts such as key sections, citations, a list of references, or
heading/subheadings; or uses a very informal language style inappropriate for the audience.
A not attempted draft is not submitted to peer reviewers and instructor or does not minimally
address the assigned topic. In order to get a grade on the final report, a draft must be submitted
for feedback.
Format
Aside from using headings and subheadings to show section/subsection breaks, format for the
initial draft is open. However, if you wish to use the format required in the final draft, you may
do so. For an overview, see “Formatting details for the final draft” attached to final draft
instructions in the Report Assignment module on Blackboard or see the sample long, formal
report in Chapter 13.
Graphics
Graphics are not required in the initial draft. In the final draft, you should plan to use as many
graphics as seem necessary to present your report’s contents clearly. The most likely graphics to
include are tables and charts of supporting data. All included graphics, except for cited
photographs, must be created by you in Excel, Word, or some other app rather than copied from
a source. For example, you could use a table or chart to give a side-by-side comparison of all
three charities. At least one graphic must be placed within the report text (not the appendix).
…
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