Str Plan Part IV.html

YEARS 3-4: PROMOTION OF NVC PROCESS

In our meeting we came up with a strong recommendation that with some exception (see below), CNVC only continue with existing activities without initiating any new ones until year 3 of the plan.

No.	Item	Recommendation	Cat	Who	When	Notes
1	Giraffe schools	Create criteria for giraffe schools	1	currently under review by the board and awaiting approval at Nov 2004 meeting.	Nov-04
2	Certification process	Explore revising the certification process to meet needs for CNVC stakeholders, and to increase transparency, clarity, and simplicity	3	Certification committee with others
3	Media	Increase use of radio and especially TV to spread the word more effectively	3
4	Web		3			Continue to use the CNVC website as a continued resource for sharing NVC
5	NVC materials	Increase availability of free/low cost materials; increase availability of materials in other languages; balance between copyright and copyleft	5
6	Worldwide empathy presence, including empathy hotlines	Explore what this means and how to move towards this goal	5
7	Training	Provide low cost and free training	5
8	Giraffe schools	Create giraffe schools	5			We did not reach consensus on whether or not we want to recommend this happen
9	Research	Promote research on NVC	5	Existing committee headed by Tom Caruso		While Tom's group is already working on this issue, we recommend that CNVC not allocate resources to new activities in this area.

Comments from Tom Caruso on item 9:
I am satisfied with moving research objectives to a later date, because I understand the need to limit resources in this direction considering the overwhelming need for improved coordination of CNVC activities. The NVC Research Committee members have clearly understood from the beginning that funding for its efforts would mostly come from grants.

In fact the NVC Research Committee has already submitted one major grant to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (turned down in late June, but to be resubmitted again with more preliminary data in February 2005), and we are pursuing smaller opportunities individually to build a preliminary result base needed to win larger awards. However, I would like to stress that research on the behavioral and social influences of NVC will be critical to a wide adoption of NVC in schools and other institutions, particularly state and federal government agencies, who rely on academic validation of their reasons for moving forward with major initiatives that incur significant costs. Furthermore, substantial funding for research on NVC will not materialize without significant preliminary evidence that NVC maybe a useful tool for particular behavioral or societal problems. Philanthropy and foundations are typical sources of funding for preliminary research necessary to bootstrap a major research program.

Members of the NVC Research Committee are pursuing foundation sources of funding, so I wonder if you would be willing to consider providing investment of resources in year one and two for supporting an effort to raise philanthropy to support NVC research at an earlier stage in the development of CNVC?