Assignment 3

 

Refer to the Major Assignment 3 attachments for details on completing the assignment.

Prepare the written portion of this assignment in the APA Style.

This assignment uses a rubric. Review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

General Education Program Information

This assignment assesses the following general education competencies:

University Foundations

GED1C3: Articulate strategies of self-leadership and self-management.

Effective Communications

GED2C1: Construct logical, cohesive, and persuasive arguments.

GED2C3: Exhibit proficiency in Standard American English for academic purposes.

Critical Thinking

GED3C1: Demonstrate clarity and logic in asking relevant questions and acquiring knowledge.

GED3C2: Apply appropriate critical inquiry strategies (e.g., inductive and deductive reasoning, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis) to issues and questions.

GED3C3: Make informed decisions based on historical, current, reliable, and valid information.

Global Awareness, Perspectives, and Ethics

GED4C4: Use knowledge of the past to develop understandings concerning the present or future.

Christian Worldview

GED5C2: Analyze the impact of the Christian worldview as it relates to human value and dignity.

MAT-144 Major Assignment 3 Instructions

Please follow these instructions when completing Major Assignment 3. You will be completing a Microsoft Word template

and
an Excel template for the assignment. Refer to the assignment rubric for details about how the assignment will be scored.

Overview

You have decided that 5 years from now, you will spend 12 weeks implementing a project to provide humanitarian assistance to people in your local community. At that time, you will take a break from work or retirement and spend at least 30 hours per week for 12 weeks engaged in this project. You will be in charge of your own project working directly with people in need, not simply volunteering with an existing organization. In the 5 years between now and the start of the project, you will devise a plan and prepare funding.

Project details in Word

For your project, you will identify a group of local people to assist with a need from the provided list. You will develop a project that has the potential to improve their lives in both the short and long run. Choose

one
project from the list below to use for Major Assignment 3. The list is organized under different topics to help you find a project that interests you.

Education

· An afterschool tutoring program

· School supply distribution

· Day camp for kids

· Vocational training

Health
Care

· Pop-up clinic for vaccines, general health care, etc.

· Health care awareness program – mental health, nutrition, maternity care, etc.

· Mental health support groups

· Help lines/call centers

Community Improvement

· Home rehabilitation

· Community safety program

Other Service Projects

· Food distribution

· Clothing distribution

· Companion program for senior citizens

· Homeless assistance

You will contact experts or representatives from local churches, charities, non-governmental and/or governmental organizations to get information about areas of need in your community and/or additional information about what is necessary to run a project like this.

For your project, you will provide specifics of what you will achieve and how the success of your project should be measured.

You will also identify the people, resources, and materials needed to provide your service. Your project must include the assistance of other people, either whom you will recruit as volunteers, whom you will pay for expert assistance, or both.

You will complete the Microsoft Word template using 1,500 to 3,000 words to explain specifics of your project implementation.

For full credit
, you must address each point in each section listed.
The objective is to demonstrate that you have thought through in detail what it would mean to provide a certain type of assistance.

Although you may cross-reference points between sections, the questions from each section must be answered in that section to get credit for your response. The amount of credit you receive will depend on how thoroughly you have considered your implementation: you should attempt to write so that a reasonable reader would need to ask few or no follow-up questions to clarify your overall objective, people you will help, assistance provided, project management, timeline, assessment procedures, ethics and CWV analysis, and reflections.

Write-ups that leave many questions unanswered or with significant gaps will earn less credit. Be sure to support your claims with evidence.

Here are the sections that you will be completing in the Microsoft Word template:

I)
Titles for both the Project and Each Section

1) A title for your write-up, including your name, the date, the course, and your instructor’s name. Your title should capture the essence of your project (e.g., “Tiny Homes for the Homeless in Mendenhall, MS”)

2) Titles for Each sections – generic ones are provided in the template but most should be adapted to your specific project.

II) Whom will you help? Instead of this question the actual Write-Up should have a statement of the group you intend to aid.

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. Where is your local community (city, state/province, and country) in which you will be providing assistance?

2. Describe the specific group of people in your local community that you will be helping. Why do they need assistance? What is their economic status? What mix of ages and genders are they? Etc.

3. How will you get the word out to the people you want to help? Why did you choose this approach?

III) What assistance will you provide? Instead of this question the actual Write-Up should have a statement of the type of aid you are offering.

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. What specific assistance will you bring to the people who need it (goods, services, training, cash assistance, etc.)? (Here, a response like “cash payments of $50 per person per week” is better than “cash payments.”) Does the assistance provided change based on age, gender, family grouping, etc.?

2. How and where will you provide the assistance to people in need? Will you maintain a location for people to come to? Will you visit people where they are? Will you provide transportation if needed (or if that’s part of your service)? Etc.

3. How will this assistance help people in the short run? That is, how might people be better off immediately because of the assistance you provide?

4. How will this assistance help people in the long run? That is, how might the assistance you provide have lasting effects, even if it is time-limited?

IV) How will you start up and manage your project?

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. What are the starting and ending dates of your project? (These should be 5 years in the future and run for the 12 weeks of your project.)

2. Out of your 12-week timeframe, how many weeks will you need to start up your project before beginning to provide assistance to people in need? What will you need to accomplish during these weeks?

3. Where will central operations for your project be? Will you rent a location, look for a donated location, or work in a distributed way (say from people’s houses)?

4. How would you prove to an outside authority (e.g., an auditor) that everything is in place to proceed with your operation? If permits and/or licenses are required, this should be included. If not, you should provide evidence that none are required (e.g., a government website).

5. Will you need volunteers, paid workers, or both? How will you screen personnel? What kinds of skills, special training, licenses, or certification do your personnel need to assist with your project and why?

6. How will you coordinate volunteer efforts, and what will they do? How many volunteers and/or workers do you expect to have?

V) What will you accomplish in the main part of your project?

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. How many weeks will you spend providing assistance to people in need?

2. How many people in need do you expect to be able to assist, and in what ways? Provide evidence that the personnel and time available are sufficient to achieve this goal.

3. How will you track and document whom you are helping and the process by which you are providing assistance?

VI) How will you wrap up and evaluate your project?

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. Out of the 12-week time frame, how many weeks will you need to wrap up your project?

2. In those weeks, what steps will you take to wrap up your project? What records will you retain, and how will you archive those? What steps are required to finalize any location-related expenses?

3. How will you conclude relationships with people you are assisting? When your assistance is no longer available to the people in need, what additional sources of support can you direct them to? How likely is it that these additional sources will be available to the people you helped?

4. If you had to determine immediately after the end of your project whether your assistance had helped, how would you do that? What kind of metric or metrics could you use to determine whether a particular individual had been helped? What questions would you need to ask to determine this?

5. Similarly, how could you determine, 3 months after the end of your project, whether your project assistance was still having an effect? How would you get back in touch with people you had helped? What characteristics of their condition could you measure to determine whether any positive impact from your assistance still remained?

VII) Ethics and Christian Worldview Analysis

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. How does your project demonstrate the Judeo-Islamic-Christian ideal of loving your neighbor as yourself? What other religious and/or ethical principles does your project strive to exemplify or realize?

2. How are the people you propose to help different from you, and how might you structure your project to help bridge differences and lead to increased mutual understanding and respect?

3. How does your project further the goal of affording human value and dignity to all people?

VIII) Summary and Reflections

In this section, you must address the following questions:

1. Whom did you contact to learn about local needs and/or additional information to run a project in your community? What input did they provide to direct your investigation?

2. What other local needs did you consider? What was compelling to you about the one you chose?

3. For the assistance you plan to provide, what other avenues are there for people to receive that assistance? How likely is it that it will be available to them?

4. What other factors (legal, political, social, etc.) that were not considered as a part of this presentation might you need to investigate if you were actually to implement a project such as this one?

IX) References

1. You must support your claims and data with at least three scholarly sources. These can be journal articles or official government websites with data or other relevant information about your local community.

Financial computations in Excel

Separately
from your presentation to sponsors (the project details in Word), you will complete calculations in Excel detailing your expected costs, sponsorship and fundraising contributions, and loan details.

A template is provided for this part of the assignment, including additional information to assist you.

As part of your financial calculations, you will develop the following:

1. A budget for your project, including personnel, administrative, outreach, and program costs, plus a percentage breakdown of each type of cost and an estimated cost per person that you expect to assist. Budget costs will be in current dollars and must have at least one non-zero entry per category.

2. A 5-year forward projection of your budget cost, using extrapolation of CPI values from 5 years that you will look up in a table.

3. A 5-year projection of a sponsorship amount; the sponsorship amount will be a given percentage of your 5-year budget projection and will accrue interest at a given APR.

4. A 5-year fundraising total that you expect to raise through monthly donations; the monthly donation amount and APR will be provided.

5. A 5-year loan payment calculation in which you calculate the monthly payment amount required to pay off monthly, over a period of 5 years, the difference between the cost of the project and the sum of your sponsorship and fundraising totals. (The loan would be taken out at the time the project is implemented.)

Financial formulas

The following formulas, given in Excel format, may be useful for completing Major Assignment 3:

Compound interest formula: If an initial amount
P grows at an annual rate
r with
n compounding periods per year, then the value
A of that amount after
t years is given by the formula

A = P*(1+r/n)^(n*t)

Future value of periodic payments (Savings Plan): If an amount
P is contributed at the end of each of
n periods per year for
t years and the balance earns interest at an annual percentage rate of
r, the total amount
A accrued after
t years is given by

A = P*((1+r/n)^(n*t) –1)/(r/n)

Loan payment formula: The amount
PMT that must be paid
n times per year for
t years to pay off a loan principal amount of
P at an APR of
r is given by

PMT = P*(r/n)/(1 – (1 + r/n)^(-n*t))

Inflation rate formula: Given an old CPI value at one point and a new CPI value n years later, the n-year inflation rate IR is given by

IR = (new CPI – old CPI)/(old CPI)

© 2021. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved. Version – Fa21

© 2021. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved. Version – Fa21

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2

>Excel Grading Sheet Major Assignment

3

Excel Grading Sheet Rubric Category
(% weighting for assignment) Requirements for full credit (optional for student use) Did you meet the requirements? Possible Points Your Points % Score for Rubric Category Rubric Score Project Budget

(

1 5

%) You have entered your full name in the field provided. (Note that entering your name on this sheet is required in order to complete the assignment.)

2
You have listed at least

8

budget items total with at least 1 item in each category.

8
You have entered the number of times purchased and purchase amount for each item, and at least 3 items are purchased more than once.

8
Your

Total Cost

for each item is a formula multiplying the number of times purchased by the purchase amount, using appropriate cell references. 1

6 Your

Subtotal

formulas are correct for each of your

4

sections.

16
You have explicitly formatted your Cost Per Purchase, Total Cost, and Subtotal cells to display as Currency with the $ sign and 2 decimal places of precision. (1/2 point each) 1

0 Subtotals 60

0

0.00% Unsatisfactory Budget Summary and Analysis

(

11

%) You have transferred your Subtotals from the Budget to the Summary and Analysis section, using formulas with cell references.

8
Your

Budget Total

is correctly calculated from your Subtotals as a formula using cell references.

4
Your

Percentage of Total

formulas are correctly calculated from the Subtotals and Budget Total in the Summary section, using cell references.

16
Subtotal and Budget Total cells are formatted as Currency showing the $ symbol and with 2 decimal places of precision, and percentages are formatted as Percentage with 1 decimal place. 9

Subtotals

37

0
0.00%
Unsatisfactory

CPI Value

s

, Slope, Y-Intercept, and Cost Projection
(16%)

Your month and year entries are correct following the first (generated) values. 10 Your CPI values are correct for the months and years given.

6
Your slope and y-intercept formulas are correct and use the appropriate Excel functions.

8
The year number to use for your CPI projection is correct, and you have brought your Budget Total forward using an Excel formula with appropriate cell reference.

4
Your formulas to calculate the projected CPI value, 5-year inflation rate, and 5-year budget projection are correct. 12 Your formatting is correct for all cells: your CPI values are formatted as number with 3 decimals of precision; your 5-year inflation rate is formatted as a percentage with 2 decimal places; and your 5-year budget and budget projection are formatted as currency with the $ symbol and 2 decimal places.

12

Subtotals

52

0
0.00%
Unsatisfactory

Funding

– Inputs
(5%)

Your interest rates correctly match the corresponding entries from the table for the years and months given.

6

Your 5-year projected budget total is brought forward from the

Project Budget and Projection

sheet, using an Excel formula.

2

Your interest rates are formatted as percentages with 2 decimals and your budget total is formatted as currency using the $ symbol and 2 decimal places.

4

Subtotals
12
0
0.00%
Unsatisfactory
Sponsorship, Fundraising, and Loan Payment Calculations
(12%) For your Sponsorship calculation, your number of compoundings and time inputs are correct, and your principal amount and 5-year sponsorship amount are correct Excel formulas using appropriate cell references.

12
For your Fundraising calculation, your number of compoundings and time inputs are correct, and your 5-year fundraising total calculation is a correct Excel formula using appropriate cell references.

8
For your Loan calculation, your number of payments and time inputs are correct, and your additional amount and monthly payment calculations are correct Excel formulas using appropriate cell references.

12
All cells with dollar amounts are explicitly formatted as Currency using the $ symbol and with 2 decimal places. Cells with n or t entries are formatted as Number with 0 decimal places.

11

Subtotals

43

0
0.00%
Unsatisfactory

Project Budget and Projection

1 Enter your full name in the blue-shaded box here. If your full name is less than 10 letters long, add additional letters ‘X’ at the end until you reach length 10. Assignment Advisory: You must use the latest desktop version of Excel for Microsoft 365 for this assigment. (This is provided free by GCU; contact the Help Desk for more information and help installing the software.) Using an earlier version of Excel or a different spreadsheet program may result in missing or corrupted template elements. Copying cells from or into this template may likewise result in corrupted data. Legend 2a Below, you will develop a budget for your project, including entries for personnel costs (for yourself, other paid individuals, legal or consulting services, etc.); administrative costs (rents, fees, utilities, insurance, IT costs, office supplies, travel, etc.); outreach costs (advertising, recruitment, fundraising, etc.); and program costs (supplies for use in assistance, cash distributions, payments for direct services to recipients, etc.). You must enter at least 8 budget items in all. Each category must have at least one budget item. For at least 3 budget items, your expense quantity must be greater than one. Format all costs as Currency with 2 decimal places. To start, modify the cost of your time as appropriate. 2b Here, use Excel formulas to transfer the subtotals and total from your budget into this table, and then calculate the percentage of the budget total represented by each category. Format the costs as Currency with two decimal places and the percentages as Percentage with one decimal place. If a cell is shaded You should Blue Enter a text response Green Enter a number Gold Enter an Excel formula Any other color Make no changes

Budget Summary and Analysis
Budget Category

Subtotal
Percentage of Total
Personnel Costs $1,000.00 Administrative Costs Outreach Costs Project Budget

Program Costs Personnel Costs

Budget Total
Budget Item Quantity needed Cost Per Item

Total Cost
Costs of your time (per week)

1
$1,000.00
$1,000.00

Budget Cost Projection

3a Below, you will generate a 5-year projected cost for your budget, starting with your budget total. You will base your projection on CPI values that you look up. Use this procedure to look up the CPI value:
1. Go to Bureau of Labor Statistics page link

https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?cu

2. Check the box to the left of text “U.S. city average, All items – CUUR0000SA0”
3. Press the “Retrieve Data” button at the bottom of the list. This should take you to a CPI table for
about the last 10 years.
First, fill in the CPI value for the given month and year. Then, fill in the CPI values for the next 6 years, advancing exactly one year for each value. For example, if you start in February 2011, your next CPI value will come from February 2012. Format your CPI values as Numbers with 3 decimals of precision.

Subtotal:

$1,000.00

Administrative Costs

Budget Item
Quantity needed
Cost Per Item
Total Cost

Subtotal:
Outreach Costs

Year

Number

CPI Value

Month

Year
Budget Item
Quantity needed
Cost Per Item
Total Cost

1

Your full name entry must be longer

Your full name entry must be longer

2

3

4

5
Subtotal:

6
Program Costs

3b Now, from the year number and CPI values, find the slope and y-intercept of the best-fit line for your CPI values. Budget Item
Quantity needed
Cost Per Item
Total Cost

Slope (m) Y-Intercept (0, b) 3c Finally, project the CPI forward an additional 5 years using your slope and intercept; calculate the 5-year inflation rate from your year 6 CPI value and the calculated value; and apply the inflation rate to your budget total to find a 5-year budget projection.

Subtotal:

The Year Number to use for your further 5-year projection
(If you project forward another 5 years from year 6 in the chart above, what year will you be at then?) The projected CPI value for that year The 5-year inflation rate based on the last CPI value in the table and the projected CPI value Your Budget Total (brought forward from above) Your 5-year Budget Total Projection

CPI Values
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?cu

Funding

Your name (brought forward from the Monthly Budget sheet):

0

4 On this sheet, you will consider how to cover the projected cost of your Project Budget. In particular, you will calculate the 5-year balance for a percentage of your projected cost assumed to be invested at a given interest rate with annual compounding; the 5-year balance for a given monthly donation amount invested at a second interest rate; and a monthly loan payment required for a 5-year loan to cover the remainder of your 5-year projected cost, using a third interest rate.
Start by looking up rates to use as APRs in the following historical table of 30-year fixed mortgage rates:

http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html

Enter these items as percentages or decimals; for example, a value of 4.03 in the table would be entered here as 4.03% or 0.0403. Also format each rate as a Percentage with 2 decimal places. APR Year

Your full name entry must be longer
Your full name entry must be longer
Your full name entry must be longer
APR Month

Your full name entry must be longer
Your full name entry must be longer
Your full name entry must be longer
Interest Rate 5 Now, perform each of the calculations indicated. Please refer to the financial formulas section of the instructions for Major Assignment 3, where you will find the equations for the Compound Interest Formula, Future Value of Periodic Payments Formula, and Loan Payment Formula to use for the final calculation in the Sponsorship, Fundraising, and Loan Payment sections below, respectively. Important Note: for these calculations, you MUST use direct calculation formulas, and you MAY NOT use built-in Excel functions to calculate these values.
Format all amounts (in the gold-shaded cells) as Currency with the $ symbol and 2 decimal places, and all n and t entries (in the green-shaded cells) as Number with 0 decimals. Bring your 5-year projected budget total forward from the Project Budget and Projection sheet 6 Sponsorship (invest a fixed amount for 5 years with annual compounding) 8 Loan Payment (determine the monthly payment required for a 5-year loan to cover the remainder of the budget costs) Percentage of your Budget Total to invest Complete the first interest rate entry in section 4 above The additional amount you need to cover your 5-year budget costs (P) Principal amount to invest (P), based on your budget total and the percentage in B31 Your APR (r) Complete the third interest rate entry in section 4 above Your APR (r)

Complete the interest rate entry in section 4 above Number of payments per year (n) Number of compoundings per year (n) Number of years (t) Number of years (t)

The monthly loan payment (PMT) Your 5-year sponsorship total 7 Fundraising (invest monthly donations for 5 years with monthly compounding)

Legend
Monthly contribution amount (PMT) Complete the second interest rate entry in section 4 above

If a cell is shaded
You should
Your APR (r)
Complete the second interest rate entry in section 4 above

Blue
Enter a text response
Number of compoundings per year (n)

Green
Enter a number
Number of years (t)

Gold
Enter an Excel formula
Your 5-year fundraising total
(Hint: use the “future value of periodic payments” formula in the assignments instructions)

Any other color
Make no changes

Mortgage Rates

http://www.freddiemac.com/pmms/pmms30.html

Your Title Here (should capture the essence of your project)

Your name

MAT-144

The date you most recently edited your write-up

[

A note about grading for this write-up
: Although you may cross-reference points between sections, the questions from each section must be answered in that section to get credit for your response. The amount of credit you receive will depend on how thoroughly you have considered your implementation: you should attempt to write so that a reasonable reader would need to ask few or no follow-up questions to clarify your overall objective, people you will help, assistance provided, project management, timeline, assessment procedures, ethics and CWV analysis, and reflections. Write-ups that leave many questions unanswered or with significant gaps will earn less credit. The specific question to be addressed are at the end of the Instructions for Major Assignment 3. Each section should be treated as a short essay/paragraph answer.]

Whom will you help? (should reflect your project)

What assistance will you provide? (should reflect your project)

How will you start up and manage your project?

What will you accomplish in the main part of your project?

How will you wrap up and evaluate your project?

Ethics and Christian Worldview Analysis

Summary and Reflections

References

© 2021. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved. Version – Fa21

© 2021. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved. Version – Fa21

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