As our fellow Americans are seeking strategies to get a higher return out of every dollar they donate, we in the Persian community are also striving for higher impact and endeavoring to learn from their best practices. Through strategic philanthropy, PARSA CF hopes to:

- seek the most innovative ideas across the U.S.;

- signal other donors by raising the visibility of grantees;

- document the process and improving it continuously for everyone's benefit; and

- give funds institutionally rather than as individuals, hoping to increase accountability and measure results better.

With countless examples of the heart and soul invested in building these nonprofits and the variety of proposals we received, you can imagine how difficult it was to decide which applications to select.  This was compounded by the fact that the amount requested totaled over $1.4 million while our total grant-making budget was $100,000.

PARSA CF staff reviewed all applications and divided them into two groups. To ensure broad participation and an objective evaluation process, we formed an independent Grant Advisory Committee comprised of individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences with community building.  Committee members dedicated themselves to a thorough review of applications and delved into the challenges and opportunities that each nonprofit faced. They applied their expertise as well as a rigorous evaluation process using 15 criteria to measure the effectiveness of each organization. PARSA CF staff then ranked applicants based on their total score and presented grant amount recommendations to the Board.  PARSA CF's Board reviewed the recommendations and cast thee final vote on grantees and grant amounts.

Our Grant Advisory Committee included:

Reza Behbehani, President, The Meshkat Group

Ladan Behnia, Chairperson of the Board of Directors, Mitratech Holdings, Inc.

Bijan Farzan, Community member and philanthropist

Ali-Gholi Hedayat, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Parnian Kaboli, Community member and philanthropist

Darioush Khaledi, Chairman and CEO, K.V. Mart Company; Proprietor, Darioush Winery

Aria Mehrabi, Pacific Star Capital Management, Inc.

Lloyd Miller, Professor of Persian Music, University of Utah and Brigham Young University

Haleh Motiey-Payandehjoo, Supervising Librarian, California State Library - Sutro

Sebastian Oghlidos, Founder and Managing Partner, Catapult Technology Ventures, LLC

Houman Sarshar, Author and Director of Public Relations at the Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History

We extend our heartfelt thanks to our Grant Advisory Committee members and board members who provided us with invaluable input during the evaluation process! 

While innumerable hours were spent on the part of grant seekers to complete their applications, PARSA CF staff likewise dedicated months to familiarizing themselves with every organization and strove to promptly reply to each inquiry received. In addition, staff contacted each organization to review the specifics and parameters of the approved grant, offer the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback, and share ideas on ways to approach the next grant cycle.

Congratulations to the hardworking teams behind PARSA CF's 2007 Mehregan awardees! They include Iranian Alliances Across Borders, Persian Cultural Center, Eastern Arts, the Translation Project, Afsaneh Arts & Culture Society, Child Family Health International, the Tiburon International Film Festival, the Institute of International Education, Iranian Studies Group at MIT, Golestan Kids, and Iranian Students Cultural Organization at UC Berkeley.

Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB) is a group of young Iranians that has done an admirable job of building bridges between the U.S. and Iran. Founded in 2003 by two graduates from Wellesley College and Tufts University, it has completed two youth leadership camps, held three conferences on the Iranian diaspora, held a summit for student organizations, and granted scholarships. As the recipient of our largest Mehregan grant, we hope that they can build the capacity necessary to scale their work to other states and collaborate with local nonprofits all over the country through a successful transfer of knowledge and best practices, thereby increasing the number of youth camps fivefold from 1 to 5 in 2008. We are confident that IAAB will prove to be a resourceful partner to local organizations that want to engage the youth in their communities. This is an organization by the youth, for the youth, illustrating the value of the next generation staying connected to their roots. www.iranianalliances.org

Founded in 1989 in San Diego, the Persian Cultural Center (PCC) was established to facilitate public access to arts and culture. The center organizes and sponsors exhibitions and Persian music concerts by master musicians. It also publishes a bi-monthly, bilingual magazine, Peyk, which has a national circulation of 6,000, including the U.S. Library of Congress. Among PCC's programs is its Iranian School of San Diego. The school begins at kindergarten and continues with basic, intermediate and advanced levels, teaching the Persian language to over 250 Iranian and non-Iranian children and adults annually. This cultural center's track record is a fantastic example of successful teamwork, organization and reach. www.pccsd.org

Established in 1977, Eastern Arts is an internationally active organization of dancers, artists and musicians who plan to create a Society for the Preservation and Propagation for Eastern Arts, where traditional Persian music and dance as practiced by a few surviving old masters will be passed on to talented young disciples. Intending to inspire other dance and music groups to return to the roots of Persian traditional performing arts so that they can be properly studied, Eastern Arts will be able to preserve and promote the highly evolved authentic dance and music of the Persian cultural sphere. www.easternartists.com

Child Family Health International (CFHI) works at the grassroots level to promote the health of the world community. Founded in 1992, they fulfill their mission through Global Service-Learning Electives, Community Health Initiatives, and Medical Supply Recovery. Their initiatives include providing scholarships to send Iranian-American medical students abroad to learn about the way healthcare is practiced worldwide and participate in public health project work. Through this grant, PARSA CF hopes to increase volunteerism and service within Iranian-American students. www.cfhi.org

The Tiburon International Film Festival (TIFF) serves Northern California communities by providing an opportunity for audiences to view cinema from around the world. It also serves a community of international filmmakers, providing them with a platform to showcase their films. TIFF's mission is to host an annual event that provides a greater understanding of the world and its many cultures through the artistic medium of cinema. Over the past six years, TIFF has showcased 58 Iranian films and filmmakers. www.tiburonfilmfestival.com

The Institute of International Education (IIE) is a leading nonprofit in international exchange. Last year, 20,000 people from 175 countries received scholarships and professional training through IIE. For two years, IIE has brought nine Iranian students to the U.S. to teach Persian at American universities through the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) program, the first educational program to bring Iranian students to the U.S. in over 25 years. The Persian FLTA student teachers spend one year at a university, where they teach their native language as assistants to other instructors or lead their own classes. www.iie.org

Founded in 2002 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iranian Studies Group (ISG) is an academic organization with the aim of promoting Iranian civil society through conducting research on issues related to Iranian native and expatriate societies. By actively publicizing their findings in a format that is accessible for the community at large, they aim to bridge the gap between research, public knowledge, and policy-making. Their valuable programs include lecture series featuring prominent scholars and community leaders, analytic research projects, and the publication of Iran Analysis Quarterly. www.isg-mit.org

Founded in 2003, The Translation Project (TTP) brings contemporary Iranian literature to a worldwide audience in multiple languages. Enjoying broad support from the community, TTP raises the profile of Iranian writers and preserves their works in three ways: as a literary organization, production company, and think tank. In 2008, TTP plans to publish the Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Poetry Around the World, create an international editorial committee that will recommend books for translation, and translate and submit sample chapters of these books to their publishing partners. www.thetranslationproject.org

Dedicated to presenting the dance, music, and poetry of the historic Silk Road regions of Central Asia, Afsaneh Arts & Culture Society (AACS) educates and promotes the understanding of these cultures, supports artists as community leaders, and inspires through the presentation of traditional and contemporary works. Ballet Afsaneh, the organization's professional performance ensemble, presents works at major theaters, festivals, museums, universities, and community events. AACS's outreach and education programs offer classes in Persian language, traditional dance, music, visual arts, and manage an international cultural exchange and research program in Tajikistan. www.dancesilkroad.org

Golestan Kids is a year-old Persian preschool with the mission of building a strong cultural and linguistic foundation for Iranian-American children in the San Francisco Bay Area. They have just completed their first official quarter, and all of the children in the program are speaking Persian fluently at home and with each other. By making a grant to this school, PARSA CF aims to promote the idea of a bilingual Persian-English preschool, which most other established diasporas have, with the hope that such programs will eventually be offered around the country. www.golestankids.com

Iranian Students Cultural Organization was founded in 1988 at the University of California, Berkeley. The mission of the organization is to promote the awareness of Iranian culture at UC Berkeley and the surrounding community. ISCO hosts and organizes many events during the school year, ranging from small social gatherings to large school-wide events. ISCO's signature event and crowning achievement is the Norouz Show, which showcases the talents of its members as well as Iranians in the local community. isco.berkeley.edu

We invite you to join PARSA CF's Grant Advisory Committee and help steer our grant making to best meet the needs of our community. Please email us at grants@parsacf.org to get more information. We look forward to receiving letters of inquiry for future grant cycles.  Together we can grow donations for all nonprofits!

To view a press release on this grant cycle, please click here.