I listen to National Public Radio (NPR) every day. Invariably, I hear a sponsorship from the Kauffman Foundation for Entrepreneurship (www.kauffman.org). I was reading through their grant submission guidelines this morning and it said that they would expect a return on their investment. I thought of what ideas I had cooking and this site would be one I'd like to develop to meet the requirements of their grant process.

Trying to get a grant serves a few purposes. One - gives me exposure to grant writing. The last real grant I wrote was for a NASA program from K-12 education back in the 90s. I think I've matured significantly since then and maybe for this purpose, I could take help from the user community as it builds up.

So how would I get to return on investment. Here's my phased approach.

PHASE I - PROBLEM STATEMENT

Build a community for the foreign trained dentist population living in America

cused on outlining the problem: Foreign Trained Dentists living in America are a waisted medical resource. I could say "foreign trained dentists looking to live in America" but that problem would have too large of a scope.

PHASE II - FOREIGN TRAINED DENTIST PROFILES

Gather profiles of aspiring foreign trained dentists living in America. Build up profiles for members of the community. Try to document the cases they've worked on. Try to get their patients involved by adding testimonials.

PHASE III - FIND FOREIGN TRAINED DENTISTS INITIAL PATHS TO RELATED WORK

Dental assistance work to dentists just out of school just starting their practice was something Melissa fell into. It's a great fit for someone starting up a practice. Perhaps their are other opportunities we can create if the user community puts their minds to it and are provided with the proper technical tools for research and communication.

The idea of a dental cruise in international waters might be another avenue to pursue.

If the foreign trained dentist has facilities in their home country, perhaps we could organize dental tourism trips back to their home country to perform dental procedures.

PHASE IV - GET SUPPORT FROM INDIVIDUAL DENTISTS IN THE US

Mentorship from willing individual dentists would be a great help. We'd have to figure out exactly how it would work and alleviate concerns for risk. Perhaps foreign trained dentists might start by supporting case studies like a free second opinion support group.

PHASE V - MARKETING -  EASE THE PATH FOR FOREIGN TRAINED DENTISTS TO PRACTICE OR OTHERWISE FIND RELATED LINES OF WORK

We'd work in political circles to package and present our case to the U.S. gov't. We'd collect signed petitions and our documented body of evidence. We'd try to get various foundations to help us with building the leverage to meet our goals. A good starting point might be to look for ways for foreign trained dentists from California to move out and practice in other states.

PHASE VI - RETURN ON INVESTMENT - Become The Clearinghouse for Connect Foreign Trained Dentists With Dental Employers.

Perhaps after all this, we could get to sustainability by collecting a nominal fee for matching foreign trained dentists with dental employers. This might be one related way to prove return on investment to a grant accepting organization.

Information Technology By-Products.

As an IT professional, of course, I can use the community building execise to build up an experienced staff starting from fresh students who might be utilized for consulting revenue for related or non-related commercial opportunities. Also, the technical tools constructed or otherwise developed for data analysis and community building might be productized and packaged. We could also separate the process we went through from the subject matter and package/market that to other organizations as a winning business model.

I'll think more about this and keep everyone informed if I decide to pursue the grant writing process.