Building Your MyImpact Project: Principles Essay

0:03 an important part of the my impact challenge is the principles essay doing something in your community is fantastic but you need to be able to identify the founding principles and Civic virtues behind your service project so let’s dive into this critical piece of the puzzle the my impact principles essay must be no longer than 1200 words and

0:25 demonstrate how your project exemplifies at least one of Bri’s list of founding principles and at least one of Bri’s list of Civic virtues founding principles are the ideas that went into creating America’s founding documents things like equality or more concrete guarantees like free speech Civic

0:46 virtues are the underlying values that motivate us to do good in society things like justice or prudence you can find Bri’s list of founding principles and Civic virtues online at the links in the description below and selecting the right principles and virtues can make or break your my impact application one of the most commonly

1:06 cited principles on my impact applications is equality and one of the most common virtues is Justice the desire for all to be treated equally and justly is a fantastic motivator for a project however if your project uses the principle of equality or the virtue of Justice you should think about how to really Define those values and how they

1:27 tie into your project conversely last year’s winning essay by Hamed tarabzadeh cited the virtue of prudence and the principle of natural or inalienable rights as primary motivators for a project centered on disaster preparedness education it’s fine how can I be a little bit creative with trying to select those virtues and think about some founding principles that actually

1:49 related to my community’s needs and so Prudence was a term right and never really heard of before I wanted to do some more research on it and I looked it up and I saw you know I was pretty amazed actually by this idea of trying to find the best path forward reason yourself in different situations and I thought my project ready teens and

2:09 focusing on disaster preparedness really centered around not only thinking about um reasonable rational ways to do things but also thinking about the future more broadly and trying to create a sustainable course of action for the future and prepare communities and so I thought Prudence was really right at the center

2:29 of the project and then on the note of natural rights I tried to think a little bit about um how Community projects can build into um what we like to see in our own government government and how we want to self-govern right and so this idea basic natural rights of like life liberty

2:50 pursue of Happiness also equality and justice are directly issues that we’re responsible for as community members students Advocates because if we’re not doing it in our communities then um you know we’re kind of failing at this whole experiment there are a lot of principles and virtues to choose from

3:12 does your anti-polarization project promote the virtue of moderation does volunteering in a home for the elderly promote the virtue of respect what about your voter registration Drive promoting the founding principle of democracy when thinking about your principles and virtues look through the list carefully and think which one’s really motivate your project getting this requirement

3:33 right when you ten thousand dollars