A dozen students from Bossier Parish Community College’s student government association took on a unique service project last month. They updated a searchable community resource directory called LINCC.
The students called 122 nonprofits in Caddo and Bossier parishes in an attempt to gather up-to-date information about what the organizations do and how they can be accessed, according to Community Resource Management director Susan Campbell.
Campbell manages LINCC, which stand for the Louisiana Initiative for Nonprofit and Community Collaboration. It's a division of the Community Foundation of North Louisiana and the United Way of Northwest Louisiana. She says federal tax filings for the charitable organizations simply don’t give a full picture.
“We have all the 501c3 information, but what we’re really missing are the details. There are so many wonderful nonprofits in our region,” Campbell said.
Eleanor Chandler, 19, is president of Bossier Parish Community College’s student government. While her SGA normally organizes food and blood drives, this stood out as a new volunteerism idea. She says the students read from a script and left 39 voicemails. When they reached a person on the other end, Chandler says, they found a lot of inconsistencies.
“A lot of addresses were changed. A lot of phone numbers actually were changed. Even directors of the organization changed,” Chandler said. “It was very good that we called them because a lot of information had changed over a good period of time since the last time it was updated.”
Campbell and Chandler are already planning another LINCC update blitz in the spring. There’s plenty of data to clean up. Campbell says the database has about 3,000 entries.
She recently added nonprofits in Natchitoches and Webster parishes, expanding the reach of the directory to include five parishes in northwest Louisiana.
Campbell says LINCC now has a presence on the mayor's website pages for Shreveport and Bossier City.
