1. Meet with others in the community. Create a vision of an ideal project for your community.
  2. Determine the goals of your project. (See the beginning of this section.)
  3. If the main goal is to do research, decide what the theme of your project will be. If the main goal is literacy, language or personal development, allow the participants to choose a theme once the project starts.
  4. Find out about other oral history projects that have been done in the community.
  5. Decide if you need money to run the project.
  6. Get support. Find partners.
  7. Find a local organization that will sponsor the project.
  8. Decide if the oral history project should have an advisory committee.
  9. Decide on your equipment needs.
  10. Decide if you will pay honoraria if you are interviewing Elders.

If you don’t need money, skip to number 14.

If you do need money...

  1. Look for funders whose criteria match your project. Contact the Nunavut Literacy Council for a free copy of Funding Sources for Language and Literacy-based Projects.
  2. Plan your project budget.
  3. Get a small group of people together to work on a proposal. (See Writing a Funding Proposal later in this section and the sample proposals in the Sample Documents section.) If you don’t feel confident, ask for help from an experienced proposal writer in your community. Or contact the Nunavut Literacy Council for support.
  4. Make a work plan. Write down all the tasks that need to be done to prepare for your project. Decide who will do each task and by what date.
  5. Find out if you need a license to do your project from the Nunavut Research Institute. Phone: 867-979-4108, E-mail: slcnri@nunanet.com, Web site: www.nunanet.com/~research.