College of Arts & Sciences

Rhetoric & Professional Writing

University of Cincinnati
2600 Clifton Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45219

April 21, 2024

Colleen McSwiggin
Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub
911 Evans Street
Cincinnati OH, 45204

Dear Colleen,

We are excited to finally be able to share the deliverables from the Rhetoric &
Professional Writing Capstone project with you. Over the course of the semester, we
have synthesized a set of boilerplate texts to expedite the grant application process
and created a brochure for use in the Hub’s Off-Site Collections program. To achieve
these results, we have worked closely with Hub staff to acquire information and
feedback on our work, to ensure that the deliverables have proceeded in
accordance with the Hub’s vision.

In the following report, we have outlined the project as a whole, including the goals
and rationale, audience and personas, and design and writing processes. We have
included a table of contents which you may use to help navigate the report as
needed.

We would like to thank you for the opportunity to work with you this past semester.

Sincerely,
Rory Foley, Elizabeth Oh, Sarina Ware, and Sydney Llewellyn
Professional Writing
Capstone
Spring Semester 2024
Delivered April 22, 2024
Capstone Project for the
Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub

Prepared for
Colleen McSwiggin, Executive Director
Brittany Gray, Off-Site Collections Coordinator
Katrina Weiss, Marketing Manager

Prepared by
Rory Foley
Elizabeth Oh
Sarina Ware
Sydney Llewellyn

The 2024 Rhetorical & Professional Writing Capstone

Department of English
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... 1
Project Background.................................................................................................................................................. 1
Project Goals and Rationale............................................................................................................................... 1
PERSONAS..................................................................................................................................2
Boilerplate Personas............................................................................................................................................... 2
Brochure Personas...................................................................................................................................................4
ACCESSING THE DELIVERABLES...............................................................................................6
DELIVERABLE #1: BOILERPLATE TEXT....................................................................................... 7
Goals and Rationale................................................................................................................................................7
Drafting Process.........................................................................................................................................................8
DELIVERABLE #2: BROCHURE.................................................................................................. 11
Informational Content...........................................................................................................................................11
Visual Content........................................................................................................................................................... 12
Printing Materials..................................................................................................................................................... 13
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................... 14
APPENDICES.............................................................................................................................15
Appendix A: Boilerplate Rough Draft.......................................................................................................... 15
Appendix B: Boilerplate Edited Draft...........................................................................................................15
Appendix C: Boilerplate Final Document.................................................................................................15
Appendix D: Brochure Final Design............................................................................................................. 15
INTRODUCTION
Over the course of the past four months, our Rhetoric & Professional Writing
Capstone team has worked to create a variety of deliverables for the Cincinnati
Recycling & Reuse Hub. The following report includes background on the project and
deliverables, including detailed discussions of how each of the deliverables was
created.

Project Background
In January of 2024, when Executive Director Colleen McSwiggin of the Cincinnati
Recycling & Reuse Hub (the Hub, from here on) pitched the two deliverables to the
Rhetoric & Professional Writing Capstone. The first of these projects was a need for
boilerplate text for grant applications, with the intent to expedite the application
process by frontloading generic information that could be used across several
different grant applications. The second project focused on creating a brochure that
could be used to market the Hub’s Off-Site Collections program, allowing the Hub to
expand its network of partner organizations.

Project Goals and Rationale

The goal of this project is to provide documents to the Hub that will allow it to better
fulfill its mission. The first of these documents is a boilerplate text designed to
expedite the grant application process by eliminating the need to generate unique
text for general prompts for each application, saving time and effort. The second of
these documents is a brochure designed to market the Hub’s Off-Site Collections
program, helping the Hub to network and find collection partners more easily.

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PERSONAS

Boilerplate Personas
The role of the first two “personas” for this project was created bearing in mind that
there is no standard of what a specific grant reviewer might look like. Instead of
people, these “personas” are modeled off of two foundations that the Hub had
previously sent grant proposals to. These two sample personas emphasized the
importance of producing boilerplate text that is general but still highlights the Hub’s
mission, necessity, and effectiveness.

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Brochure Personas
The personas we created for the brochure were designed to represent two fairly
broad categories but were based on the ideas of constant collection sites versus
collection events. In creating these personas, our main considerations were what
type of collection fit best with each organization type, and decided that a business
owner is more likely to be interested in becoming a constant collection site due to
the ability to bring in a constant stream of customers whereas a non-profit or a
church may be more interested in community event collections due to the publicity
of such events. The knowledge base of these personas was important to keep in
mind as we developed the language and terminology used in the brochure.

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ACCESSING THE DELIVERABLES
We have included several ways to access each of the deliverables to facilitate easier
access under different conditions. The first of these is in the form of a folder sent
through email, which contains this document as well as copies of each deliverable.
The boilerplate text will have a PDF copy as well as an editable master word
document. The brochure will have two PDF copies, one with bleed and crop marks
and one with, depending on what type of printing is desired. We suggest that you
download this folder so that you will have access to a copy at all times. The second
access option is through Google Drive, which will contain the same contents as the
emailed folder. Following the conclusion of the project, we will not access Google
Drive, and we advise that you change passwords and share it amongst the
organization.

The login information is as follows:

LOGIN: CintiRRH.RPWCapstone24@gmail.com
PASSWORD: CapstoneDeliverables24

This login information will also allow Hub members to log in to a Canva account via
Google that will include the final brochure design in its editable format, which can be
shared between and altered by staff at the Hub.

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DELIVERABLE #1: BOILERPLATE TEXT
As a nonprofit, one of the most important sources of revenue for the Hub is grant
funding. The grant application process often includes the production of standard
information such as mission statements or organization history. Therefore,
boilerplate text exists as a template that may be reused across grant applications,
minimizing the need to produce original text.

Goals and Rationale

Mrs. McSwiggin provided a list of prompts that are commonly requested in grant
applications and ranked each prompt by priority (see Fig. 1 below).

Fig. 1: Boilerplate prompts and details.

Also provided were three completed grant applications for the L&L Nippert
Foundation, Gardner Foundation, and SC Ministry Foundation which included stylistic
decisions and organization information that served as a template for the boilerplate
document. As a result, the boilerplate document was drafted with careful attention to
branding, cohesion, and brevity so the text may be universally applicable.

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Drafting Process
To create a comprehensive boilerplate document that addressed the Hub’s needs,
the drafting process incorporated thorough research, consultation, and revision (see
Fig. 2 below).

Fig. 2: Boilerplate process.

1. Review existing grant applications

As mentioned earlier, three completed grant applications served as primary
sources of information for the boilerplate text. The replication of the
personable, informative style in these three applications was crucial to depict
a singular voice that represented the Hub as a community-driven, trustworthy
organization. Key terms like “impact” and the Hub’s iconic mission statement
were lifted from these applications into the boilerplate text, and program
information such as demographic and statistical data informed the logos of
the boilerplate text. These applications effectively served as the blueprint
which the boilerplate document was laid upon.

2. Determine client needs

To ascertain what exact information should be included in the boilerplate
document, we were given a list (see Fig. 1 above) by Mrs. McSwiggin with each
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 section that was to be addressed. The sections were ranked by priority,
according to what the Hub typically sees in a grant proposal. For example,
sections such as “Organization History” and “Organization Mission” were
deemed as the first priority. Additionally, each section was assigned a short
and long character length, which reflected the average character count in
grant proposals for each section. The long lengths of each section were
tackled first, then revised to meet the short character length afterward.

3. Draft
After gathering information from the three completed grant applications and
referencing the needs presented by Mrs. McSwiggin, the boilerplate document
was created in Google Docs and shared between Elizabeth Oh and Sarina
Ware. Deliverables were divided up and the requested prompts were
highlighted by priority with the character limit listed above each body of text.
The only unfinished section was “Program demographics (Reuse programs
only)” after Mrs. McSwiggin commented that the information entailed in this
prompt is already included in “Organization demographics.” In total, 17 pages
of text were drafted from the document’s creation on February 12th to its
completion on April 1st.

4. Revise
The boilerplate document underwent multiple rounds of revision by various
audiences. The document was reviewed by the University of Cincinnati’s
Professional Writing Advisory Board who expressed confusion about the Hub’s
role as a transporter of recyclable goods and urged us to emphasize that it is
not an industrial site where goods are repurposed. Professors Laura Wilson
and Teresa Cook echoed this feedback and commented on the design of the
document. As a result, revisions were made with close attention to the
transparency of the Hub’s position as a single, comprehensive transport
location for recyclables as well as the visual appeal of the boilerplate text.

The document also was reviewed by Mrs. McSwiggin on three meeting dates
(March 1st, March 15th, and April 11th) for accuracy and style, both of which she
approved. Most of her revisions consisted of statistical updates, as the Hub
increased the number of diverted waste items each time we met. In sum, the
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 document underwent a series of visual and textual revisions which
emphasized the Hub’s role as a recycling organization that consistently
increases its diversion rates.

5. Update accessibility
The final step was finalizing all changes and updating the accessibility. It was
formatted as a master .docx. As seen in Appendix C, our final document is a
total of 29 pages including a title page, table of contents, and 12 grant
proposal sections. Unlike the two previous drafts, the final document was
created to align with the Hub’s branding for consistency even as an in-house
document. This included the Hub’s logo, font, and contact information. Each
section has a long length following a shorter length with the character count
of both lengths at the top of the respective sections. Some of the sections are
over or under the character length but the lengths serve as a reference point
as to how much the Hub can take out or add in when applying for grants. For
example, as the statistics continue to grow or the Hub gains new partners, the
grant proposal writer can add the information without reformatting the whole
section. The final document is easy to edit and adaptable to any grant
requirements the Hub may apply to.

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DELIVERABLE #2: BROCHURE
There is only a certain amount of networking that can be done in person by any
organization, but especially so with a small organization like the Hub. The brochure
deliverable is designed to market and expand the Hub’s Off-Site Collections program
in a less person-intensive manner by providing accessible information about the
Hub’s mission, its partners, and the Off-Site Collections program in a print format. The
finalized brochure may be viewed in Appendix D.

Informational Content
Each of the panels used in the brochure has a specific purpose for marketing the
program to organizations in the Cincinnati area. The cover and rear panels are fairly
standard, with the former stating the contents and purpose of the brochure and the
latter hosting a series of ways for a reader to contact or find more information
regarding the Hub. The contents and justifications of the interior panels are as
follows.

The first panel as a person opens the brochure deals with who the Hub is. Titled
“Sustainability. Centralized.” after one of the Hub’s evolving catchphrases, the first
panel provides a background on what the Hub’s mission is as well as detailing some
of the ways that the Hub is currently working to achieve its mission. It was important
to include this panel early in the brochure, as the first question a person is likely to
have when picking up the brochure is “Who is the Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub?”
and answering that question as quickly as possible will help hold the reader’s
attention.

The second panel deals with the types of organizations that the Hub currently works
with as Off-Site Collections partners. This panel is purposefully generalized so as to
avoid becoming invalid if a specific partner decides to stop working with the Hub or
shuts down operations. Instead, we focused on the various types of organizations
and partner collections the Hub has worked with, a discussion of both private
organization collections and public community collections, and a brief overview of
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the partnership that the Hub currently has with the farmer's markets in the Cincinnati
area. While it was our initial instinct to highlight specific organizations, the current
state of the panel does a better job of addressing exactly what the Off-Site
Collections are and demonstrating the myriad organization types the program works
with before getting into what the reader and their organization can do.

The final section covers two full panels and deals with what the organization or
community can do to get involved with the Off-Site Collections program. One of the
primary messages that this panel sends is that, while the Hub can help the
organization or community with setting up and maintaining a collection point, the
organization will have certain responsibilities, such as ensuring that the collected
materials meet Hub standards and shipping those materials to the Hub’s warehouse
site. It is important to be up-front with would-be partner organizations to avoid
false-positive interest in the program and possibly leaving the program with a poor
reputation.

Visual Content
The graphical elements used in the brochure are focused on providing breaks in the
informational content of the brochure while also providing context and examples of
program activities, including images of collection events as well as an image of one
of the ongoing collection units operated by an Off-Site Collections partner of the
Hub. The locations of the images are important within the context of the information
in order to provide readers with examples as they are reading; for example, an
image of the Hub’s collection at the Findlay Market is immediately above the section
of text discussing the Hub’s partnerships with farmers markets in the area.

When it comes to the background visual elements of the brochure, we opted for a
clean, simple look. Not only did this make it easier to organize information and allow
for symmetrical design between panels, but it also played into the Hub’s mission to
help clean up the environment by decreasing both public and private waste
footprints.

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We also made use of the Hub’s branding guidelines when developing the negative
space and base design, including the font, colors, and divider sizing in order to make
the brochure match both the Hub’s website design and the design of additional print
materials produced by the Hub. The colors we used (Fig. 3) may be found in the
Hub’s branding guide We used a dark green color (#165e4a) and a flat white
(#fefefe) for the negative space. For the font, we used the same white on the dark
green panels and used a black (#231f20) for text on the white background. For the
cover page, we used a tire gray (#58595b) for the subtitle and the dark green for the
main title. The lighter green (#80c343) was used primarily in the lines used to divide
headers from body text on each panel, but was also used in the QR code linking to
the Hub’s main website.

Fig. 3: Color swatches

Printing Materials
There are many options for printing the brochure, including in-house printing,
printing through Canva, and printing using U.C. Printing services. The cheapest option
is in-house printing, assuming the Hub already has the requisite printers. If a higher
quality print job is desired than can be achieved by in-house printing, the
professional printers listed above may be of use. Printing through Canva appears to
be the cheapest option; when purchased in quantities of 50, the unit price per
brochure comes to $1.05, while printing through the U.C. Printing service will be more
expensive, with a unit price roughly double that of Canva.

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CONCLUSION
The Cincinnati Recycling & Reuse Hub prides itself on the work it does, as well as its
accomplishments in the short time that it has been operating. But like any small
organization, there is often more to do than there is time or hands to do it. We firmly
believe that these deliverables will help with this by shaving time off of the grant
application process and allowing for the Hub to network and expand through the use
of print marketing.

We appreciate the opportunity to work with the Cincinnati Recycling and Reuse Hub
and to use our experience and skills to help further the organization’s mission. If there
are any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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APPENDICES

Appendix A: Boilerplate Rough Draft

The rough draft of the boilerplate document can be accessed here.

Appendix B: Boilerplate Edited Draft

The rough draft of the boilerplate document with edits can be accessed here.

Appendix C: Boilerplate Final Document

The final draft of the boilerplate document can be accessed here.

Appendix D: Brochure Final Design

The printable documents for the brochure can be accessed here.

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