Best Of
Separate, non Follow-Up form to Collect Thank You Notes from Students
The current methods of collecting and delivering specific thank-you notes to donors from students are often difficult. We'd like to see a system where a dedicated thank you note form can be configured and assigned to the student per opportunity and as needed and attached to the request, eliminating the need to use follow up forms. The choice between having fewer common follow ups (general thank you) and a large number of opportunity-specific follow ups (to get a specific follow up) is not a great one. A dedicated way of exporting these or emailing a donor directly would also be welcome.
Percentage of applications funded
I was having a philosophical conversation with a grant administrator and we were chatting about the average approval rate for grant processes. What would you consider a 'normal' approval rate (partial or full funding) for your competitive grants?
Ending grantee relationships, shifting strategies
Hi folks, I'm looking to connect with other community foundation colleagues who have undergone strategy shifts that made significant changes to grant processes (e.g., decreased grant amounts, sunsetting previous grantee relationships that no longer are strategy aligned). We are shifting discretionary resources to 'upstream' policy and systems solutions, and this will have a significant impact on many 'legacy' direct service partners. Would love to hear any lessons learned or intel you might have on these topics!
Teamwork, Training, and a Touch of Seattle Magic!
I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us at the Seattle Regional Training! The event was an incredible success, and we are truly grateful to work alongside such dedicated, intelligent, and passionate clients.
Our training team was inspired by your engagement, energy, and the meaningful conversations that took place throughout the day. There’s nothing quite like stepping away from the screen and connecting with you in person—hearing your stories, learning about the impactful work you're doing in your communities, and celebrating your successes.
To those who attended: we’d love to see the event through your eyes! Feel free to share any photos or reflections from your experience—we always appreciate seeing your perspectives and memories.
We can’t wait for the next opportunity to gather, learn, and grow together. If you couldn’t make it this time, we hope to see you at a future training!
Closing a fund in an invested pool/strategy
1) What are your procedures for closing a fund that is currently in an investment pool?
2) Do you have a policy that explicitly states these procedures that the fund holder receives/signs off on as part of the onboarding process (i.e. Fund Agreement and/or Terms & Conditions)? If so, could you please share?
Our current practice is to 1) Clearly communicate with the fund holder that closing a fund comes in two separate distributions. The first distribution represents the majority of the fund balance and would be distributed ASAP. 2) On the first of the following month, disable “Revenue Share” to stop allocating them investment earnings. 3) The second and final distribution would happen the following month after the current month's earnings have been calculated and final monthly admin fee assessed.
The Achilles heel to this approach is that our investment earnings are received monthly (usually around the 10th of the month), and the fund holder would therefore be “out of the market” for ~ two weeks before all of its monies are received. We realize that some agencies may not be happy about that.
Re: Award Letter with ACH language
Hi-
We include this language in our letters/ grant agreements.
"Payment will be made via ACH upon receipt and confirmation of your organization’s banking information. "
Part of our process includes asking in the application (or follow-up) for the finance contact who will be invited to complete and upload a form we created to a secure portal. We also require a bank letter or voided check to confirm the information is correct.
Finally, we do a verbal confirmation for any new organizations or groups who have changed their banking information. We ask this question in a follow-up once the grant has been approved.
Happy to discuss further. I posted a thread on the PEAK board last month.
Has this happened to you? Deceased a profile record and now Community Suite is haunted?
I set a profile record to 'deceased' and suddenly all the text in our Community Suite instance started bleeding - I assume our instance in haunted now?
I tried Goo-ghoul to find a techxorcist, but that turned up nothing.
Has anyone else experienced this before?
Thanks,
Mitch Hollberg
PS - For reference, the donor name is Elles, April Foux (profile id 620617)
![2025-04-01 11_25_59-Elles, Ms. April Foux [profile] - Brave.png](https://community.foundant.com/api/v2/media/download-by-url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fus.v-cdn.net%2F6032133%2Fuploads%2FBGOX9SU40SFF%2F2025-04-01-11-25-59-elles-2c-ms-april-foux-5bprofile-5d-brave.png){kind=link}
