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POLL: What time of year does your organization prepare its budget?
Are you on a calendar year budget and do your budget planning in the fall? Does your fiscal year end in May and you work through budgets early in the year? Vote in this anonymous poll, and share additional details on your processes below!
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New Compass Tour! (May 2023)
Watch the video:
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Consultant Knowledge Sharing
Creating this discussion to supplement @Mandypearce's consultant webinar! Share a bit about you, ask questions, etc.
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Compass Tour Recording - May 2023
Watch the video:
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Let's talk about Impactful Communication!
Hi Compass Community, Let’s talk about communication! Whether you work with a nonprofit organization, community foundation, grantmaker, or scholarship provider, the key to maximizing your impact is the same: building meaningful relationships through effective communication. As founder and CEO of Claxon Communication, I…
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Have you commented yet? Provide input on collecting and reporting race and ethnicity data.
Want to make sure everyone is aware of the April 12, 2023 deadline to provide input into this process. Summary: The Office of the Chief Statistician is taking a key step forward in its formal process to revise OMB’s statistical standards for collecting and reporting race and ethnicity data across Federal agencies…
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How Philanthropy Can Support Culturally-Led Mental Health Programs
Mindful Philanthropy is pleased to announce the release of our latest funder guidance, For the Community, By the Community: How Philanthropy Can Support Culturally-Led Mental Health Programs. We hope that this guidance can be helpful as you make an impact in the mental health of communities of color. The guidance is…
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Drivers and Barriers to Funding for Youth Well-Being: Survey
Mindful Philanthropy is seeking funders of all backgrounds and issue areas to complete this 3 minute survey on the current drivers and barriers to funding the well-being of our nations’ youth. After seeing our young people struggling to cope with the aftermath of the pandemic and rising school violence, we’re attempting to…
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Restrictions/policies when permitting non-endowed or flow through funds?
We have a policy that an Endowed Fund must be started before we permit a non-endowed or flow-through fund to be established. We are revisiting this, however. I am curious as to whether other Foundations permit non-endowed/flow through funds to be established on their own, and if so, are there policies or terms of reference…
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What is the best way to reconnect with a previous funder?
Recently, I accepted a position as a grant proposal writer for The Children's Organ Transplant Association (COTA) www.cota.org. They do fundraising campaigns, obtain donations from individuals, and seek grants from foundations; that is now my job! I already sent many LOIs out to new potential grantors and have sent…
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Congratulations to the November Top 10!
Congrats to @JuanaBaribeau, @AnnSiciliano, @JulieLaLuzerne, @SaraRaabMcInerny, @AnastaciaLamb, @LoriVorpahl, @ElizabethZappa, @PatrickLaorden, @JimMartin, and @KatieRatkowski for being on the November's Top 10 Compass Leaderboard! 🏆️🏆️🏆️ As a thank you for your contributions to our Compass community this past month, you…
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Waivers for photos and videos uploaded to a follow up form?
We have a community grant program that has a primary focus of youth development and education. In follow up reports, we ask for a short story about how the grant dollars impacted those served by the grantee, as well as an area to upload photos and videos. Obviously, most of these photos and videos are normally of the…
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Grant Acceptance Forms & Best Practices
Hi All, I am reaching out for your best practices when it comes to signing grant acceptance forms. Currently, our Foundation has a grant acceptance form built out in GLM that is assigned as a follow-up form. Below are the questions that we ask regarding authorization to sign/accept. Most often, we find that the person who…
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#TuesdayTip: Easy Access to Support Hub!
Have you ever run into an issue and went to search if other's are facing a similar experience here on Compass? If the answer is yes, you most likely went to the search bar on the main screen and typed in the root of your issue: perhaps searching "ACH payments" or "Donation Portal." While it is great to see what others have…
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Unrestricted/Project Match Process
This is our process for the new match announced recently that we're not allowed to "name" yet!
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Unused Capacity Grant Funds
Are there other funders out there that always end up with unused Capacity Grant funds? It's an easy $5,000 with a simple request process. Thoughts on why our nonprofits do not want to take advantage of capacity-building dollars? 🤔
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Marketing Scholarships to Non-traditional Students
Our foundation needs help reaching continuing college and nontraditional students to notify them of scholarship and educational loan opportunities available through our foundation. How are other community foundations marketing to prospective scholarship applicants who are not in high school?
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Scholarships -- Determining Financial Need
Hey everyone! I am building our application with Foundant and using this as an opportunity to re-think some of the questions on our application. Several of our scholarships are based on financial need. Currently, I ask students to list their estimated college expenses, scholarships they have for the upcoming year, and…
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Scholarship Review Process
We have a difficult time recruiting volunteers to sit on the scholarship review committee. At this time, all reviewers score all of the applications (300+). How does anyone split the applications up so each reviewer isn't required to score/read all 300+ applications?
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Class rank as part of evaluation process
One of our local school districts will be eliminating class rank as part of their student data, and their guidance office reached out to me for some input. We don't use class rank as part of our scholarship evaluation, but I know other organizations may, so I told her I would reach out to other scholarship providers. Their…
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Do any of our peer community foundations grant scholarships internationally? If so...
What should we be aware of when establishing a scholarship for international students/universities? Note: This would be an employer scholarship for dependents of international employees. What IRS guidelines are you using to govern your work? Are there particular nuances with the application, selection, or grant process for…
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Unrestricted/Project Match Process
This is our process for the new match announced recently that we're not allowed to "name" yet!
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Text messaging to students
Hello, I am trying to gather best methods to communicate with students. Email seems to be opened sometimes, but we are finding things going to SPAM, or simply not being read. We are thinking that texting may be the best method. I am wanting any process recommendations for texting to students. (Reminders to complete follow…
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Scholarship for study abroad students not getting applicants
We are struggling to get applicants for a scholarship meant for students who will study in a foreign country for one semester or more. The application is fairly simple, so no roadblocks there. And it doesn't seem to matter what time of year I open or close the application. I've reached out to several global studies…
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Best Practices for using ACHs
Hello, Our foundation is thinking of moving away from checks and utilizing ACHs to make our grant payments. I was wondering how other organizations that are using ACHs get the banking information from the recipients. Thank you for your input. Linda Cleveland
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As a CF, how do you determine who is eligible to receive your annual unrestricted grant dollars?
Our unrestricted Community Endowment has received its first large estate gift. To this point the grant distribution from the Community Endowment has been very small. We would like to learn more about the process to determine grant recipient(s). Does the community foundation have specific areas of interest when granting…
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Taproot or Catch A Fire
Has anyone used Taproot or Catch A Fire? These two companies match grantees needing a professional service with a volunteer who will provide that service to them at no cost. The Donor buys into the service and gives access to their grantees. I am considering something for my small grantees without staff and needing much…
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Indiana
Welcome to the Indiana discussion group.
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Electronic Signatures
We are thinking of moving to Electronic Signatures for our grant agreements. In the past, we have required physical signatures from the grantee's CEO or CFO so we have not had the grant agreement completed through Foundant. Does anyone use a signature service like Docusign or Adobe sign? I hope you are all well.
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Auditor Access
We are starting our audit soon and this is the first year we are fully in Csuite for our audit. I am wondering if any of the other foundations have allowed their auditors access as read only during the audit to look at and verify the information that they are looking for? And if so, what access and permissions were given?…
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How do other Canadian foundations produce a receipt report for their audit and T3010?
Hi, I am trying figure out how to get a report that has our receipt numbers on for our auditors. There are so many fields to pull for a custom report and I have been unable to produce one. We also switched from RE to CS mid-fiscal year.
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Expenditure and Check Approval/Signature
Our CF is in the process of updating/reviewing our internal processes and procedures regarding check signing approval/signature for both operational (AP) expenditures as well as grant/scholarship checks. We are a CF with assets of around $200m, total FT staff of 20 and a Finance department of 4 FT staff (CFO, Dir of…
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Congratulations to the October Top 10!
Congrats to @MadiSyring, @BethHarrison, @JulieKeller, @LaurenJournot, @RhondaThomson, @MaryKatherineKerr, @OwenMercer, @DanaJeffery, @AndrewTurenne, and @HeatherMcPeek for being on the October's Top 10 Compass Leaderboard! 🏆️🏆️🏆️ As a thank you for your contributions to our Compass community this past month, you will be…
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Hello!!
Hey everyone! My name is Danielle Chin, and I am one of the new Fund Accounting Implementation Specialists for CSuite, here at Foundant Technologies. I am originally from Jamaica and started school at Montana State University to pursue an education in Architecture but that later changed to Business Management that I…
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Is NSPA membership worth it?
Hi! Is anyone a member of the National Scholarship Providers Association (NSPA) and thinks it is worth it as a scholarship provider? If yes, what would you say are the main benefits? If you were a member and cancelled your membership, why did you cancel? Thank you for any feedback you can provide!
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Scholarship Criteria
Good morning, We are in the process of reviewing scholarship fund agreements. We have several scholarships that list criteria like high moral character, worthy citizen, constructive attitude, potential for future success, etc. Our scholarship process is blind (student names are redacted from the application) and we have a…
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Ranked Choice Scholarship Scoring
Our organization utilizes a ranked scoring system for our Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program, and we are struggling to translate that system effectively into the evaluation tools in SLM. For this process, our evaluators are evaluating a pool of 10 finalists (one representing each eligible high school in the…
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Gender versus Pronouns??
Good afternoon!! I am new to the Foundant/Compass Community, and am looking forward to getting some great feedback!! Reviewing our scholarship application and wondering if everyone is using the term Gender on their applications or using Pronouns instead? What is best practice? Thank you so much! Kasey
