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Hi, I work for a Community Foundation in Vero Beach, Florida and we have a quarterly grant cycle process. Throughout our county we have about six other funders (our local United Way and several philanthropic neighborhoods) who have annual grant cycle processes.

Do you have a similar network of local funders? Do you typically ask if your applicants are receiving funds or are currently applying for funding from other sources? Does this impact your grantmaking decisions?

Sorry to chime in late but I have a follow-up question for @StephanieSYoung. Stephanie, if you pay directly to a student and she/he/they use some of the money for a non-qualified expense, does that create any issues for your organization (e.g., having paid a non-qualified distribution)? Does that make sense? We're trying to learn about the pros and cons of paying directly to a student vs. paying their institution. Oh, and we are a private foundation with IRS approval to make scholarships (in case that is helpful info to know).

Thanks,

Randy

These are great responses, thank you!

@KatieMcConville, would you be willing to share your survey for students? I would also be interested in hearing how the roundtable goes, great idea!

We send a survey to both our committee volunteers and our students (students receive an automatic email once they submit the application with a link to complete the survey. If the students complete the survey, they're entered into a $50 VISA giftcard drawing.)

I attached our committee's survey below, I also hold a roundtable in the summer to dig deeper into how we can improve the process.

For scholarship recipients, I'm inviting a few recipients into the office for a half-day workshop this summer "Scholarship Real Talk: Applications Stink" to chat with them about what they did/did not like about the app, why they applied, why their friends did/did not apply and other topics. At the end we'll make Instagram/TikTok videos I can use for promotion next year :)

Thank you @AlyseBraaten for all your help at the Summit. As a first-time attendee, I was impressed with the scope of the presentations and look forward to attending the next one!