Best Of

Hi! We would like to hear more about what other folks are doing currently with their discretionary grantmaking funds (FOI & unrestricted) this coming year:

1.     Grant area priority areas, e.g. disaster response, human services, childcare, arts & culture, environment, education, affordable housing, etc.

2.     Purpose of grants, e.g. operations, staffing, program, reserves, other?

3.     Method of grantmaking – e.g.  discretionary, competitive application, combo?

4.     Your grant funding pool amount for 2022-23?

5.     Average grant size

6.     Multi-year?

7.     Reporting requirements & timing?

8.     Would you mind sharing a sample of your current competitive grant application? Do you use the CS Grants Catalog and if so, can you share your experience with using it and its value to your process?

Thank you so very much for sharing!! I hope this will be helpful to everyone. :)

Missy Belles

Gifts & Grants Administrator

Whatcom Community Foundation

@JuliaDaSilva from the Triangle Community Foundation shared how they have made significant changes to their scholarship administration practices to align their scholarship program with the foundation's overarching strategy. In this webinar, she highlighted changes they made to their application to remove barriers for students. The video walkthrough of their application showcases how they ask applications about financial need and collect post-award survey responses from recipients.

Walk through of Triangle Community Foundation's scholarship application and final impact survey (13 min):

Attachments:

Award letter - sent to the student; contains language about use of scholarship funds

Scholarship letter to university - sent to the school; contains language about use of scholarship funds and refunds

Job description - one page snapshot of the volunteer role, timeline, and overall committee involvement

Hi all - I am just checking back in on my question from last year - does anyone have a good letter template to send on these? Thank you!