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Transition To One Scholarship Committee
Hello! We are looking to transition to one committee that reviews all of the scholarship applications. Currently, each scholarship has their own committee. Do you have any tips on how to transition smoothly? How to select the best candidate for the committee? Or how to announce the change to current committee members?
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Scoring Preferences
Hi everyone! We are doing an audit of all of our scholarships and one question that has come up is what the best practice for scoring preference criteria is. For example, some of our scholarships have a preference for those with financial need or a preference for those that live in a certain area. Currently, we score these…
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Moved: Letter of Intent Applications Based on Request Amount
This discussion has been moved.
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Criteria for awarding grants
Hello! Our community foundation is in the process of reviewing the criteria we use to determine which grant applications we will fund during our competitive community grant cycle. We are looking for best practices. Would anyone be willing to share their foundations criteria and/or scoring rubric/matrix for evaluating grant…
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Combining Scholarship Funds
Hello everyone! We are currently seeking effective processes to combine smaller scholarship funds into one scholarship, perhaps by region, but want to make sure we are honoring the desires of our fund holders and donors. Is there any advice for how to effectively combine scholarships to better serve students and the needs…
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Scholarship Follow ups
I am wanting to know what other foundations' practice is for scholarships and follow-ups. We pay the school once a year for renewal scholarships and ask the students to submit a mid-year follow-up with their transcript from the fall along with the financials and then one for the end of the semester to make sure we know…
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In relation to scholarships how do you "score" essays and letters of recommendation?
We receive over approximately 500 scholarship applications each year and each application has three letters of recommendations and an essay question that relates to each individual scholarship (we have approx 40 scholarships total). Currently we have a scholarship committee consisting of board members and volunteers that…
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Grant Review Practices
I'm looking for advice from an organization that has experienced growth and had to adapt their grant review process. We are small, but growing. We now regularly receive 50+ grant applications for each cycle and our current process is an "everyone is involved in everything" approach. All board members evaluate the…
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Scholarship Checks vs. Gift Cards
Hello, I'm wondering if anyone uses gift cards rather than checks to award scholarships? Every year we are reaching out to students, specifically our middle school award winners, multiple times encouraging them to cash their checks. I'm interested in how other foundations handle this problem. Thanks!
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Evaluating Community Quality of Life/Vibrancy Projects
I are interested in learning how other funders evaluate projects that improve quality of life and/or create vibrancy in a community (parks, recreation, arts, community spaces & places).
