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What changes is your scholarship program making in response to Student Loan Forgiveness?
This month's Coffee Talk focused on how Scholarship Managers are responding to the Student Loan Forgiveness program. Here are a couple of previous Compass conversations related to this topic you might want to check out: Reverse Scholarships and Loan Forgiveness Please share the changes or adjustments your organization is…
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Inflation Adjustments for Grants
Hi All, I hope I've aimed this query at the correct board. Our (small, private, Philly suburb) foundation has been wondering if it would make sense to offer inflation adjustments to grants we've given in 2022. Has anyone's organization done so? If our Board agreed to do this (send out $ on 2022 grants to adjust for…
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EFC to SAI change
After researching FAFSA changes I am in a state of confusion. I realize FAFSA changes were scheduled to go into effect on 07-01-23. I have found conflicting dates related to the EFC to SAI change. Our scholarship application opens October 1, 2022 and closes March 1, 2023. We typically ask students to list their EFC and…
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"Matchmaking" between Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) and nonprofits
Hi all, Our community foundation is moving into a more proactive space of serving our DAF holders, including presenting "matchmaking" opportunities to them with current needs in the community and/or in their grantmaking interest areas (which we've been slowly recording in Raisers Edge over the past few years). We do not…
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Grant Application Review Checklist
Hi all, I just wanted to start a conversation around grant application reviews and see what others are doing to review applications. I mostly ask this because I know many of you will know that there are many components to a grant application, and keeping track of all components can be a little cumbersome. So, I would love…
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Moved: Scholarships that are paid in full
This discussion has been moved.
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scholarship reporting - awarded vs. distributed?
Hello! Each year there unfortunately is a discrepancy between the total # and $$ amount for scholarships due to a variety of factors; I'm sure many of you can relate. Curious to know how other scholarship providers handle reporting for marketing, annual reports, etc. do you use awarded vs. distributed totals? or a combo of…
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Telling the Story
@JoshuaBernard and I really enjoyed facilitating the conversation at our Coffee Talk today, "Telling the Story". So I've created this post to continue the discussion! What kind of stories are you telling? Who is your audience? What is your goal in telling your story? Do you use data, narratives, or visuals? What are the…
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Training for Volunteers conducting Site Visits/Grant Interviews/Grant Review
Hello everyone! I am hoping to hear from anyone who provides a training or orientation for volunteers (whether they are Board Members, Grants Committee members, or community volunteers) who conduct Site Visits / Grant Interviews / Grant Reviews for grant applications. We are hoping to put together a training that addresses…
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Question: Do grantmakers fund past expenses?
Hello my name is Linda, I am new to this group however I need to know for a meeting today whether or not Grant makers fund past expenses such as $5000 toward website development spent last week. Thank you, I look forward to introducing myself at a later date.
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Grant Data Collection
I wanted to start a discussion around data collection, specifically to see what kind of data you all are collecting from your grantees. I am going through my first round of analyzing accountability reports since joining the organization I am with and sad to see we aren't collecting much quantitative data; a majority of the…
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Webinar follow up - Connecting Your Scholarship Program to Your Organization's Strategy
@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…
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Moved: Site Visit: Matrix
This discussion has been moved.
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Sample Template Letter to Donor to reach Minimum Endowed Fund Balance
Hi all, Would you mind sharing or uploading any template you may have on notices to endowed fund holders (DAFs, Agency, Designated, Scholarship, etc) to share that they have not met their minimum fund balance per policy guidelines, and advice on next steps? Thank you very much! Missy Belles
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Moved: Rescinding a Grant Award
This discussion has been moved.
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Scholarship Policies - focus on administration of multi-year awards
We're looking to add some strength to our scholarship policy. While it covers the necessary/required bases, it leans more toward the nuts and bolts of establishing the fund and its criteria. Many of the nuances that come along through administration are handled on a case-by-case basis and I'd like to make it more…
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Financial documents requested on grant applications
Courtesy post on behalf of Seth Baker at the Van Wert County Foundation: What financial documents do you require from applicants? How does that information factor into your review of funding requests ? How do you handle applicants that submit the wrong documents?
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Grant Funding Types & Amounts
Hi there, Just wanted to start a general conversation around the types of grants folks offer and what the max funding amount is for each of the grants you offer. I am curious to start this conversation because our organization provides what I consider very small grants and hoping we can increase the amount we give per…
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Scholarship Application Abandon Rate?
Hi everyone, Do you look at your scholarship application abandon rate? We are looking at historical data on how many scholarship applications are started but not completed. I'm wondering if others have done this and what percentage of students do not finish their applications? Is there any average or national data on this?…
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Scholarship Evaluations and Committees
We have several committees that review multiple scholarship applications for different scholarships. Many of the applications for the different scholarships are the same students in each group. This year we had one student come out on top for a group of 5 scholarships the committee was evaluating. Does anyone have…
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Grant Application Scoring Rubric
Hi everyone, Just curious to know how you all score your grant applications. We have specific questions on our application that are worth up to a certain number of points and displayed on the application for applicants to see the weight of that question. The Board then scores the responses to get a total score for an…
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Do Other Sources of Funding Impact Your Grantmaking Decisions?
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…
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Application Review Process - Best Practices
Hi everyone – my questions relate to the overall grant application review process / workflow and the assignment of reviewers for applications. Some background first: We launched a one-cycle grant program earlier this year. We had an LOI stage and have gotten back to applicants on whether or not they advance to the full…
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Final Grant Reports, Making Available to the Public
We haven't yet figured out a good way or know of any software available to help us make grant reports searchable and available to the public. We are in need of this, especially for past funded research projects. Thank you!
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Grant Follow-Up Reports
Does anyone else struggle getting their follow-ups back from nonprofits? What are your tips and tricks?
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Grant Type Categories
We're looking to streamline the Categories for Grant Types, i.e. Arts and Culture, Health and Human Services, etc. Would love to hear what categories all of you are using? Thank you.
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Award Displacement Language
I was on a coffee talk yesterday Re: WORKING WITH COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, and someone mentioned that they use Award Displacement Language in their check letters. I would really appreciate if someone could share that verbiage. Thanks😊
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Loan forgiveness or Reverse scholarship programs
Coming out of our Summit conference there have been a few scholarship clients expressing interest in the concept of loan forgiveness or reverse scholarship programs. Loan Forgiveness (also known as Reverse Scholarships) is a process of awarding scholarships after the expenses have been incurred. These funds pay back loans…
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Administering Grants for County Commission
We have been approached by a county commission in our region for assistance in administering their annual grant process. They would like us to build the application, answer applicant questions, conduct a preliminary review, and oversee follow-up reporting for awarded grants. The county commissioners will make the final…
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Best practices - Evaluating Grant Applications
Being new to Foundant Grants - this is our first year - I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for doing an informative and useful application evaluation process for the reviewers? We've always used a simple worksheet. Going online with our grant applications, we changed up the application. I want to develop a process…
