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GuideStar Charity Check
Hello, We are brand new to Foundant. If your Charity Check does not pass on a grantee from a donor advised fund, what information do you require from the organization before you allow the grant to be approved?
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Grant Application Timeframe
Hi, For those with annual grant cycles, how long do you keep your grant application open? I've played around with 2, 3 or 4 weeks and it seems like most organizations will wait until the last minute to submit regardless of how long the application timeframe is. Curious what others do and if you see the same thing? Thanks!…
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Grant Budget Guidelines
Hello: I'm looking for best practices regarding budget guidelines. Our major grant allows for the PI to charge 10% of their salary and they have to commit 20% of their time to the project. They can charge 100% of their benefits to the project. Also, we allow other team members working on the project to charge 100% of their…
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Budget Forms
We are looking for a new budget form for our applicants to use to upload in their application. Preferably a budget that contains a spreadsheet for the project budget as well as a spreadsheet for the applicant's full organizational budget. Does anyone have one they would like to share with us? Thanks so much! Kaitlyn
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Scholarship Fund Minimums and Admin Fees
Hello, We are considering changing our minimums for donors wanting to start Scholarship Funds. We are also considering changing the annual administrative fee for scholarship funds. I was charged with the task of gathering information from other Community Foundations. I would appreciate your input on: What is the minimum…
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What gaps do you see in scholarship opportunities for students?
We are currently evaluating our general high school scholarship fund to see if we are making the best impact for our local students. I am reaching out to other foundations, counselors, local students, but wanted to see if any of you have any data or information on what kind of student is being missed by scholarship…
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Does anyone offer application coaching?
Hi all, During this year's selection process one of our evaluators noted that he could see potential in several applicants but their written responses were not as strong as other more talented writers and therefore their evaluation scores were lower. His recommendation was to coach these students through the application…
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Loan Repayment Programs
I have a call with a prospective donor on Thursday who is potentially interested in setting up a loan repayment fund for African American graduates. Does anyone have experience with this type of program and/or know of existing programs I could reach out to? I did used to manage something similar at a graduate school but…
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Internal Transfer: Scholarship fund to emergency assistance fund
Does anyone have any experience asking scholarship donors to contribute to an emergency assistance fund? Some background: We launched our emergency assistance fund for students in July. It's actually been quite popular with our donor-advised fundholders and is a nice value-add that we can offer to scholarship fundholders…
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Service Fees for Custom Grantmaking for Fund Holders
Is anyone facilitating a custom competitive grantmaking process for fund holders? If so, how are the fees charged to the fund holder and do you have any details about the process?
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Grant Catalog Marketing, Ideas, Plans for 2021
The Douglas County Community Foundation will be launching a grant catalog for our second year beginning on #GivingTuesday, November 30 - December 31 for only our nonprofit organization fund holders. I am looking for other foundations that have used the grant catalog for campaigns for ideas for marketing and promoting the…
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Award Fund vs. Scholarship
We have a potential donor who wants to create an Award Fund rather than a Scholarship Fund which looks to have different tax implications. Does anyone use Foundant to process award funds and if so, can you shed some light on how the administration of one might be different than a Scholarship?
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Values-Based Grantmaking: Aligning Organizational Values with Grantmaking Practices
Thank you to everyone who joined us today for our Grants Coffee Talk: Values-Based Grantmaking, Aligning Organizational Values with Grantmaking Practices! We are creating this discussion space here to continue the conversation. Please share your own thoughts and examples even if you didn't raise your hand today, we'd love…
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Grant Due Diligence Policy
Dear colleagues, DCCF is updating our Grant Due Diligence Policy. If your foundation has recently updated it's policy and you do not mind sharing, please respond to this post or email me directly at loritrenholm@dccfoundation.org. Many thanks!
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Templates for in memory of / in honor of
Does anyone have a template to share for their "in memory of / in honor of" tributes? Thank you!
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Grant Writer working for two orgs with same email address
Hi there. I'm trying to figure out how to best help one of our grant writers. She is doing contract work for two different organizations (with no conflict of interest). She is registered with Organization A but is also working on a different grant / different grant process for Organization B. I cannot change her…
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Resilient Philanthropy: #FixtheForm and Application Streamline
We had a fantastic webinar today where @KariAanestad shared the work of #FixtheForm and 100 Forms in 100 Days. After talking through the initiatives, Traci R. Johnson, Program Officer at the Poise Foundation, shared the experience of streamlining their forms and partnering with grantees through Critical Needs Funding…
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DAF policy / can you share your daf policy? Also, do you allow DAF holders to request grant reports?
Hi! we are looking to possibly make some changes in our DAF policy and I am hoping you all could share your DAF policy with us! ☺️ We are especially interested in any policy with regards to the amount of activity in a daf, international grant requests via a US intermediary, DAF holders who request refunds, DAF holders…
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Critical Needs Grants
Hello! My community foundation is planning to implement a critical needs grant process. We are currently working on creating the parameters around this process and what our definition of a critical need will be. Can anyone share information about your critical needs grant process? Do you have a maximum amount the grantees…
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General Operating Support Application Examples
Good morning, Our Foundation, the Pallottine Foundation of Huntington, is opening a new initiative that focuses solely on providing general operating support. If anyone has an application specifically designed for general operating support requests and would be willing to share it, we would be so appreciative. Thanks so…
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Alternatives to final reports
Are you doing typical final reports (asking for outcomes, measurables, future plans etc.) or does your foundation have a different take on it? During the pandemic we created a new rapid response cycle for our grantees which streamlined our grant process. This included making calls instead of using our typical LOI form, we…
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Could you share your scholarship evaluation form?
We are starting to work on creating a new evaluation form for scholarship reviews. We want the evaluation to be numerical, but what we have right now is outdated since we no longer ask for SAT/ACT scores, essays, or letters of recommendation. I have attached our current form but would love to see how others set up their…
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Student Recommended for Multiple Scholarship Awards
I am currently reviewing committee selections, and we have one applicant who is being recommended for five scholarships! She is clearly a stellar candidate, but I am concerned that she will have scholarships exceeding her total cost of education. We do not have a scholarship policy addressing this, and I was wondering if…
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Awarding postsecondary scholarships to middle schoolers?
We have a donor interested in awarding scholarships to middle schoolers as an incentive when they graduate from high school. Has anyone ever attempted this? Thank you in advance for any suggestions about how that would work.
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Defending your decisions: How to stand up to those who claim you're not granting correctly
I'm curious if any funder has a protocol, practice, or tool to use when a community member says, "Hey, I don't think you're granting the way you should!" We know that not everyone is going to be pleased with your grant award decisions. And many people express disappointment. But every so often someone with privilege and/or…
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Help Share New Grant Opportunity
Hello All! We are proud to be a partner with Ferguson Enterprises, who has locations all over the United States. We learned of a new grant program they launched, Building Stronger Communities, and they would like help sharing the opportunity with nonprofits across the U.S. They have asked if we can provide a list of…
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Does anyone have experience with a scholarship like this?
The Delaware Community Foundation has been approached by a community organizer about doing scholarships for his MERIT STEM program students (grades 9-12 - they qualify if they have been active for the last 4 years in MERIT) but they want to add money to the BASE of the scholarship for other things they do beyond…
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Citizenship question on scholarships?
Hi--while the family foundation I work with does not fund scholarships, this question came up in a group discussion lately and I'm eager to hear what you all think and how some of you are handling the situation in your worlds. At a particular organization, it was a given for years that all scholarships only went to US…
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Grants catalog question
Hello! What policies do your foundations employ for which organization granting opportunities are posted to your public grants catalog? We are considering only including grant applications that we didn't fund in full for the amount that we did not fund. I'm interested in hearing how other foundations have managed this!
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Sample -Lilly Endowment Scholarship application
Hello all, Our community foundation just transitioned to CommunitySuite (financial part). We will be transitioning to SLM in June. Our Lilly Endowment Scholarship application opens August 1st. For those outside of Indiana- It is a scholarship application for high school seniors from our county; every CF in Indiana…
