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Staff on Selection Committees
AmyWiles
Posts: 5 ✭
We are having a conversation about including staff members on our scholarship selection committee to review applications and make recipient selections. Are there other community foundations out there that do this? What are the benefits and challenges? Are there any best practice guidelines about this?
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We do include our staff members in our scholarship committee. We have a small staff so we do not assign applications to our staff members initially, however if one or more of our scholarship committee members have to drop out at the last minute, or cannot finish their reviews, we assign them to the staff members at that point. That way we do not have to add to the number of applications the other reviewers have to evaluate. This does not happen on a consistent basis, but it gives us a buffer in case we need them.
We do the exact same as Julie above. I do not review the applications as I am too close to the applicants, but some of my coworkers sometimes do if I need them.
We do have staff on the review/selection committees.
One benefit is that staff can see any issues there might be with a particular application and report back quickly for corrections.
We don't have staff on our selection committees, but as Scholarship Coordinator, I sit in on all the meetings. Even though I don't read the applications, it's helpful to have me in the room if any questions arise and to help keep them organized.