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Best Practices for using ACHs
Hello, Our foundation is thinking of moving away from checks and utilizing ACHs to make our grant payments. I was wondering how other organizations that are using ACHs get the banking information from the recipients. Thank you for your input. Linda Cleveland
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Indiana
Welcome to the Indiana discussion group.
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Electronic Signatures
We are thinking of moving to Electronic Signatures for our grant agreements. In the past, we have required physical signatures from the grantee's CEO or CFO so we have not had the grant agreement completed through Foundant. Does anyone use a signature service like Docusign or Adobe sign? I hope you are all well.
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Expenditure and Check Approval/Signature
Our CF is in the process of updating/reviewing our internal processes and procedures regarding check signing approval/signature for both operational (AP) expenditures as well as grant/scholarship checks. We are a CF with assets of around $200m, total FT staff of 20 and a Finance department of 4 FT staff (CFO, Dir of…
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Congratulations to the October Top 10!
Congrats to @MadiSyring, @BethHarrison, @JulieKeller, @LaurenJournot, @RhondaThomson, @MaryKatherineKerr, @OwenMercer, @DanaJeffery, @AndrewTurenne, and @HeatherMcPeek for being on the October's Top 10 Compass Leaderboard! 🏆️🏆️🏆️ As a thank you for your contributions to our Compass community this past month, you will be…
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Hello!!
Hey everyone! My name is Danielle Chin, and I am one of the new Fund Accounting Implementation Specialists for CSuite, here at Foundant Technologies. I am originally from Jamaica and started school at Montana State University to pursue an education in Architecture but that later changed to Business Management that I…
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Is NSPA membership worth it?
Hi! Is anyone a member of the National Scholarship Providers Association (NSPA) and thinks it is worth it as a scholarship provider? If yes, what would you say are the main benefits? If you were a member and cancelled your membership, why did you cancel? Thank you for any feedback you can provide!
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Scholarship Criteria
Good morning, We are in the process of reviewing scholarship fund agreements. We have several scholarships that list criteria like high moral character, worthy citizen, constructive attitude, potential for future success, etc. Our scholarship process is blind (student names are redacted from the application) and we have a…
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Ranked Choice Scholarship Scoring
Our organization utilizes a ranked scoring system for our Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship Program, and we are struggling to translate that system effectively into the evaluation tools in SLM. For this process, our evaluators are evaluating a pool of 10 finalists (one representing each eligible high school in the…
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Gender versus Pronouns??
Good afternoon!! I am new to the Foundant/Compass Community, and am looking forward to getting some great feedback!! Reviewing our scholarship application and wondering if everyone is using the term Gender on their applications or using Pronouns instead? What is best practice? Thank you so much! Kasey
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"Chosen Name" or "Preferred Name" field for scholarship applicants?
Hello! My organization is considering adding a "chosen name" or "preferred name" field to our scholarship applications after we discovered the need for such a field during our recent scholarship cycle. Do other organizations use a field like this in their applications? If so, could you please share the language that you…
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Funding for religious organizations
I am interested in gathering sample language about foundation support for religious organizations. Our guidelines currently indicate that we will not make grants to organizations that engage in proselytizing as part of their mission or programs, but we feel that we need better clarification on that. I would appreciate any…
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GED & Gap Year Questions in SLM Application
Hi all. Just winding up our first year using SLM. Looking back we need to do a better job building the application to represent GED and/or gap year/not currently enrolled students. Curious what info. others gather and how they ask. Thanks in advance for any input.
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3rd Party Grant Management Fee
One of our partners (the city where we are located) has asked us about managing one of their grant programs. Now that we have GLM (just went live last month) this is a much easier concept and I’m wondering if anyone has any experience doing that in their city? Does anyone have experience in charging a fee for service, by…
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Shameless request for Compass votes! Check approval notifications
It would be so wonderful if the system had a setting that could be turned on to be notified when a check/batch has been approved. We have 2nd approvers for checks over $1500 on two different accounts. Sometimes it might take a day or two for them to get to them. The only way I know if I can print checks is to continually…
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COI Tracking in Csuite
Hello- We are wondering if anyone uses CSuite to track conflict of interest for boards and committee. We have been looking at using the Org Roles to identify conflicts AND easily export that information for meetings and 990 prep. Example: a profile would be connected to ABC Organization with the role type "COI- Board…
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Position Filled
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GIFTVII Matching Gift procedures for CSuite
This topic came up in a Foundant meet-up discussion yesterday. If anyone has any procedures for how they processed the match in CSuite for GIFT 7 that might be useful for people to utilize for GIFT 8, please share! I have procedures I can share once I'm able to review and clean them up a bit.
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Anniversary year
Hi all, Next year is our 35th anniversary and we're trying to think of fun and impactful "gifts" to our various constituents - grantees, scholarship recipients, donors, and the broader community. Has anyone done anything like this? Other anniversary ideas you would like to share? We are likely not doing a big event but…
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New Opening for Finance Director in San Diego
What We Do For over 40 years, Rancho Santa Fe Foundation (RSFF) has provided a high level of service by developing personal relationships with our donors and providing exceptional stewardship of the funds invested with us to ensure great community impact for North County San Diego. With nearly $150 million in assets under…
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Let Us Get to Know You link
Hi, We're a new foundation and want to begin communicating with the nonprofit leaders/grant writers throughout our region. Because our website isn't ready, we'd like to use Foundant and a Let Us Get to Know You form to capture contact information. We'd then be able to send emails about our launch and other important…
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Staff on Selection Committees
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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Using third party to obtain financial information
Currently on our UA application we ask students to provide their financial information, as reported on their last tax form, either as a dependent reporting their parents information, or as an independent reporting their own financial information. We have been considering using the third party option to have parents…
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How long is your scholarship application open?
For years, our organization's annual scholarship application has opened on January 15 and closed two months later on March 15. We're considering moving up the deadline and having the application open for a shorter period of time, possibly 6 weeks. What are the open & close dates for your scholarship program? What factors…
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EFC to SAI Changes
Hello, Can anyone provide on information transition process from EFC to SAI changes. My organization typically uses EFC chart, as well as institutional aid to determine unmet need. Does somebody have an example or template for estimated conversions for SAI.. They have developed and/or plan to implement? Thank you, Kaylin
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Who is using Foundant in Indiana?
They can't tell us specifically who is using Foundant in Indiana, but I can ask within the Compass Community. I would like to know who is using Foundant in our area so that I can reach out with questions. Thanks
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Congrats to the September Top 10!
Congratulations to @JackieLaw, @KathleenPomerantz, @NancySherritt, @rebekahthomas, @MeganDeHoog, @JulieKlipp, @LaurenRennie, @LanceEskelund, @CaitlinCluck, and @FatimaPalermo for being on September's Top 10 Leaderboard!🏆️🏆️🏆️ As a thank you for your contributions to our Compass community this past month, you will be…
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What does programming mean to your CF?
Hello! Our CF is making some strategic plans and have recently decided we were going to do more programming. I have been tasked with figuring out what a "program" is for our organization. In the past we have run a scholarship cycle, grant cycle, and a couple initiatives as our programs. However, we would really like to…
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endowment examples
Would others in the community foundation world be willing to share draft endowment agreement language with me? We are considering opening an endowed fund for a rural hospital foundation. My community foundation wants to review the current draft agreement and is looking for examples to review as part of this process. My…
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Scholarship rubric scales for activities, community service, and work
We are working to update our evaluation questions for our selection committees as they review scholarship applications. We are trying to create a scale to measure the quality of students' extra-curricular activities, community service, and work. We want to offer clear guidance to evaluators for why they should give…