How Applications Are Reviewed and Decided
Letter Of Intent Review:
The primary thing we look for in LOIs is whether the proposed program is a
strong fit with the criteria for the grant program being applied to. Other
considerations include an estimate of the application's potential for being
funded and ensuring geographic diversity among applicants.
The main purpose of the LOI process is to identify those program with
strongest potential for being funded and to reduce the number of
applications to a level that reflects the amount of funding that we have
available, while ensuring there are enough to make for a real
competition.
How decisions are made: LOIs are reviewed both by staff and a committee of
the board and are rated on a three point scale: high pass, pass and decline.
- Final review is done by a group comprised of the CEO , the Programs staff and the Donor Relations Officer.
- Any LOI that this group believes will be of interest to a donor will
also be accepted, but only for review by that donor.
Grant Application Review:
The assessment process begins with the review committee receiving a
full copy of each proposal (All interested donors are also given a brief description
of each proposal and are encouraged to partner with us in making grants).
- The committee has three weeks to read all the proposals, make site
visits and submit an initial scoring, using Community Foundation Grant
Review Criteria.
- We try to site visit each applicant to get a fuller and first hand
sense of what is involved in the proposed program, to answer any questions
we have, to allow for greater nuance and detail to be expressed than can be
done in a written narrative and to get a feel for the organization and the
people who will carry out the project, if funded.
- At the end of the review period, each committee member submits a
list of scores for each proposal and these are added to create an overall
preliminary score. Staff does not score the applications and is does not
vote on the recommendations to the board.
The recommendation process: Once the scores are compiled, the committee
meets to make recommendations to the board:
- The scoring of each proposal is reviewed to ensure that the
committee is in agreement. We specifically question any significant
differences in the scores given to a proposal.
- We review the site visits so that member who could not attend can
hear the impression of those that did attend.
- Once we have considered each of the applications, some members may
make changes to their scores.
- Once the scores are agreed on, we start with highest rated proposal
and fully fund it, following that process until all funds are expended.
- Typically, we have more highly rated proposals than we have funds to
make grants for. There is no standard process for dealing with tied scores:
Often, factors such as track record, organizational capacity and geography
are among those conditions considered in dealing with tied scores.
For more information, please contact Robert Judd at the Community Foundation
at 579-4073 x 15.
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