Grant Cycle Process
Grant Review Session
Once the deadline has passed, all completed applications should be emailed out to all board members for review. (Incomplete applications can either be immediately rejected or be given a few days’ grace period to submit missing application parts, depending on what your board feels is appropriate.) Board members should carefully read through all applications, writing down questions and comments about each one as they read.
At the same time that board members are emailed the applications, grant applicants should be sent the “To Grant Applicants – Upcoming Review Session” email letting them know about the grant review session.
The grant review session is an informal, ten-minute interview between the applicant group and the grant program board. (Alternatively, if you have a lot of applicants and little interview time, your board can split up into two groups, each in a different room interviewing a different group, therefore doubling the number of groups you can interview in a given time. In this case, the interview would then be between the applicant group and a subset of the board.) It should be planned by the Award Ceremony and Review Session Committee far in advance so that board members and grant applicants can plan around it, as it is a mandatory event. Grant applicant groups who fail to send any representatives to the review session will be denied funding unless absence was due to an unplanned emergency. Exceptions can also be made for groups that notify the board beforehand that absolutely no members of their group can attend the session, in which case board members can set up a separate time and location for an interview.
Each project is allotted ten minutes of interview time, with 10-15 minutes of board member deliberation time immediately afterward and then about an hour of discussion and decision-making after all projects have been interviewed. As the interviews take place, interviewing board members should use the “Tips for Interviewing Applicants” and “Interview Checklist” to kindly critique projects.
Each applicant group is asked to bring to the review session at least two youth representatives and one adult sponsor, with as many youth project participants attending as possible. For the first five minutes of the interview, youth project participants are invited to tell the board members about their project, explaining details of the project and letting the board know why they decided upon that specific project idea. The point of these explanations is to find out how much the young people own the project and have done the planning themselves. Groups with strong youth ownership will typically have youth confidently explaining the project with little to no adult input. It is fine for adult sponsors to prompt the young leaders with open-ended questions (ie, why don’t you tell the board members about the educational component of your project?), but if they begin to speak at length or dominate the conversation, politely tell them that you’d really like to hear from the youth. In cases of particularly young applicants, adult sponsors can speak more and help out the youth as they explain their project. For example, it makes sense for the adult sponsor of a Daisy scout project to be more involved in the proposed project than the adult sponsor of a high school environmental club project.
After the group has finished telling the board about their project, the board has the last five minutes of the interview to ask the group any questions about the project or the group’s application. Here it is helpful for board members to use the notes that they made while first reading through the applications. Bring up any questions about the budget that have not yet been addressed. Ask how they decided that they wanted to address their particular environmental issue and why they cared about it. Ask about the impact they wish to make and the educational component of the project, if not yet mentioned. Are there any concerns that the board members have about the potential success of the project and, if so, what part of the project makes you have those concerns? Ask about that.
To wrap up the review session, ask the applicants if they have any questions for you. Thank them for coming, and let them know when they’ll be hearing back from you with their grant decision.
Once the group has left the room, the board interviewers should take 10-15 minutes to briefly discuss the project. Youth board members should speak first, giving their impressions of the project and stating what they felt were the project’s strengths and weaknesses. Once youth have spoken, adults give their impressions, and an open discussion begins. The board makes a preliminary recommendation to fund the project fully, fund the project partially, not fund the project, or set aside the project for further discussion once the rest of the projects have been interviewed.
All members of the next project are then invited into the interview room, and the process continues until all projects have been interviewed and have left.
The board then convenes for discussion. (If the board divided into two groups so that two applicants could be interviewed at once, the two groups will come together at this point.) One by one, projects will be highlighted and discussed. A youth board member will give a short description of the project to jog the board members’ memories and then will summarize how the interview went, give the strengths and weaknesses that the interviewers agreed upon after the interview, and give the preliminary recommendation for or against funding. The project will then be opened up for whole-board discussion, where all concerns about and praises for the project can be voiced. If the board split up for interviews, those who did not interview this project can ask questions to those who did about how the interview went.
If the board feels that the project might deserve funding but would need certain improvements, the board can determine conditions for funding. For example, if the board feels that a tree-planting project would be great for the community but lacks an educational component, they can decide to vote on project funding with the built-in condition that, if funded, the group will use some of the funds to buy an educational sign to put next to their planted trees. Conditions should be specific and realistic, given the group’s abilities and their funding constraints.
Once board members have discussed conditions and feel that their questions have been answered, a vote will be taken. If conditional funding was decided upon as necessary, this will be built into the vote (ie, voting for full funding indicates that you support full funding with all decided upon conditions). Members with a conflict of interest relating to the group (for example, if a board member is or was part of a club asking for funding) will abstain from the vote, and the remaining board members will vote “yes” or “no” on funding.
If a “no” on funding gets the majority vote, no further voting is required. The project will not be funded. Discussion moves on to the next project.
The projects that get a majority “yes” on funding will have another vote taken in which board members vote for either full or partial funding.
If “partial funding” gets the majority vote, discussion will open up again on how much funding should be awarded. In these cases, it helps to go back to the project budget and see what items could be cut from the project while still maintaining its essence and impact. A board member will make a motion for the amount of funding that they see is fit, and if the motion is seconded, a vote will be taken. Board members will either vote in favor for that amount of funding or against it. If the majority votes against that amount of funding, another motion should be made for amount of funding to award. This process continues until the majority votes in favor of a proposed amount of funding to award.
Once all projects have been voted on, the grant review session ends. The program coordinator will send follow-up email to the board that night, summarizing the grant applicant groups and the amount of funding that will be awarded to each. Board members should check this for accuracy.
Once the deadline has passed, all completed applications should be emailed out to all board members for review. (Incomplete applications can either be immediately rejected or be given a few days’ grace period to submit missing application parts, depending on what your board feels is appropriate.) Board members should carefully read through all applications, writing down questions and comments about each one as they read.
At the same time that board members are emailed the applications, grant applicants should be sent the “To Grant Applicants – Upcoming Review Session” email letting them know about the grant review session.
The grant review session is an informal, ten-minute interview between the applicant group and the grant program board. (Alternatively, if you have a lot of applicants and little interview time, your board can split up into two groups, each in a different room interviewing a different group, therefore doubling the number of groups you can interview in a given time. In this case, the interview would then be between the applicant group and a subset of the board.) It should be planned by the Award Ceremony and Review Session Committee far in advance so that board members and grant applicants can plan around it, as it is a mandatory event. Grant applicant groups who fail to send any representatives to the review session will be denied funding unless absence was due to an unplanned emergency. Exceptions can also be made for groups that notify the board beforehand that absolutely no members of their group can attend the session, in which case board members can set up a separate time and location for an interview.
Each project is allotted ten minutes of interview time, with 10-15 minutes of board member deliberation time immediately afterward and then about an hour of discussion and decision-making after all projects have been interviewed. As the interviews take place, interviewing board members should use the “Tips for Interviewing Applicants” and “Interview Checklist” to kindly critique projects.
Each applicant group is asked to bring to the review session at least two youth representatives and one adult sponsor, with as many youth project participants attending as possible. For the first five minutes of the interview, youth project participants are invited to tell the board members about their project, explaining details of the project and letting the board know why they decided upon that specific project idea. The point of these explanations is to find out how much the young people own the project and have done the planning themselves. Groups with strong youth ownership will typically have youth confidently explaining the project with little to no adult input. It is fine for adult sponsors to prompt the young leaders with open-ended questions (ie, why don’t you tell the board members about the educational component of your project?), but if they begin to speak at length or dominate the conversation, politely tell them that you’d really like to hear from the youth. In cases of particularly young applicants, adult sponsors can speak more and help out the youth as they explain their project. For example, it makes sense for the adult sponsor of a Daisy scout project to be more involved in the proposed project than the adult sponsor of a high school environmental club project.
After the group has finished telling the board about their project, the board has the last five minutes of the interview to ask the group any questions about the project or the group’s application. Here it is helpful for board members to use the notes that they made while first reading through the applications. Bring up any questions about the budget that have not yet been addressed. Ask how they decided that they wanted to address their particular environmental issue and why they cared about it. Ask about the impact they wish to make and the educational component of the project, if not yet mentioned. Are there any concerns that the board members have about the potential success of the project and, if so, what part of the project makes you have those concerns? Ask about that.
To wrap up the review session, ask the applicants if they have any questions for you. Thank them for coming, and let them know when they’ll be hearing back from you with their grant decision.
Once the group has left the room, the board interviewers should take 10-15 minutes to briefly discuss the project. Youth board members should speak first, giving their impressions of the project and stating what they felt were the project’s strengths and weaknesses. Once youth have spoken, adults give their impressions, and an open discussion begins. The board makes a preliminary recommendation to fund the project fully, fund the project partially, not fund the project, or set aside the project for further discussion once the rest of the projects have been interviewed.
All members of the next project are then invited into the interview room, and the process continues until all projects have been interviewed and have left.
The board then convenes for discussion. (If the board divided into two groups so that two applicants could be interviewed at once, the two groups will come together at this point.) One by one, projects will be highlighted and discussed. A youth board member will give a short description of the project to jog the board members’ memories and then will summarize how the interview went, give the strengths and weaknesses that the interviewers agreed upon after the interview, and give the preliminary recommendation for or against funding. The project will then be opened up for whole-board discussion, where all concerns about and praises for the project can be voiced. If the board split up for interviews, those who did not interview this project can ask questions to those who did about how the interview went.
If the board feels that the project might deserve funding but would need certain improvements, the board can determine conditions for funding. For example, if the board feels that a tree-planting project would be great for the community but lacks an educational component, they can decide to vote on project funding with the built-in condition that, if funded, the group will use some of the funds to buy an educational sign to put next to their planted trees. Conditions should be specific and realistic, given the group’s abilities and their funding constraints.
Once board members have discussed conditions and feel that their questions have been answered, a vote will be taken. If conditional funding was decided upon as necessary, this will be built into the vote (ie, voting for full funding indicates that you support full funding with all decided upon conditions). Members with a conflict of interest relating to the group (for example, if a board member is or was part of a club asking for funding) will abstain from the vote, and the remaining board members will vote “yes” or “no” on funding.
If a “no” on funding gets the majority vote, no further voting is required. The project will not be funded. Discussion moves on to the next project.
The projects that get a majority “yes” on funding will have another vote taken in which board members vote for either full or partial funding.
If “partial funding” gets the majority vote, discussion will open up again on how much funding should be awarded. In these cases, it helps to go back to the project budget and see what items could be cut from the project while still maintaining its essence and impact. A board member will make a motion for the amount of funding that they see is fit, and if the motion is seconded, a vote will be taken. Board members will either vote in favor for that amount of funding or against it. If the majority votes against that amount of funding, another motion should be made for amount of funding to award. This process continues until the majority votes in favor of a proposed amount of funding to award.
Once all projects have been voted on, the grant review session ends. The program coordinator will send follow-up email to the board that night, summarizing the grant applicant groups and the amount of funding that will be awarded to each. Board members should check this for accuracy.
|
|
Interview Checklist | |
File Size: | 95 kb |
File Type: | docx |