Committee Review

An overview of a standard committee-based review process along with suggestions for alternate ways to review funding applications.

Overview

Scorecards that are completed privately by individuals provide data and feedback to enable staff to objectively prioritize proposals. This approach can be used to select the proposals to be funded just based on the scores/feedback from the scorecards or can be paired with a decisionmaking meeting, where the high and medium priority proposals identified through the review process are discussed as a group before decisions are made.

During the review process, it is also important that staff is doing the necessary due diligence to provide any additional context reviewers may need to make their recommendations. However, smaller funding programs may require less due diligence, allowing the review process to take place more quickly. For these types of programs, sending the packet to reviewers immediately after the eligibility assessment and not sending standard follow-up questions allows the process to take approximately 3 weeks instead of the typical 4-6 week timeframe.

Thinking Questions

What level of due diligence is needed to make well-informed decisions?
Who’s input would be helpful in the review?
Do you want to make the review open to the community, a subset of the community, staff, or a combination of these groups?

Step-by-Step Process

Choose Scorecard Type

The scorecard is a decision-making tool to help reviewers evaluate the applications under consideration and to convey their assessment of each project to program staff. It collects numeric data about proposals and helps explain the qualitative assessment of an application in a quantitative way. Scores can be collected in a variety of ways, including Excel spreadsheets, online forms, or by hand. There are several types to choose from:

Use Specific Decisionmaking Criteria

By having a specific set of decisionmaking criteria to score the applications against that align with the program goals and application questions, reviewers are able to score different aspects of the proposal instead of just proposal as a whole. This approach to review not only provides a more thorough breakdown of strengths and weakness of the proposal but also helps reviewers to consider questions and suggestions for those specific components, typically providing more thorough feedback in the comments/notes. However, this scorecard takes longer to complete since reviewers are typically providing 6-8 scores per application in addition to comments/notes and a overall priority ranking.

Add Rank Ordering

It is sometimes helpful to also have reviewers rank order projects as a final assessment of the applications under consideration. Reviewers should list projects in order from most preferred to least preferred with projects that reviewers feel strongly about supporting receiving the smallest, lowest numbers and projects they do not regard as highly or that they do not believe are ready for support receiving larger, higher numbers. This strict rank ordering will affect the overall priority assigned to each application at the final review stage.

Ask Only Yes/No/Maybe

The Yes/No/Maybe scorecard allows reviewers to just provide a quick ‘gut-check’ of whether they think proposals should or should not be considered for funding, making it ideal when there are either 20+ applications to review and/or not a lot of time for review to take place.

Prepare Review Packet

Once it is decided which applications will be sent for review, the application review packet is created. The review packet includes instructions, a summary of proposals not recommended for review, and all applications being reviewed in alphabetical order by project name along with the associated cover/divider sheet and attachments.

The order of the applications should also align with the scorecard for easy review. The file size of the review packet often needs to be reduced in order to send via email if there are a large number of applications or several proposals with high resolution images.

Be sure to include clear, concise instructions, descriptions of the decisionmaking criteria, and an estimate amount of time for review are all provided in the email.

Sample Review Instructions for Scorecard with Funding Criteria and Rank Ordering

First, read all applications thoroughly.
Next, think critically about how each project addresses the funding criteria.
Score each application against each funding criterion on the scorecard provided. Use the following scoring scale:
- Very Poor
- Poor
- Average
- Good
- Excellent
Record all relevant comments and notes pertaining to each application. These will help to identify questions and concerns held by Advisory Committee members about applications and provide key points for staff to consider prior to the committee meeting.
Finally, once you have finished scoring all applications, review your scores, notes, and comments and rank order all applications.

It is critically important that you submit your complete scores and comments in a timely fashion. If you are unable to complete your scores within the time allowed or anticipate being late in transmitting your scores, please call or email the program manager.

Sample Review Instructions for Scorecard with Funding Criteria and Rank Ordering

First, read all applications thoroughly.
Next, think critically about how each fits into the goals of the program.
Provide opinion as to whether the application should be funded:
- Yes, funding recommended
- Maybe, consider funding/I have questions
- No, do not fund
Record all relevant comments and notes pertaining to each application. These will help to identify questions and concerns held by Advisory Committee members about applications and provide key points for staff to consider prior to the committee meeting.

Send Packet

Advisory Committee members should be given approximately 2 weeks to review all of the eligible applications and submit their scores and/or comments. When possible, review periods should include 2 full weekends. Generally, the packet goes out on a Thursday or Friday and scores are due on the second Monday that follows.

A reminder email should be sent several days before scores are due and a confirmation email should be sent once scores are received that includes a reminder about the date, time, and location of the decisionmaking meeting. Program staff should be available throughout the review process to discuss any application under consideration and provide a broader context for decisionmaking, if needed by committee members.

Manage Conflicts of Interest and Recusals

Broad, consistent participation in the decision-making process is critical to fair review for all applicants. However, it is possible that for some applications reviewers will be personally or professionally closer to the project than most Advisors. In ongoing funding programs, Advisory Committee members must recuse themselves only for the applications where they have conflicts of interest, and can submit scores for all other applications. If it is a one-time review process, reviewers with conflicts of interest should not be seated on the Advisory Committee.

If there are any questions regarding whether or not an Advisory Committee member should recuse themself from decisionmaking on a given application, they should contact a program staff person to discuss the situation. If they recuse themselves from scoring the application where they have a conflict of interest, advisors may note any comments about the application or applying organization to be used only by program staff in advance of the decisionmaking meeting.

Collect Scores & Comments

Committee members can send in their scores and comments via email attachment or using an online system. After all review information have been received, staff can aggregate the data, look for trends, and identify follow-up questions to ask applicants during the Due Diligence phase.

Recommendations

Methods We Love

Engaging knowledgeable members of the community. By engaging community members as reviewers, there is a much broader range of knowledge and insight into the applications that the staff and board cannot always provide on their own.

Using Scorecards + Decisionmaking Meetings to make decisions. Scorecards are a helpful way to objectively prioritize applications and collect additional questions and feedback from reviewers. Having these questions in advance of the decisionmaking meeting enables staff to have responses prepared for the meeting based on due diligence and allows reviewers to make well-informed decisions. It also helps all reviewers to be able to communicate their views, even if they aren’t the loudest voice in the room at the meeting.

Alternative Approaches

Get some community feedback and then make decisions as a staff. Grounded has a community Advisory Committee review summaries of the applications being considered and briefly provide feedback based on the information available. The feedback is then used to direct applicants to other opportunities and initiatives if they are not supported through the funding program.

Cautionary Tales

Public Voting. While public voting is a great way to engage the general public, it often turns into a popularity contest instead of a thoughtful review of the proposals. People with networks that have less access to technology or are not savvy with social media are also at a distinct disadvantage if votes are collected through an online platform. Also, you need to be conscious of the possibility that robots can be used to manipulate the results.

Donor advised funds. When the reviewers for the program are also the individuals who had donated a certain level of funding to make the program possible, it is less likely that the committee will be as diverse or representative as a community-based committee.