Thanks for doing the yeoman’s work of building a chapter, gathering applications, reviewing them thoroughly with local context, and sharing your findings here! I’m sorry to hear that you found the most of applications of a low quality, and hope that in time, excellent locally organized charities emerge.
A couple questions that would help me get a fuller picture:
How did the cash value of the contest winnings compare to other grants that local charities may have spent their time working on? If it was a large value, I would expect these applications to be approximately the best they could do and therefore an higher-fidelity assessment of the charity landscape in your vicinity. If the pot was of a smaller or comparative value to what local charities occupy themselves with, I would imagine they would just throw an application together and not put the diligence you would hope for. The amount it would be over and above normally valued contest entry (or grant application, what have you) would help show if the contestants took your contest as seriously as you did.
Who were the contestants? Were the contest participants the same ‘we’ who held the seminars in 2021-2022?
There weren’t any cash winnings, just prestige (and we fundraised for the best because we liked it enough). We definetly would attract more participants if we had a cash grant at the end. However, the application process did not take time. Unlike most of such processes, we were looking at reports of projects that already took place, and we had no interest and discarded any project proposal for new funding.
One of the participants of the fellowship was the director of one of the NGOs that submitted documents. A few participants were at the time or had been members of another local NGO who also participated, but this is a large local NGO and they did not have any role in the application process. Neither of these two organizations was a finalist.
Thanks for doing the yeoman’s work of building a chapter, gathering applications, reviewing them thoroughly with local context, and sharing your findings here! I’m sorry to hear that you found the most of applications of a low quality, and hope that in time, excellent locally organized charities emerge.
A couple questions that would help me get a fuller picture:
How did the cash value of the contest winnings compare to other grants that local charities may have spent their time working on? If it was a large value, I would expect these applications to be approximately the best they could do and therefore an higher-fidelity assessment of the charity landscape in your vicinity. If the pot was of a smaller or comparative value to what local charities occupy themselves with, I would imagine they would just throw an application together and not put the diligence you would hope for. The amount it would be over and above normally valued contest entry (or grant application, what have you) would help show if the contestants took your contest as seriously as you did.
Who were the contestants? Were the contest participants the same ‘we’ who held the seminars in 2021-2022?
Hi,
There weren’t any cash winnings, just prestige (and we fundraised for the best because we liked it enough). We definetly would attract more participants if we had a cash grant at the end. However, the application process did not take time. Unlike most of such processes, we were looking at reports of projects that already took place, and we had no interest and discarded any project proposal for new funding.
One of the participants of the fellowship was the director of one of the NGOs that submitted documents. A few participants were at the time or had been members of another local NGO who also participated, but this is a large local NGO and they did not have any role in the application process. Neither of these two organizations was a finalist.