We are currently in the process of reviewing our grant applications, and our data committee has been the main force behind deciding the logistics of how to narrow down our application pool. They develop rubrics, analyze our feedback, and decide what the best course of action is for our board’s review process. Their work is extremely helpful to keep us on track and be efficient in how we are deciding which organizations to award our grants to.
Our data committee is composed of three members of our board: Mehal Churiwal, Trinity Turlington, and Justin Williford. We asked them a few questions about their work on the data committee and how it impacts our board’s work as a whole:
Q: What are your roles and responsibilities within the foundation board, and why is it important to have a separate data committee for a process like this?
A: Together, the data committee is responsible for guiding the class as they are reading the applications and making decisions to choose our finalists. It's important to have a separate committee for this because it is a specific responsibility of the board that can be very confusing. The committee can individually dedicate its time to drafting ways in which the class as a whole can come together in make these decisions in an orderly and efficient manner.
Q: What method did you create to evaluate the grant applications, and why did you choose these parameters?
A: We designed a rubric based directly off the questions being asked in the application designed by the writing committee. The reason it was necessary to make a rubric was to standardize everyone's definitions and make sure everyone is thinking along the same lines. If we just ask everyone to rate an answer from a scale of of 0-4, for example, every individual might define the number 2 slightly differently, bringing inconsistency into the data. A rubric gives explicit definitions about each number, bringing better compliance of the ratings across the class.
Q: What are the challenges with making decisions like this with our board, and how is the data committee making these decisions easier?
A: Given that all of the organizations that submitted applications are doing some really great work, it is very difficult to say that one organization is not good enough and thus does not deserve the money; in reality, we would love to help all of these organizations, but we obviously don't have the funds to do so. Making decisions on what is "good" and "bad" is relatively simple, but making decisions on what is "good" and what is "better" is much more difficult. By providing specific guidelines on which to analyze each application, such as its compliance with our board's mission statement, the quality of its evaluations, the use of the money, etc., we are helping the rest of the class more easily figure out what applications are better for our board than other applications.
Thank you for following our board's work this semester, and we look forward to making the final decisions about our grants next week!