Working with Advisors
- Be clear about advisers’ and grantmakers’ roles: When grants will be made directly by the funder, the grantmaker needs to strike a balance between the autonomy of the advisory committee and the ultimate responsibility of the funder for the decisions that are made.
- Prepare advisers effectively and be sure to give them sufficient time to review proposals. Grantmakers sometimes provide advisers with “panel books” that contain all the competition proposals, the selection criteria, and background consulting memos or reports to help them put the competition in context.
- Keep decisions uniform: Sometimes, evaluation scoresheets are used to make sure that each proposal is assessed with the same criteria. Grantmakers may use additional measures to ensure an even-handed review.
Takeaways are critical, bite-sized resources either excerpted from our guides or written by Candid Learning for Funders using the guide's research data or themes post-publication. Attribution is given if the takeaway is a quotation.
This takeaway was derived from Using Competitions & RFPs.
