Foundation Note - July 4, 2016

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Foundation Note: First set of '16-'17 District Grants likely to be approved by July 15
 
By Sanjay Deshpande
 
The first set of 2016-17 District Grants will likely be approved by July 15!!! The Grants Subcommittee will be meeting on July 6 to review and act on the applications completed online by June 30.
 
The Grants Subcommittee members have learned the ClubRunner Grants Module and are increasing their proficiency in using it AND teaching it to the trained Rotarians from the 31 clubs that submitted District Grant proposals in March and have since qualified for Grants participation.
 
District Grant Subcommittee Chair Jorge Yarzebski distributed the workload of entering the grant requests (proposals) into the ClubRunner Grants Module and the subsequent effort of sponsoring club contacts for entering the applications among the subcommittee members. The assignments are as follows:
 
SUBCOMMITTE MEMBER
CLUB ASSIGNMENTS
Clubs in red not qualified as of June 3, 2016
Bob Anthony
Wachusett Area, Waltham, Westborough
Al Bowers
Neponset Valley Sunrise, Northborough, Shrewsbury, Uxbridge
Bill Garr
Chelmsford, Clinton, Concord, Dedham
Michelle Gasbarro
Natick, Sturbridge, Westwood
Kathy Gemma
Marlborough, Milford, Montachusett Area, Nashoba Valley
Joyce Graf
Gardner, Leominster, Littleton, Lowell
Susan Rack
Athol Orange, Ayer, Needham, Wellesley
Jorge Yarzebski
Acton Boxborough, Auburn, Bedford, Brookline
Sanjay Deshpande
Framingham
 
To view the status report on the 23 grant requests, click here The first column “Submitted” is the date Subcommittee members entered the requests into the Grants Module between May 31 and June 14. Since this was part of their training, all Subcommittee members were not able to enter the requests at the same time. In the future, grant requests will be submitted by club members themselves. The submission date will be important in determining priority for approval, when available funds are tight and the scoring per the rubric is identical.
 
Beginning June 6,Subcommittee members started inviting the clubs assigned to them to complete the applications online. Five clubs (Athol-Orange, Brookline, Marlborough, Needham and Sturbridge) have submitted the application by providing the information asked for in the application.  Along the way, there were problems ranging from access to compatibility with the computer operating system, all of which were resolved with excellent response from the ClubRunner Support Team. When approved and implemented, these five projects will leverage $7,500 in District Designated Fund grants to more than $22,000 in delivered benefit in value to the community - an almost three-fold leverage on the DDF. This is the power of District Grants! Note that the Needham project is located in Hyderabad, India and thus is the first international District Grant of '16-17.
 
We are sure most of the other 18 clubs will submit the additional information requested on the application in July or August. Some may not do so until later and some will withdraw the submitted request and enter an entirely different request. The Grants Subcommittee members stand ready to help them as needed. Note that these clubs will enter the grant amount they need as they complete their application. Until then, the “Grant Amount” column will remain zero.
 
Other clubs that are qualified but have not submitted grant requests are encouraged to do so while the funds are available. The clubs that have not qualified on the Memorandum of Understanding and/or Grant Management Training eligibility criteria may also do so if they execute the MOU and seek Grant Management Training.
 
Per the Master District Grant DG 1741144, we are approved to spend $46,436 for District Grants out of which $1,393 (3 percent) is set aside for administrative expenses (license fee for ClubRunner Grants module) and $9,287 (20 percent) for contingencies (if needed), leaving $35,756 available for awarding grants for club projects. After the five applications are approved, the available funds will be $28,256, which at a maximum of $1,500 per grant can fund 18 more grants. Later in the year, it is expected that the contingency funds will be reallocated for awarding more District Grants. That has been the experience in the past three years.
 
If you have any questions, please contact either District Grants Subcommittee Chair Jorge Yarzebski at yj.rotary@gmail.com or me, District Rotary Foundation Committee Chair Sanjay Deshpande, sanjdesh51@aol.com.
 
For the Foundation Notes archive, click here