Members of the community at large invited to score grants
York, PA — York County Community Foundation (YCCF) is changing its competitive grant making by evaluating grants of $6,000 or less from the Fund for York County (FFYC) and the Embracing Aging Fund (EA) in a way that reaches a broader, more diverse audience. YCCF is inviting volunteer grant readers from the larger community to read, score and select which grants to fund twice a year. The Foundation will award $120,000 annually using this process, $35,000 from FFYC and $25,000 from EA each cycle.
This change will allow YCCF to enhance its work by involving more people in the decision making, and getting grant checks to the selected nonprofits more quickly so that they can impact the community.
Any member of the community who is at least 18 years old, resides in York County, and is not employed by a nonprofit agency serving York County can review grants. Grant readers must be able to participate in at least one grant cycle per year and are expected to read and score no more than 10 grant applications per cycle. Community grant readers must agree to maintain confidentiality, disclose conflicts of interest, read and score their assigned grant applications within the designated timeframe and respond in a timely manner to YCCF communications. No experience is necessary, as grant readers must participate in grant evaluation training in person, online, or by reviewing provided materials.
These community volunteers will make the decisions about which submitted grant applications are funded. Those that apply to become readers will carefully review each grant application, deliberate its merits, and score it using a standard scoresheet. The scores will be aggregated and those grants with the highest scores will be funded.
Community grant applications must fall into the categories funded by YCCF’s Fund for York County and Embracing Aging.
Fund for York County focuses on:
- Education for disadvantaged youth
- Workforce development
- Downtown revitalization in York County cities and boroughs
- Neighborhood revitalization in York City
Embracing Aging focuses on programs and projects serving York Countians age 50 and older that:
- Increase opportunities to engage in the community as one wants/needs
People interested in becoming a community grant reader can learn more and sign up at www.yccf.org.
