Thursday, October 05, 2006
Grant Panelists and Technology
One of the activities I engage in every day of my work at WESTAF is connected to grant making. Whether I am working on deploying a grant system for a client (WESTAF’s CultureGrants Online™ system allows for grants management from stem to stern) or engaged in grant making at WESTAF (the TourWest Program), at the end of the day, panel development and nurturing is key to the process as a whole.
Sometimes panels are purely internal—for very small grant awards for example. Sometimes the panels can be fairly large with a dozen or more participants. Regardless of the size, one of the challenges for any grants manager is finding panelists who are
1) Qualified
2) Erudite
3) Passionate.
Often a grant maker will use and reuse the same panelists over and over again. This isn’t a bad practice as long as the panelists reflect the values of your organization and fit the three points above. However, all panelists can be worn out.
Almost always, panelists are found via social networks. Traditional social networks work via word of mouth. However, in the world of Web 2.0, social networks are exponentially more powerful.
Using tools like LinkedIN, encouraging everybody you know to set up profiles, or Facebook searches for individuals within your own social network can facilitate finding the panelists that you need for the panel process.
The Internet based social network can help you achieve one huge goal—keeping in contact with your potential panel. This is a big deal because the panel represents a dear resource that needs to be nurtured and valued.
Two of the systems WESTAF has recently built, integrates a very specialised social network for finding panelists—the public can nominate panelists who then become part of a database of potential talent.
The point to this post is that to be successful in grant making you must NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK.
Sometimes panels are purely internal—for very small grant awards for example. Sometimes the panels can be fairly large with a dozen or more participants. Regardless of the size, one of the challenges for any grants manager is finding panelists who are
1) Qualified
2) Erudite
3) Passionate.
Often a grant maker will use and reuse the same panelists over and over again. This isn’t a bad practice as long as the panelists reflect the values of your organization and fit the three points above. However, all panelists can be worn out.
Almost always, panelists are found via social networks. Traditional social networks work via word of mouth. However, in the world of Web 2.0, social networks are exponentially more powerful.
Using tools like LinkedIN, encouraging everybody you know to set up profiles, or Facebook searches for individuals within your own social network can facilitate finding the panelists that you need for the panel process.
The Internet based social network can help you achieve one huge goal—keeping in contact with your potential panel. This is a big deal because the panel represents a dear resource that needs to be nurtured and valued.
Two of the systems WESTAF has recently built, integrates a very specialised social network for finding panelists—the public can nominate panelists who then become part of a database of potential talent.
The point to this post is that to be successful in grant making you must NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK.
