The R2AC staff reviews each grant application to ensure eligibility before releasing it for review by the grant panel.

The grant review panel, comprised of any combination of Board members, AAI Council members, Designated Delegates, and Community Panelists, receive access to all eligible grant applications online at least two weeks prior to the grant review.

Any member of the grant review panel who declares a conflict of interest, whether personal or transactional, must declare that conflict of interest with R2AC staff as soon as the grant applications are available for viewing and commentary.

Staff will immediately inform all panelists of any declared conflict of interest.

All panelists may discuss the eligible grant applications with one another prior to the grant review meeting, unless they have declared a conflict of interest and then they may not discuss that particular grant application with other panel members.

Panelists with a conflict of interest will mark all responses as N/A on the online evaluation form and will leave the room during discussion of the grant application with which they have a conflict.

Prior to and during the grant review meeting, R2AC staff will point out any inaccuracies found in the information provided in a grant application, such as any math errors on the grant application’s budget.

Grant Review Procedure

The public is invited to observe grant review panels via Zoom, as are grant applicants; however, public commentary is neither allowed nor solicited during grant reviews.

Panelists must have a laptop or tablet and internet access to participate in the review panel. For in-person meetings, if a panelist does not have a laptop or tablet computer, R2AC will provide one for their use.

Board members, AAI Council members, delegates, and community panelists serving on the review panel must be part of the grant evaluation conversation, either in-person or remotely via phone or video conferencing, in order for their vote to be valid. If they are absent, or have stepped out of the room due to a conflict of interest, their vote will be entered as N/A.

There must be a quorum for the grant review to be valid. Staff will ensure that the majority of the designated group or quorum (a number greater than half of the grant review panel’s size) are in attendance. If a quorum cannot be reached, then the grant review will be rescheduled.

Staff will review the scoring criteria and the grant review procedures with the grant review panel prior to discussion of the grant applications and final scoring.

Each application is discussed in detail based on the scoring criteria. Discussion will be limited to information presented through the grant application. It is standard (and mandatory) practice not to allow anecdotal information during the grant review. Although panelists are instructed to be aware of and question their own biases in an effort to be fair in their evaluation and scoring, any perceived biases brought up during the grant panel review will be discussed openly and, if possible, resolved by the panel.

Staff will take notes during the grant panel discussion to summarize and share panelists’ comments with applicants upon request. (Grant review panels are not recorded.)

During the grant review panel, panelists access the grants portal to individually rate each grant based on the criteria and point system in the evaluation form. At that time, panelists may provide written comments or constructive criticism for the applicant about their application. The scores of each evaluator are averaged for each grant application to provide an average score and these averaged scores are ranked from the highest to the lowest. Grant money is awarded, in order of highest to lowest score, until the money is depleted. R2AC will not fund any application whose average score is below 65%.

Following the spirit of the open meeting law, all scores that are shared at a grant review meeting may be shared with anyone who makes a post-meeting request for the averaged score. It is standard R2AC practice to present the scores of grant recipients as part of the awarding process at the end of each grant panel review. Comments from panelists will continue to be shared verbally with any applicant who requests them.

In the event of a tie at the point where the grant money runs out, the R2AC Executive Director will divide the amount of remaining money available by the amount of the requests and will use this percentage to distribute the available funds to each applicant.

Example: Group A requested $1,000 and Group B requested $1,885 in grant money. They each received a score of 68% in the grants round. After all of the higher scored grants were funded, the remaining amount of money was $1,895. The tie occurred where the money available ran out.

Total amount requested by Groups A & B:                  $2,885

Total amount left to award:                                         $1,895

Percent of request available:              $1,895 / $2,885 = 65.68%

Group A:                     $1,000 request x .6568 =    $657 award

Group B:                      $1,885 request x .6568 = $1,238 award

Fellowship grant application ties will be resolved with a show of hands.

After the grant panel has scored the grant applications, the scores and any funding recommendations are reported to the R2AC board in the next scheduled board meeting. A detailed discussion follows and then the motion to fund those recommended for grant awards is voted on.

Full Funding: A motion of full funding is made when a grant application is complete and eligible for funding in the form in which it was submitted.

Partial Funding: A motion of partial funding may be made when a change in the budget is deemed necessary by the board. When a motion for partial funding is made, a revised budget amount must be specified.

No Funding: The Board reserves the right to make a motion of “no funding” on any project based on their perception of the applicant’s readiness to fulfill the grant requirements as presented in the grant application, or on the quality of the work samples submitted with the application.