45.

45.

We received 45 applications! We rejoiced knowing our applicant pool was grand and diverse yet mourned the future process of notifying so many deserving organizations that they weren't selected for our award. It was going to be a long road ahead, but we were ready.

The process towards identifying our grant recipients started rather slowly. While everyone had filled out a Google Form giving us a numeric breakdown of the applicants, we still couldn't agree entirely on how to start the elimination process. After 45 minutes of constant debate, we decided on a method for our madness. We worked through our applicants, in order of highest to lowest with our scores, and started to compare them to our mission statement. If they had 0% of our class voting to keep them, they were highlighted red - 1-49% were highlighted yellow, and +50% were highlighted green. Through this, we found our top 16 organizations.

Upon narrowing it down, our Site Visits group took the information and set up our visits. In the next post, you'll get a backstage pass to some of our visits!

Structuring.

Divide and conquer - that's what Professor Messersmith decided was the best way for us to divvy up the numerous tasks that are associated with our grant-awarding process. Below you will find a description of each of our groups

Mission/Identity:

-Create our mission statement and establish/strengthen our Strive to Thrive identity

-Design and order our shirts

Application/Website/News Release:

-Develop the application questions

-Craft news release with the help of the marketing department

-Update our website with our mission statement and any new information/dates

Publicity:

-Create a publicity plan 

-Manage our social media accounts

-Create a flyer for distribution

Initial Evaluation:

-Create a rubric for application evaluation

-Facilitate the initial evaluation process

Site Visit Arrangements:

-Create a protocol for each site visit and a rubric in which to evaluate each visit

-Prepare a short presentation for the class on site visit conduct and expectations

-Schedule site visits with NPO's and work out logistical information

-Assign groups to site visits

Awards Ceremony:

-Work alongside the event planning team in CBA to handle all aspects of planning our ceremony

-Prepare a script/talking points for all those presenting

Semester Evaluation of Process/Planning for 2017:

-Put together a timeline for obtaining data, analyzing and compiling data, and writing the final report

-Work with Dr. Messersmith to make in-class updates on a regular basis

Applicant Communication:

-Handle all communication with applicants in the case of not selecting them, selecting them, and outreach about the banquet

-Facilitate grant recipient notification phone calls 

So there you have it! Our 40 students have been equally divided into these eight groups and conquering the tasks all semester long. 

Defining Ourselves

One of our first goals as a class was to clearly define who we were and what we were doing. After some general discussion, we were able to come up with both our mission statement and our objective statement. You'll find those below!

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Strive to Thrive Lincoln has been entrusted with $10,000 by the Learning by Giving Foundation to allocate grants to nonprofits in Lincoln/Lancaster County. We can award a minimum grant of $2,000 to multiple nonprofits, or up to a single maximum grant of $10,000. The Learning by Giving Foundation was founded by Doris Buffett and partners with colleges and universities around the United States to distribute grants to local nonprofits.

Mission: Strive to Thrive Lincoln provides UNL CBA students with an exceptional opportunity to directly impact the lives of children in Lincoln and Lancaster County by supporting local non-profits in their efforts to help the youth, and ultimately contribute to the future prosperity of our community.

Objective: Strive to Thrive Lincoln is a University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Business Administration management class learning how to lead people and projects. This hands on opportunity will allow our class to be philanthropic and work with nonprofits in Lincoln and Lancaster County.