Areas of Interest – What's Your Thing?

In Your Words

In April 2011, we asked the Interschool Reps to let us know after a year of YiP, what they thought were the most important issues in the city – and here’s what some had to say:

Areas of Focus

There are over 2000 registered charitable organizations in Winnipeg that provide a variety of services in many different areas. Establishing areas of focus will help your committee find organizations that meet your grant-making goals.

Occasionally, agencies contact schools because they are interested in qualifying as a grantee. This is part of being a grantmaker and it is up to each committee to decide how best to respond. Soliciting is not encouraged by The Winnipeg Foundation, but does happen from time to time.

Some things to think about when deciding your areas of focus include:

• the needs within the community
• the priorities identified by your committee
• individual interests of your committee members
• areas that your committee has focused on in the past

Three steps to help your committee come up with your areas of focus:

1. As a group, do an initial brainstorm of areas that you could focus on. Try to come up with a comprehensive list. Write your list on a chalkboard or on flip chart paper for everyone to see.
2. Discuss each area that came up in the initial brainstorm. Ask your committee questions and see how much interest there is in each area.
3. Narrow down your initial list to approximately 3-6 areas.

Once your committee has come up with your areas of focus, you can brainstorm additional criteria to help you evaluate the many organizations within the city.

Developing Criteria

In addition to your committee’s areas of focus, you may want to develop criteria for evaluating all organizations you’ve visited.

There are 2 criteria that apply to all Youth in Philanthropy grants:

• The organization must be a registered charity.
• The project must primarily benefit the citizens of Winnipeg.

Other criteria can be established by your committee, depending on your priorities as grant-makers. To help you get started, here are a few examples of criteria established by other committees:

• If the organization has received a YiP grant in the past, they must have followed up with the YiP committee.
• Organizations that are large, well-established and have a good reputation in the community.
• Organizations that are smaller, less-known and may need help raising awareness.
• Organizations that serve the community around our school.
• Organizations that provide all the information we require on our site visit, including specific examples of how a YiP grant could be used
• Organizations that demonstrate a need for funding.
• Organizations that have a large volunteer base.
• Organizations that have not received YiP grants in the past.
• Projects that meet our areas of focus.
• Projects that can be completely funded by our YiP grant.

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