By Madison Olsen
This week our Can Giving Change the World class geared up and prepared to review the grant proposals, which were due Friday, November 9. To prepare to review the numerous proposals we received, our class had to learn how to read and rate the information each NGO would give to us in their proposal. On Wednesday, Professor Larson gave our class a chart we will use to quantify all the information given to us. Our task over the next week is to take each of the proposals and rate them in the 17 different categories on the chart.
On Friday, Andrea Vernon, who is the director of the Office for Civic Engagement, came to lecture the class about 990 financial documents. She showed our class what to look for when reviewing the complicated documents, such as how much overhead and organization had or if they were in debt. While it seemed like a bit of a dry subject to be reviewing, the information was very important. As Ms. Vernon pointed out, when it comes down to deciding between two organizations our class likes very much, we might use the information on these documents to determine which organization is the most financially healthy, and use that to make our choice.
The information we learned last week just made me even more psyched to start reviewing proposals. The entire semester we have been learning and preparing for this challenge, and this is what the class is all about. I am ready to get into it and start doing work that will benefit organizations in Missoula.