2026 Community Grants Panel Volunteer Information

Grants Portal access will become available immediately following panel training

Easy – just click below. Use the email address you provided during registration. If you are a new panelist, click on “Forgot your password?” to establish your password. Please contact Erin Starnes for assistance.

>> GLM LOGIN

• Friday, September 26 – CFCSRA notifies nonprofits of their panel chair
• Monday, September 29 – Friday, October 3 – Panel Chairs schedule site visits
• Wednesday, October 1 – Thursday, October 30 – Panels conduct site visits
• Friday, October 31 – All evaluations due to CFCSRA by noon (earlier is encouraged)
• Friday, January 16 – Announcement of awardees – exact details TBD

Long supported by the generosity of the Masters Tournament – as well as other organizations and individuals throughout our region – the Community Grants program provides dependable funding for necessary and outstanding philanthropic work by local non-profits. These grants are distributed through a competitive process designed to help nonprofit organizations meet their mission. 

Through a careful review process, our staff, community volunteer panels, and board work together to award grants based on identified community issues and the relative merit of the proposals received. This program provides funding for nonprofit projects and programs serving residents in Richmond, Columbia, McDuffie and Burke counties in Georgia and Aiken and Edgefield county in South Carolina. 

Since the program’s inception, more than $10 million in grants have been awarded to countless nonprofits throughout our community. 

Although a grant proposal can certainly tell part of the program’s story, we believe the whole picture can’t be seen without a site visit. That’s why the role of the community volunteer panels is so important to the success of the Community Grants Program. The panels conduct site visits to approximately five organizations each to rate them relative to each other and determine who will receive funding. 

Each panel has a Chair that serves as the leader of the group and schedules the site visits with the nonprofits, helps to facilitate discussions, monitor the selection process and ensure required paperwork is completed. Below are the specific responsibilities of the Panel Chair. 

Panel Chair Job Description

• Recruit four to seven community members to serve on a volunteer panel. Ideally, panel members should commit to attend the panel training, all site visits, and the final meeting when organizations are ranked for funding purposes. If you need help recruiting members check with the Foundation staff. At times we have a list of individuals who would like to serve but have no panel 
• Makes sure panel members complete their information forms. Once submitted, the Foundation is able to register panel members in our computer system so they can review their applicants. It will also help to ensure panels are not assigned to organizations where there could potentially be a conflict of interest 
• Attend Panel Volunteer training. This is a 1 ½ hour training held in September
• Thoroughly read all applications prior to scheduled site visits 
• Contact the assigned organizations and arrange site visits. Site visits are completed during October and are typically one hour each. An absolute minimum of three people MUST be at each site visit, although we prefer all members attend. 
• Chair will attend all site visits so at least one member of the committee has information for all organizations to be ranked 
• Following site visits, convene entire panel to discuss the merits of each organization and recommend programs for funding based on rankings. If questions arise, be willing to call the program for clarification 
• Complete site visits in the allotted time, ensure the panel ranking forms are completed in full by October 31st at midnight • Are welcome, but not required to attend the press conference where grantees are recognized 

The Panel Chair should expect to volunteer 10 – 15 hours of work throughout the process.

Site visits are opportunities for a non-profit organization to have a chance to tell their story outside of what they submitted in their application. Here is how you can prepare:

• Ensure you have a minimum of three (3) panel members at each visit. Preference is to have as many panel members as possible.
• Make sure you read the application thoroughly before the visit.
• Prepare questions in advance and don’t hesitate to ask questions even if they are not part of the application.
• Try and be as consistent as you can with questions asked of each reviewed organization.

Feel free to download our Site Visit Questions to use during the site visits.

We have communicated with our non-profits and provided guidelines on how they can best prepare for your visit. If you would like to review that document, please do.

What Makes a Good Outcome?

A good outcome will always pass the ”So What” test. We hope all programs do good work but if we want to show the impact a program has on a person, group of people or a community we must be able to measure if it is changing anything. We always want more people to have food more homeless people to have a place to sleep, more children educated. That goes without saying. What we need to know is what difference they want to make by doing what they are doing. This is done by answering the “so what” question.

• Can it be measured 
• There should be a % of change you anticipate seeing 
• Does it appear they have outcomes that match the program they have asked be funded 
• Does the outcome seem realistic for the project 
• Does the organization have the capacity to get the information needed to measure the outcome(s) they have written 
• A higher percent doesn’t always signify that is the best program to fund. 100% may be justified but it is rarely achieved 
• In some cases, it is hard to measure a new program so a nonprofit may use what is called a proxy measure to determine if their outcome is sound. The proxy measure typically comes from a national source that has done this type of programming and has a proven success model 
• It is not just a count of people served, that is an output as it doesn’t answer the so what question. 
• Art’s organizations have an incredibly hard time creating measurable outcomes since art is subjective and the influence of the art can’t often be measured through surveys and changes over time to an individual. You will often find proxy measures used here as individuals look at the benefits of having the arts as part of a healthy vibrant community

Samples of good outcomes with a measure from our 2020 grant applicants:

• Patients with hearing or vision problems will be referred to audiologists or optometrists for treatment. Measurement: Those students with issues will be re-checked in February and if corrections were made, more than 50% of those students will show improved classwork since they can now see or hear better. 
• 60% of students will agree or strongly agree that having access to the food pantry allows them to feel more prepared to learn in school. Question on survey: Does the food that you receive from the school pantry make you more likely to feel prepared to come to school and learn? 
• Following each Kidz Bop and Young People’s Concert, at least 90% of teachers will report that they feel the performance was a valuable enrichment experience for their students; provided their students with a greater understanding of the musical concepts taught; and increased the students’ interest in music in general. Results will be assessed via a questionnaire. 
• 95% of the graduates from Fall 2020 will still be employed 6 months later (Nov 30). The Coordinator will contact the employers during the month of December to get feedback on each employee. The Coordinator will record this information on the Graduate Tracking Sheet. 
• 50% (at least 10-15) of Residents who qualify for USDA 502 Direct Loan and/or NACA Homeownership Program will successfully complete all necessary documentation required. Measure – The Residents will close on a home mortgage. 
• Half (50%) of the sheriff’s offices that we approach will participate in the new law enforcement training program by making this available and required for their staff. •Measure 1: We will measure this outcome by working with the sheriff’s in each county to find out if this is being implemented once we ‘go live’.

Visit our webpage, https://www.cfcsra.org/nonprofits/grant-opportunities/community-grants/