FAQs for Scholarship Reviewers

If you do not have an existing account on the Scholarship Portal, a Community Foundation Scholarship team member will create your account and share the login information with you. Please reach out to us if you do not have an account yet or are having issues logging into your existing account.

The Community Foundation’s scholarship team will create an account for you and let you know when you can log in. Accounts are created without a password, so follow the instructions below to create a password:

1. On the Scholarship Portal login page, click “Forgot Your Password” hyperlink.
2. ​Type in the email address your account was created with and click “Send Reset Link”. Your email is your username.​
3. Locate the email in your inbox – check junk folders if you can’t find it. It might take a few minutes to receive the email.​
4. Follow instructions in the email to create a new password (prompt in email is to “reset password”).
5. After creating a password, return to the login page and log in to the Scholarship Portal using the newly created password.

The Reviewer Tutorial videos linked below are great resources and provide step-by-step instructions. You can also reach out to the Scholarship team at the Community Foundation for assistance. 

• Evaluation Tutorial – Foundant Technologies 
• Evaluation Tutorial – Universal Application – Foundant Technologies 

Review the materials the Community Foundation scholarship staff shares with you before starting to review applications. This will include the Committee member Handbook, Scholarship profile(s), information on bias, etc. If you cannot locate your copy of the Committee Member Handbook, email the Community Foundation Scholarship team to ask for new one be emailed to you. 

Please use the evaluation form built into the student’s application. It is important that the reviewers use the evaluation forms for their reviews. The forms are designed to guide the evaluation process and guide the reviewers’ attention to things they need to consider while evaluating. If an aspect of the application is not on the evaluation form, it should not be considered in the decision-making process.

Things to understand prior to starting to evaluate candidates: 

• The eligibility criteria of the scholarship you are reviewing applicants for will tell you what the “ideal candidate” would look like. 

• Which types of biases (conscious and unconscious) might affect your decision making. 

Review the Committee Member Handbook prior to beginning your evaluations. The Handbook is shared with all selection committee members and is a great resource to build understanding and to determine if you have conflict(s) of interest with applicant(s). If you suspect you might have a conflict of interest with an applicant, but are not sure, please reach out to the Scholarship team at the Community Foundation.

Selection committee members are required to fill out a Conflict-of-Interest Form for each applicant before starting the review process. The Conflict-of-Interest Form is built into the online review form. 

If you are aware of a conflict of interest relating to an applicant, you must indicate this on the Conflict-of-Interest Form. You will not be allowed to proceed with reviewing that applicant’s application. Additionally, you must excuse yourself from discussion relating to that applicant throughout the entire the committee meeting and decision-making process. 

The applicants’ Personally Identifiable Information* (PII) is hidden where possible for multiple reasons: 

• Hiding this information is intended to lower the impact of bias on the selection process. 
• It is best practice to hide personal details and contact information because some applicants may be minors.
• The applicant’s PII is not related to the eligibility criteria for most Community Foundation scholarships, so it is not needed for the review process. 

If you have questions about the Community Foundation’s commitment to our scholarship applicants, please reach out to our Scholarship team.  

*Personally Identifiable Information (PII) includes information in any format that can be used to trace or identity a specific individual, such as home address, phone number, email address, etc.