Scgis scholarship program timeline

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  Have the plan well enough defined to have assigned announcement responsibilities, created the announcement. Ideally, know exactly what you will be doing, so you can start working on the advance planning as the announcement is rolling out.
  

Once the plan is final, start on fundraising. First step is to send it to Charles & David for a minimum esri commitment of the same amount as the prior year, which in 2016 was $58k. This is your core commitment and will be the basis for any "matching grant" strategy you may want to employ. Hit the bricks and try to get funding commitments from the big conservation groups whose staff so often rank highly in the scholar program and get selected, try to get them to at least commit to airfare & ground expenses for their top two finalists, anything like that can really help. For more considerations see "Final Costing" section below

By default, ground costs for the absolute cheapest possible 4-5 week program are $2500-$3000 per person, but this depends upon their exact travel times, training and conference travel, homestay times and hotel times. This estimate also includes using rental vans and carpooling for transport. In 2015 we ran a program that included 5 advanced scholars for only 1 week of advanced training then they joined the core group for the next 3 weeks. The funding request to Jack included this basic breakdown of program costs:

Cost of core & advanced program for 23 scholars $101,000

Scholars own fundraising committed:  - $30,000

SCGIS commitment(80% of their annual budget)  -$15,000

TNC  fundraising goal       -$2,000

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Remaining unmet need    $54,000
2016 figures to use as basis for 2017 costing & fundraising:

16 scholars and 3 trainers on a core 25 day program, 4 day SCGIS Conf, 6 day Esri UC

Cost of total 2016 program for 16 scholars & 3 trainers $101,100

(Esri Sponsorship 58k, SCGIS: 15K, Scholars 15.7K)

Airfare Expenses: $18366

Train-the-Trainer program support: $12,174

General expenses, insurance, ground transport $17,115

Ground expenses 2-4 days pre & post: $1830

Core Training 25 days: $25,633

SCGIS Conf 4 days: $12183

Esri UC 6 days: $13721

Transport & Program: $1069

training lodging/food: $1602 Assume $1200 for 2017?

Scgis Conf lodg/food: $761

Esri conf lodg/food: $857

total ground expenses: before airfare: $4k

Airfare average $1147, but varies 1k - 2k depending on region

Europe/Central america/North pacific is 1k

Africa, south america, southeast asia, south pacific is 2k

Ground plus 1k-2k airfare = $5000 to $6000 total per scholar

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  Finalize application forms and review guidelines for chapters.
  

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  Send out the announcement to the chapters. They now have 4 months (until March 1) to organize the application process locally and to conduct the initial review of the applications. Timing is bad for chapters & applicants because of closeness to end-of-year vacations so you MUST get this rolling in November so they can get the word out BEFORE the holidays. Courtesy copies of the announcement with specific additional instructions, tasks and notes are also sent to the Domestic Scholars Committee, the International Committee and the Board.
  
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  a1218ExampleIntlCommitteeScholNotice
  
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  a1221ExampleBoardScholAnnouncement
  
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  a1222ExampleChapterScholAnnouncement
  
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  a1222ExampleDomesticChapterScholAnnouncement
  
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  a1221ExamplePriorScholarsScholAnnouncement
  

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  Continue Refining the scholarship application itself based on findings and corrections from the prior year, also refine the scholarship review process and update the scholarship review instructions and processes
  

For every significant stage in the program, everything critical to the operation of a professional program, identify and secure commitments for backups in case the designated lead is unable to fulfill their responsibilities. Please note that since this entire program design is based on replacing the dedicated work of a single professional, MOST of the following tasks will REQUIRE a professional staffing lead person. In decades of our work with volunteers, we have learned that it's simple unrealistic to expect them to be able to fulfill tasks at a professional level, so for the most part, the SCGIS committee commitments and tasking you see here should be regarded as advisory in nature.

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  Begin tracking hotel reservations windows for San Diego so you can secure rooms as soon as the bookings open up
  

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  Finalize the Scholars Training resources, dates & locations, trainer commitments, dates & locations.
  

Draft the formal funding request letter containing the list of the finalists, countries, and organizations and do a quick internal review. Include important developments in the program, important relationships, changes since last year. If costs have increased say why. Try to keep it short overall, no more than half a page, as it may be read on just an iphone. Send to David Gadsden & Lori Pelech for quick review and then formal submission to Jack for approval, normally happens in a couple days if he is in town. Goal is to have the funding approval by the end of the week. When approved it's normally sent interoffice as a check, be ready to take it immediately to the bank to deposit in the international account.

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  make a hotel reservation for San Diego. Or do it earlier, whenever booking is open for June. In the past we booked assuming 3 scholars per room, all same-gender sharing, generally a 9 room block. Because these rooms have 2 queen/king beds it assumes some bed sharing which is never an issue for female scholars and usually not an issue for male scholars. 9 rooms is the maximum you can book online and allows enough room to shift scholars around as well as accommodate SCGIS folks who are not able to get a hotel. Just make sure to abide by the free cancellation date for letting the unneeded rooms go. Taylor Norton, TNorton@esri.com, at esri is a great resource. From 2012-2014 SCGIS has used the Ramada Gaslamp, used to be called the “St James” near the UC, competitive rates just book online using the AAA rate. For the future Sasha suggests looking at Embassy Suites which have dual queen beds plus a fold-out sofa and could easily accommodate 4 scholars/room and may be a better deal than Ramada.
  

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  Send out the application review forms and guidelines to chapters. Customized versions of the guide are sent out all chapter leaders, specific chapters, the international committee, domestic committee and the board.
  

Extra time is also needed to account for applicants who are not in any area served by a chapter in order to find them reviewers out at NGO's or on the committee who can fill in in case no chapter sponsor can be found for them.

- You will need 3 full months to put everything together from this point on.

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  Global Application deadline: chapters submit their materials for final review. Normally some chapters are a bit slower and as long as other chapters are sending in material you can begin to organize it’s ok to let a couple chapters have an extra day or 2 to get their stuff done and turned in.
  

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  Step one is the preliminary quality control pass thru the chapter reviews to identify the obvious drops that don’t need to go thru to the next level of review. Arrange all the applications by continent then within that by the national chapter that reviewed them even if they weren’t from that country.
  
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  Example of a file layout with large bunches of applications grouped into chapter folders such as Latin America, and the rest of the applications filed solo with various folder naming conventions to help group them, are in this screenshot:
  
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  b0301ExampleFileLayoutForAppsReviewsFromChapters.jpg
  

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  Go through the chapter review rankings identifying any apps that were well below average for all reviewers or were not recommended for selection by the chapter and set them aside. Your goal is to get the final candidate pool down to around 100, which is about the maximum that the international committee and senior review process can handle for the selection of the final 15 scholars.
  

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  Next step is to assemble the master spreadsheet summarizing those 100 applicants who passed into the final stage review by the international committee. Include all of their relevant data such as chapter scores and rankings and the cost estimates for airfare they are required to research as well as their promised contributions. Examples of the review spreadsheet are at:
  

There is no internal metadata for this spreadsheet so field dictionary is provided here:

Color codes used during review: Green = accepted into core group, Lite Green = standby

Dark grey = rejected, Lite grey = probably reject, Light/Dark purple = advanced training

Light blue = for advanced applicants or anyone else we want to help with fundraising, this indicates we will write a letter to the local distributor or some other donor they may be working with endorsing them and encouraging the distributor to support them

PINK: Train the Trainer Candidates

FIELDS: Applicant name, org, gender, country, email – obvious.

Air SFO: Their estimated airfare to the program, as vetted and checked by the chapter

Can Pay: What they have offered to pay to help with their airfare

Reqsted: The leftover amount they have requested to fulfill their airfare need

Other Exp: The total anticipated ground expenses for each scholar as determined by the program budget

Can Pay: What they have offered to pay to help with their ground expenses

Reqstd: The leftover amount they need to fulfill their ground expense needs

Tot-Requestd: The grand total of the amount they have requested to be able to come

TOTAL: the final total it will cost us for them to come (included because in the past some scholars came with earmarked additional funding from other NGOS so that commitment needed to be subtracted from their grand total requested in order to arrive at the total SCGIS cost)

CHAPTER: is the summary score of all chapter reviewers, on a scale from 0-30

SY is Sasha’s score

CC is Charles Score

FIN TOT is the sum total of all the final master reviewers

FIN is their final program ranking on a scale of 0-30

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  Step three is to identify any applicant who only got one reviewer, or applicants who only got a numeric score without much narrative evaluation. These applicants will be a priority for additional review from the international committee and senior advisors.
  

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  Step four is the initial phase of the final review, experts from the international committee, senior advisors review and comment on all applications and all reviews, scorings and comments by the other preliminary reviewers & chapters. Normally the applicant pool is divided up for assignment to senior reviewers according to country, interest and availability. The goal is to try for 3 reviews of each candidate, so for candidates who only had a single chapter review try to get 2 more senior reviews for them.
  

As part of the senior level review, the existing certified SCGIS trainers will also need to conduct a search of the incoming candidates, as well as existing prior scholars, to consider 1-2 as specially funded program attendees to be the training assistants & TTT Candidates, for whom program support will allow them to obtain their final teacher certification. Note that for nearly all succeeding steps, TTT Candidates are handled logistically like any other core scholar, the main difference is that during class attendance, their duties are student support and teaching.

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  STEP FOUR: Conduct the final in-person 3-day master review to identify the finalists, as follows:
  
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  First identify the automatic accepts: Discuss anyone who got the highest possible score from all the expert reviewers, see if they were also top choices for their chapters, and put them in the accepted category. This is usually about 5-7 applicants and needs to be completed in around an hour.
  
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  Next identify the automatic drops, discuss anyone who got the lowest possible score from all senior reviewers and ensure that there are not chapter reviewers who scored them highly or made narrative recommendations. These are automatic drops and can constitute 40-50% of a 120-person pool, depending on the year, the competitiveness, the care taken by the chapters in their preliminary review, many factors. Spend no more than an hour on these.
  
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  Finally, the remaining 50 or so applicants will be the controversial ones, the ones where opinions were mixed, these are the ones you will need to spend the most time on and it can take up to an hour each person to argue through all of the points and issues with the person and their application in order to come to a fair decision. You may also need to send some applications back out to senior reviewers or chapters if additional clarification is needed in order to help arrive at a decision. The 3-part review process is most powerful at allowing you to concentrate your time on these controversial candidates who will require more time in order to arrive at a fair decision.
  

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  The number of finalists you can admit before you hit your limit is typically based on the stated capacity of the core course, about 15 students. It is typically possible to get trainer permission for 17 students to allow for potential visa cancellations or other problems. Some countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda are notorious for visa problems. As of 2017 there will be 2 not 1 training tracks, each with a capcity for 15, so the practical limit here is likely to be financial.
  
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  Another way to determine the limit is a natural break in the scoring between those who were clearly superior and deserving, even after the controversies are argued out, and the rest of the pack. Sometimes there will be a blank area in the rankings. This is a good chance to call that your cutoff and be done.
  
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  Another aspect of this senior review, especially with the controversial candidates, is the idea of a “risky” candidate. This is someone who failed to get a superior score by any of the common guidelines, but is doing something so unusual, so innovative, or so difficult that they merit inclusion anyway. You are basically admitting that your review process isn’t perfect and rather than miss an unusual opportunity to add a potential leader or connect with a new region or a new community, it’s worth the risk to include them. This is also a valuable recognition that the conservation field and GIS are constantly changing and new approaches, new thinking, new ways of changing the world, can show up on your doorstep anytime and it’s worthwhile to be prepared to be open to those new ideas.
  

As one of your final review passes, you'll need to conduct an "equity review", which basically seeks to ensure that you have a good balance of gender, culture & class. You want to make sure that scholars from difficult circumstances aren't being excluded because they didn't have the resources to create as impressive an application as others. You do need to ensure that there is a baseline level of technical ability and organizational ability but one of the reasons for the "High Risk" candidate category is to hold a door open for those scholars who for whatever reason were not able to complete a high level application yet who still posess qualities of leadership and dedication that would make them an excellent addition to the society.

At the end of the master in person review you should have a list of the candidates who deserve support and inclusion on the basis of merit alone. If only we could afford to take all of them! The reason it's important to identify the top candidates regardless of budget is because you now know who the top international conservation GIS workers are and one of the overarching tasks of the international committee is to find and support exactly these kinds of workers to the best of our ability. So at this point you are making a commitment to help them by whatever means you can find. Now you are finally ready to do the final costing review in order to select the final candidates who you can actually afford to include in the program, and for those you cannot include, design alternative support, outreach, mentorship, online training, books, anything you can think of that might help them. Also any great candidates who make the final merit list and don't make the program will be specially noted in the spreadsheet and encouraged to apply again next year, when the review process can include the fact of their final merit status in the prior year, consider what they have done in the intervening year, and thereby apply scoring enhancements particularly in the case of those who were denied but struggled on with their work and learning anyway.

The first part of costing is relatively simple, you just total up all of the financials for what scholars can contribute, estimated ground costs, vetted airfare estimates to see the total cost for the program and try to decide if you can afford it. The Esri core commitment in 2016 was $58k

Going forward in 2017 there will need to be a lot more development of additional fundraising commitments from other partners, pay particular attention to those partners whose members and affilliates typically end up high on the selection list, like WCS, TNC, WWF and CI. It's a tremendous benefit to them for their staff to participate so they should be willing to contribute regularly or at the VERY LEAST cover the travel and ground expenses for any of their staff or partners who are selected.