Community Investment Trust - Committee on Contributions - Regular Meeting

Let's bring this meeting to order since we have a quorum. Were there any public comments on the agenda?

No, sir.

Okay, thank you. Did everybody get a chance to look over the minutes and do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the last meeting?

So moved. Second.

Got a motion and a second. Call the roll.

Mr. Hayes? Aye. Dr. Hinkle?

Aye.

Mr. Lynch?

Aye.

Mr. Martin?

Aye.

Ms. Smith?

Aye.

Chair Montgomery?

Aye. Review of the fiscal year 28 grant cycle. It should be in your... Are you going to pull it up on the screen, or are we going to just talk about it, or what are we doing?

Well, I have set up for a little bit later, but we can just walk through the dates on the grant cycle right now, and then we'll go to the next one, if that's all right.

And then I want to make sure they're good with the application.

Yeah, we can do that. We'll talk about the application as well, if that's okay with Wolfman Jack over here, his radio voice. That's so funny.

Yeah, so I sent out a draft. The only thing that I added was a Murfreesboro board representation question. So what percentage of your board members live in Murfreesboro? We can reframe that differently if you like, but I know there was a lot of conversation around seeing board representation from Murfreesboro on there.

That would be good to see a lot of several of the applicants before had boards that were mostly based in Nashville. And sometimes you could see that, and sometimes you could not. So that would be helpful for our review, I think.

The other thing, are there any... So I know we had put... Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. We had indicated video optional, so I didn't know if you wanted to change that or still leave it optional or if there was any different wording that you wanted around the video piece.

I mean, the video was helpful to me, but I mean, if they can't do one, I guess they can't do one, but it was helpful.

I hate to leave someone out because they don't have the capability to produce a decent quality video.

I keep it optional.

Yeah, I would agree with that. The optional. That's how we had it last year. And a lot of them did the video. And it was helpful.

I wanted to check on some relevance of questions if you felt that they were of value. We ask if they have a current succession plan, a current strategic plan. and written HR policies and financial policies. And that's just a yes, no, not sure in development. So I just wanted to see if that weighed in on anything with you guys, if those were still valid questions.

Well, to me, the succession plan is a really big deal for some of these mom and pop nonprofits.

So...

It means a lot when I look at it.

Okay. I agree. I agree as well. Okay. Very good questions.

And then the other question, what are current and potential challenges that could be barriers to success of the project program, either internally or externally? Is that a relevant question? Does that bring any value to the application for your review? knowing if there might be any challenges.

Is that on this draft right now? Yeah.

It's on page seven. It's right above the financial section. It's the last question right before financials. So it says, what are current and potential challenges that could be barriers to success of the project program, either internally or externally?

That's a good question. And I think that... Number seven of the application.

Page seven of the application.

We're viewing the prior year results. There's several in there that say, unfortunately, we didn't have the outcomes that we thought we were. And so we did the best we could, you know, in a nutshell, in an eloquent way that several said that. It's good. Which means they were not anticipating this. This is, you know, maybe, maybe not, but...

Okay. Those were all the things that I just wanted to review. Is there anything else that you would want to see added or changed on the application?

The only, I was talking to a trust out of North Carolina, a friend of mine's on the board. One of the, there are two things. I think we talked about one, which they don't give grants to any organization that is five years or less. They want a track record, which I think we said we were open to that. But the other one is they want to know the salary connected to its total income. So the salary of staff connected to the total income of that organization. Because they were, and they've added that three years ago, and there were a number of organizations where you know, here's 100% but 75% is going to salary and 25 is only going to the mission of the organization. And so they really found that to be very helpful in kind of evaluating what that looks like. That was new to me and clearly I just threw that out, so I'm not saying we should do it this year, but I think we kind of need to look into it. It made a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, we talked about it one time. That's the situation where the organization is really somebody's job or business. I think what can I do to go into business? I think I'll start a non-profit.

Tax form?

The top five salaries of the organization are included in the 990, so partial salary information is in there.

We have that on page 8 where they put total salaries and wages.

Just actually making them put on there what's the percentage of...

One thing I counted, I counted there was 14 of the 29 that salaries were part of the grant. And I used to kind of be against that, but I also have realized it's hard to get help anymore. And we're having to pay people $21 an hour to haul boxes out of a house. It's hard to get any help. So I had to rethink, are you going to have anybody to even work these nonprofits? And I know there's a fine line, but that's just me. I was against, and then I've kind of shifted because of the labor shortage. Some of them are specialists. And they are. And I don't know the right answer. I'm just telling you from Carl Montgomery's little auction company scenario, you've got to pay people to work. So I'm just saying, I don't know the right answer, but I know that's happening in my world.

I think just for future consideration, if you're asking a salary ratio question, I think you also kind of have to have some other clarifying questions around that or ask for additional information because if you're looking at an organization that requires professional or skilled staff, credentialed staff, they're going to have to... pay a little bit more. So I think in the evaluation piece of it.

And I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem when it's one person. Right. And I get it. Staff and salaries are one thing, but if it's a one-man show, getting 80% of the grant.

And when you read through some of these, they were adding somebody for after school because they brought on a lot more kids. I mean, I get all that, but I used to be a... one way, but I've kind of shifted my thoughts on that. But I agree.

That's where I am on your suggestion about, or not suggestion, but that other organization required five years of an organization. I feel like I don't really want to do that because things shift. Sure. I mean, it might be a score issue, and we probably all take that into consideration. But who knows?

Well, I would be curious, and again, I don't have it right in front of me, how many grants we gave to organizations that were less than five years. I've got a feeling it was few and far between.

Our system just weighs against new organizations, and considering our job, as stewards of this money, I don't think that's bad.

No, and I don't either. And I guess my thought process is, as I've shared before, is if we continue to get more and more grants, what are we filtering those grants through? And if we're already, I don't want to use the word discriminating, but having a discriminating eye on an organization that's two years old, we're already doing that. Why wouldn't that already be something that we put in place? Because eventually we'll get 60, 70 grants and there's nothing that's filtering before it gets to us. That's my concern. Thanksgiving is already filled with grant reading. Right? It's a lot of reading. So that's my only thing. If we're already doing it, if we're already reading these with an eye towards those expectations, then why wouldn't we already put that in place?

So do we have an escape clause, though? Like, is there, if we had another pandemic and we needed to put, felt like we should put some money towards it, do we have an escape clause to, that's what I'm saying, like, it gives us some freedom.

Well, I would think as a board we would have the right to make changes when we, I mean, we should be flexible. I'm just looking at on a regular routine, year after year, non-pandemic year, what is filtering out some of these grants that we're gonna start getting, the more and more grants. And if we're already doing that, through our reading and discernment, then why wouldn't we go ahead and put that in place?

Yeah, I probably wouldn't have an objection to what you're saying. So I think, to the point, some of that is built into the model in terms of the scoring model, which is we're arguing on both sides of that as we're talking through it. But if we think through why we did that to begin with, it was we wanted to know that there was some... longevity, not an ongoing concern about the longevity of the organization or their mission or what they were doing and those types of things. I think there's a good basis for that if we wanted to do it. And so I could be supportive of that if you wanted to do it. I think it fits the spirit of what we were doing. to the point of, you know, do we want the flexibility to change our mind? I think what you would see if there was another pandemic is you would see all of the existing organizations pivot to serve that need. And it doesn't mean that we couldn't pivot. And I understand, Carter, if you wanted something that says, hey, we want to specifically say we can pivot, that makes sense too.

I would want an escape clause. But I think we already have it. It's already in the vote. So...

What is that score? Is it a 1 to 10 or is it a 1 to 5?

1 to 5 is the first question is how many years of service have you had. But then it weighs on the financials. That's true because you don't have much financials. If you don't have a lot of history, groups that have been established for five or more years do have the six months operating expenses in the bank. Yet a startup group would not. So I think we weigh it. already make it a challenge. If a really good group started up, they would have a chance, but they're fighting an uphill battle. And I think that's okay. Again, I've had some criticism saying, hey, the way this is done, a new group doesn't have a chance. We need to be helping new groups. Not with the funds we're dispersing. I think that we have a very good criteria established.

Maybe not five years, maybe three years. Okay.

So in the eligibility section is where that could be added because it's part of the application that could be reviewed annually to determine if you want to change it.

So that would mean three years since established as a 501c3?

I mean, yeah, you kind of have some kind of... That'd be the start time. I mean, right now, just in my mind, there's already a minimum, even though it's not on paper. Just that... I think it's reasonable, but... I can support three. I mean, you guys are the bank. You don't give out loans to... It's very awesome to... Startups have a hard time. Hey, I want to build a restaurant.

I need $5 million to... Well, is that something we want to vote on right now, add it into the thing, or what do we do with that? Well, let me clarify.

Do you want it three years in operations or three years in operation in Murfreesboro?

Could it be an organization in Nashville that's been operating more than three years?

You're not supposed to make hard questions. That's a good question.

John, what do you think about that?

I think once they get their 501c3, I mean, that's really a hurdle that shows that they're serious about getting the paperwork in, getting the right lawyer in place to move forward, and it shows that they already have skin in the game. That's what I would set it by.

But in market or out of market, irrelevant as long as they've been in organization for three years? That's correct. I support that, too.

That's easy to measure, so... And then we can always adjust that. But, I mean, that's minimal, three years of being a nonprofit.

Otherwise, the risk is just outrageous. I think it protects us, too, in terms of, you know, where we allocate dollars. Here today, gone tomorrow. Yeah. Because that happens. Yeah.

So is there a way to put in a flexibility clause? Like, is there anything that could be done? Like, in the dollars that we approve?

Well, at the end of the day, you can always discuss and we'll walk through kind of the matrix that we'll use to help you decide. that you're not tied to that. I mean, you could come in and say, look, this is really needed. These are experienced people. They're putting together a nonprofit. They got decent funding in addition to ours. They need this much, and we want to do that.

If they can't apply, then they would not be part of any of it.

You're saying they can't even apply for the process?

Because they don't check that box off again. Right. So they're less than three years old? Is that what you mean?

Isn't that what's being presented, that they're less than three years old?

Right, right. What's an example? It never makes it to our screen. When we meet the eligibility requirements. Your example would be what, just something new?

Yeah. I'm just saying, like, I just... I, too, look at how long the organization's... I just want some little window.

Wasn't Cold Patrol new like year before last or has it been around for a while? I guess it's been around. There was something that we...

Thrive, I don't think that we even have given Thrive any money.

That's what it was, yeah.

But you probably would, at least on... This application, I mean, you can always do it in future years because you can change this every year. But on the application that's going out to invite people to come in, if we do put it in eligibility, then they'll fall out based on eligibility if it's less than three years. You could move it down to scoring. And so, you know, they could apply. And then if they're less than three years, they might score zero for that particular application. matrix, but it's possible then they could score really good on all the rest and still get in. But they would get past eligibility. At least they get past eligibility probably and to some extent come to the board. They may fall out below the scoring, which we'll talk about shortly. They may not end up in the matrix, but when the committee sits down to talk about it, they can be brought back in because they'd still meet eligibility requirements.

The only thing this does is keep us from ever seeing it if it's less than three years old. Right.

The eligibility, right? Yeah. At least for the next go-around, until it's changed. I mean, if for some reason we put it on there as eligibility and this year somebody comes and says we are two years in, it's really needed, then I guess we could revisit it in the next year.

That would have left off, what, just a handful of the reviews that we did last year.

And, you know, it all boils down to how we see ourselves. You know, is funding everyone like venture capitalists or established successful organizations that are well on their way or seasoned veterans, you know? if it's less than three years, the risk factor goes up on anything.

I mean, you could, and I'll say this and create a lot more work, but you could set aside X amount of funds for nonprofits that are starting up. I mean, kind of an entrepreneurial type of thing. So I'm just making up numbers, but say, okay, well, you know, 15, 30,000. That's going to be for this category. And everybody else fill out this, and we create a new application for... Startup. For startups. And perhaps make them do more, come in and talk, you know, come in and talk and explain what they're... So you can sort of measure the risk more than what we're measuring here, knowing that there's a limited amount of funds. So you'll probably take those that really need a whole lot to get because you'll only have X amount of dollars to do it. And if no one comes in or you decide not to grant, then that would just go back in the bucket and be allocated to everyone else. And if you're talking about an amount that's small enough, it's not going to move the matrix all that much one way or the other.

Has it been a problem that we awarded money to start? I don't think it's been a problem. I think it kind of leases itself based on our criteria. Based on the weights of our criteria. If we turn around and give $40,000 to somebody that's just started their thing and they lose it, we're going to be looking pretty bad. My issue is not that it's been a problem. My issue is I still read through the whole grant. Right. But we're creating another step for us to look through versus just getting them in front of us and this guy just started, okay, that's a zero. He has no financials, that's a zero. And it's kind of taking care of itself. That's how I'm scoring them, but it seems like everybody else is scoring it the exact same way without creating a whole other step. And then to say we get this brand new one in that's started by some wealthy Murfreesboro person that we know is a phenomenal business person, and we're like, this probably will be pretty good for the community. And we haven't created a lot of hoopla to get him back in here or her or... give us some kind of speech. That video would be very helpful in that situation if it's some startup. You know, to say, hey, this is what we're doing. That's just my opinion. That's Carl Montgomery's.

So that would have the operating term in the scoring so that you would still see it. I mean, you could dismiss it pretty quickly and not have to review the entire application. If you're less than about a zero startup. Somebody would have the ability to resurrect it. If it's eligibility, we kick those out and you really never see those.

If it's less than three years or less, it's mandatory you provide a video to show us what you're doing and just see how bad they want it.

You could also instead of stating it as an eligibility requirement, you could identify priority focus as given to organizations three years or more. or more.

I think that's legit.

And the other side of this though is the negativity of putting a zero. If it just started zero and you got to tell that person no. Whereas if you had it after three years you can apply, you're not telling them no, you're telling them that's the rules. That's significant. Give them a chance to be successful because that'd be awful discouraging if you were immediately, the whole committee said no. Yeah. For the reason you just gave. Yeah.

But what she's saying is that they know at the beginning that the chances are slight.

Yeah, if you just say priority focus is given to organizations who have been in operation for three years or more or five years or more, it's not disqualifying anyone, but it is saying that your priority is on organizations that are

It's probably going to be a no. Going into it, you know it's a no. So don't be discouraged. They see that as they fill out the questions and realize, okay.

You better give them a foot in the door or it's going to happen. I mean, all it takes is one bad score out of all of us and they're gone. And that's going to happen.

And I can't think of the name. It seemed like there was one that's applied a couple of times. And I think last year they got in. And they were pretty new. I can't think of the name of it. And I think they finally got in. They kept persistent and got in. But they were brand new. I can't remember what it was.

It's one of those music things. No. I don't remember. But I don't know.

I think the priority piece is a great point, and it builds some redundancy into the scoring that's already there because, you know, obviously not everybody that asked got funded last year. And if priority is being given to those that have three or five years of experience, then you're adding even another layer of difficulty in terms of those getting it. But to Collier's point, they have an opportunity to advocate their case or plead their case as they're going through that.

But I don't think... Wayne's idea is bad about the video being required.

I mean, everybody can do a video. Everyone's got a cell phone.

I agree. The videos are helpful. And this money is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and our awards are going to be more substantial with these nonprofits over time. I mean, it's going to be some good ones, I hope, if we invest good.

It is, but then you go back to what John said. We've got a lot of videos and stuff to go through that we're probably not going to approve. We can throw that out before we ever see them by just saying three years.

Well, if somebody wants to make a motion and work all that in.

I make a motion that on the... application descriptor that it says that there is a priority given to organizations that are three years plus in age.

Operating for three years.

It's a motion. He needs to hear a second. I don't hear a second. Any other motions?

I move that in order to apply for the grant, you have to show three years of... What did you say, Wade? 501c3. 501c3.

In any jurisdiction. Three years of non-profit experience. Right. Just so you know... what you're doing.

That's okay. So we have another motion.

So that, yeah, that changes the wording, right?

To be required.

So it's eligibility.

Yeah, it's an eligibility requirement. Three years of operations. All right.

Motion and a second. Call the roll.

Mr. Hayes.

Aye.

Dr. Hinkle.

Aye.

Mr. Lynch. Aye. Mr. Martin. Aye. Ms. Smith?

Nay.

Chair Montgomery?

Aye. So just to clarify, that is an eligibility requirement that an organization has to be in operations three years or more.

Right.

And not specifically in Murfreesboro, but just operating.

From the date of their 501c3. That's right. Did we just cover number four also and all that?

I think the only other thing was maybe go through the dates. We can do it at the end if that's easier for people to keep them in mind. Whatever you want to do. We can talk about the grant round dates a little bit. Why don't we talk about the, just to remind the committee of the process. So you spent all Thanksgiving reviewing the application. And Advent. And Advent. We're doing the applications. We gather all the evaluations and recommendations together, and then we'll start the process that we did last year. And so I wanted to remind the committee of what we went through last year, and unless you want to make any changes, what we'll go through again this year. We'll take those and allocate the funds based on the scores. So the scores are very important, and we talked about that a little last year, and we want to be discerning is we score. And it's not basically saying that you're good or bad. It's basically saying how you relate what's your relative score to others who are applying. So as you go through them, it's a relative score because that's what we're going to use the numbers for. It's how we're going to line it up when we allocate the funds. It's going to be based on the scores. So we're not intending to discourage anybody or saying your nonprofit's bad, but based on the scores that we've of the application received this year's score is relative to all the rest. Because what we'll do is we'll take the scores and line all the applications up based on scores and we'll have an amount that's available. And we'll go down that list and fund as many as we can based on the average recommendation of applications until we run out of money or have very little left and then we'll cycle that back in. But essentially run out of how much funds are available and that'll be the cutoff. And people that fall below that then won't be funded. That's what we did last year. So scores are important. As we calculate the average, we're going to use, remember, the trimmed mean, which means the highest and the lowest are taken out. Not a huge thing because the committee is pretty grouped together. Unless somebody wants to give $150,000 instead of $15,000, then that's a problem.

That's of the ones that we voted to fund.

That's of the, yeah. So you, right, you voted to fund as many as you possibly can. All that is accumulated. So scores are all accumulated. Everything's accumulated. And then we take the available funds for that year and then, based on the scores, allocate using the average down the list as far as we can go until the funds are used up where there's very little left. Okay. So once we get down there, we'll know what our funding, what our funds look like, all the applications that are being funded. And whatever little amount we have left, so if there's 10,000 left, we can't get to the next one. It doesn't really do anything. Then that 10,000 is put back into the rest of them, distributed across based on weighted average. And the two weights that we use are the scores again. So the scores, the primary way that all the weighting when we reallocate funds are calculated is based on the score. And then the other thing we used last year was based on the percentage of requested funds that the committee has decided to provide. And the reason we had done that and what we've discussed is that gives some indication of how much, on a percentage basis, that the committee really feels like this particular project should get. So it's a rough approximation to say the committee is finding this important because as a body, on a cumulative basis, you're funding more towards what they've asked for than the rest. Okay, so those are the two weighting factors that we would use when we reallocate any funds because the next step, and this is the hardest part, is it goes into the category of limitations. So once it goes into category of limitations and hits those percentage numbers, things start to get really shuffled and And so we'll use the same weighting factors that we use in the categories to try and get the categories funded as close as possible to the percentage. And close as possible is probably, you know, all the funds that could be allocated over there are allocated amongst them. The only exception is we're always working off of the requested funds as a maximum. So nobody gets more than what they've requested. So when you weight the funds and you have somebody who's requested $5,000 and they're getting $5,000, that's all they're going to get because that's all they're requested. When you weight, that becomes a zero because it's not dragging down the rest. You just don't want to use that number. So that gets taken out. So once you get to the category limitation and you calculate those three categories, the remaining amount really falls into the to the applications that fall in the other category. So everything that doesn't fall within, you remember the three categories, community services, education, and youth services, I think. Is that right?

Yeah.

So if they don't fall in there, they fall in the other. And that picks up the rest of the funds that were taken out because of the category limitations. And that gets reallocated then amongst the others using the same weighted factor. And then you get a final tally. That would be the final award based on this objective kind of calculations that are being done. And then that comes back to the board along with the calculation decision metrics you remember we talked about. And we didn't really use them last year too much, but it's measuring how far the board is apart from each other. and how close they are to each other. So it's measuring the breadth of the recommendations. So if everybody is really far apart, it'll set up a red flag saying, this might be something you want to talk about because people are widely dispersed. Or if it's close together, what it's talking about is stability. So if everybody's close together, or a majority are close together and some are outliers, one vote might change things quite a bit. So there's two measures in there. It's how far apart you are. Do you want to talk about those? Are you close enough where one vote might change things? Do you want to talk about those? And all it is is it's just an indicator of those awards And it just flags them and says these are ones you may want to talk about. You don't have to. Last year we didn't really focus on those a lot because this will get more important as money gets bigger. But it's good practice now to take a look at those and So it comes back with the calculated award using the matrix that we've developed and then the calculated decision matrix comes back to the board for discussions on the recommendations. So you'll see all those numbers. You'll see how they're calculated to the extent that you want to. You may not want to dig too far in the math. You don't have to and I don't blame you. But you'll get that back, and then it's open for discussion. So this is when you could say, look, I get the math, but this is important. While we're going through these, the few months that we go through these, something may have happened. It's like, we really need to address this. We're going to push this up and give these a lot more money. I don't care what the math says. Perfectly legitimate. No fault on the board or the committee. You can do that all day long without any issues. It's best if you voice and we create a record of why it's being done just to establish that it's being done fairly and for a good reason. But the numbers behind there is just to give guidance. They're not a decision making. The board or the committee makes the final decision. Yeah, a lot.

During the calculate decision metrics, are you saying that what we could do is there could be discussions within the group, and then based on the discussion, someone may want to change the amount that they recommend? Sure.

Yeah. So the matrix will just flag it. I'll say, you know, there's a couple of factors here that just kind of raise an issue.

You might want to look at it.

And the board could, in all fairness, say, no, it's fine. It looks good. You know, we've all rethought it. Or, you know, I put down the wrong thing or something.

During that time, someone could say, did you consider this about this organization? And someone would say, no, I didn't consider that. And therefore, I could want to change the amount I recommended funding.

Yeah, yeah. It all harkens back to our initial discussion when the board was put together. There's an objective way to go about it and a subjective way to go about it. At the end of the day, it's the committee's decision and a recommendation that goes to the board. So, you know, we put as much objectivity and kind of analysis into it to support the decisions and make sure that they're fair and reasonable. But the board can take fair and reasonable to another standard and have that discussion and decide what they want. So I don't want anybody to get too hung up in the numbers. All that blue on that side is the staff work. That gets done, comes back. It's a tool for you to use. It's not your decision. It's not intended to be your decision. I just want to make that clear.

And just a reminder, the nonprofit is not the category. It's the project that the nonprofit is doing is the category. Because that can get missed pretty easy.

And I will say this, and the board can say not do this or however they want, but when we get all the applications and we take a look and you're asked to categorize them and so we get seven different opinions on what category that they fall into, and then we kind of have grouped up together and said, I see that, and this looks like where the majority is, or if it's three to four in this category and stuff. Can we find an explanation for that project to reasonably be categorized as other? Are they doing more than one thing? Yes, they may focus heavily on the education, but they're also doing some other stuff. Is there another thing? Can we get into health-related? That's the other one, health-related. Can we get into health-related? And if we can explain both of those, maybe it belongs in other. Because remember, the other category is picking up all the slack. And the less issues you have on limitation, the better off you are. Because that's really where things start to make it more difficult. Makes sense. So we've done that before. And unless you tell us otherwise, we'll continue to kind of categorize it that way.

I think it's worked good. I mean, it was very helpful last year, for sure. So, I mean, do we need a... It says action. Do I need to make a... Do we have a copy of that?

If you want to make a change, if we want to keep going, what's that?

Do we have a copy of that flow chart in our...

No, but I can send it to you. Okay. Yeah, I think this year, because there was some discussion, and I was going to talk about it later, but we'll talk about it now. I'll send you the flow chart here that you can see. I'm going to send you the prior year's awards, statistics on prior year's awards, so you can kind of see that so you have a little running background on what's going on. So we'll send you some information before you start your evaluation.

We can include that.

Okay. The year-end 2027 mid-year report.

So these are actually, again, forms just for review and approval. I do want to back up because I provided a copy of your evaluation forms, the questions that you used to evaluate the applicants. So I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay with everything still or if there were any additions or changes you wanted to make for your evaluation criteria.

I looked at the questions and I did not see any changes to be made to the questions. Also, like the points system we've established and noted here.

One of the things that Angela and I have discussed in preparation, we do a due diligence review, but we're only looking to make sure that they have all the application requirements that there are 501c3, that type thing. If you guys wanted, we could pull some of the weaker applications, maybe applications that don't have a full board or don't have Murfreesboro representation. and put those together in a separate list that you could vote on to approve to move forward to review or not. That might provide some additional

We discussed it in the framework of kind of similar to the way we do consent agendas with council. If any board member wanted to pull a single organization from our list and ask that it be scored, then that's all it would take would be that one request. So if we provide you a list of eight-week applications that we do not feel like will score well, And any one of you says, hey, there's one of these that I do want to shift from your list back into the scoring ring, it only takes one request to do that.

So is that, like, when are we presented with that grouping? Before you score. So before we see all the other ones, it would be something that we would... And you would still have access to those.

The way we've done due diligence in the past is if they did not meet eligibility, they did not move into the list for you to review and score. This would add an additional option for you if there's an application in there that... is a part of our staff review, we do not feel that you will score well based on some of the criteria and some of the information that you've given us in the past, then we could provide you with the list of the more viable applications to score and then a list to consider not moving forward into scoring. An option. And we could do it on a pretty trial basis this next round. You know, a very careful piece. It's up to you.

And what's the deadline for them to have it all in, the end of the process?

Yeah, so if we're still going with the same time frame, it would be October 1st to October 31st would be that grant application open period. And then when that cuts off, then usually from there to mid-November is when we do our kind of review process. And then at that point, we could provide a list of of applicants that we don't feel are weaker or wouldn't meet the full criteria and you could decide whether you wanted to fully score them and then it's just a matter of putting those, moving them electronically into the next pot. And so it's not.

Like how many would that be? Like in the past, what would y'all see?

I would say probably maybe 8 to 10 at max.

I don't see a downside to that, especially if the board knows in advance what it is and can pull those back in for consideration. I don't see a downside in having less to review, especially if staff knows based on your experience that it's going to be unlikely to be a top candidate or something we do.

And you would just send the whole committee, these are the applications. Does anybody want to add them to the list? And they say yes. Would you give us reason?

Yes. So we would create a spreadsheet, and it would have the name of the organization, their project, what they're requesting money for, and then a column that would identify why we tagged it for review.

Easy, handy. Okay. I don't have a problem with that either. I like it too. Agree or disagree? Yeah. I mean, that'd be a good addition.

So we have your permission.

Do we have to vote on that one? Are we good?

Thank you.

Is there any... Is there... John, back to the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Like last year, we were given an extra week or so. Yes, yes.

I was about to bring that up. That was really helpful. That was really big.

Yeah. I don't know. It depends on how I feel. We're going to compress it a little.

That's a great Christmas gift. If it's extended for us...

Yeah, I think we can gift some extra time. Thank you. And then the mid-year report and the final report are what is given to the applicants to fill out. I did add some additional language around providing total numbers served and then also how they identify those numbers that are specific to Murfreesboro. With the most recent final report overview, I felt some of that information was lacking. So trying to provide some more targeted questions and directions to enable you guys to have that specific details.

That's good.

So is there anything... Any other questions or information you would like to see from the organizations and reports?

I don't know if this is the proper time to bring this up, but the year end, 2025, 2026, looking through possible lot of AI responses through there. And I don't know if we need to address that as... That's who's creating their report and if it's accurate or not accurate or what, but I'll bring it up.

Yeah, so that would be one of the questions I would ask. Typically after this final report then I would close out the grants and we would end that year. Is there anything that you would want me to go back and do and Or, you know, are you okay with the information that was presented? Are there any organizations that you would want further follow-up or additional information?

I think we need to have greater brevity on the final report. Say that again? They need to be shorter.

Oh, okay.

I mean, I don't... I don't know about y'all, but it was a lot to read all of these. And they don't want to do it either, so why do we... It just seems like so much. Can we give them a shorter document?

We can shorten the word counts if you wanted to do that. I think that would be amazing. Change the questions.

I mean, I'm looking at a four- or five-page document.

Yeah.

Just one organization.

Yeah. That's a lot.

Yeah.

You don't have anything else to do.

You can get AI to...

I think it's too much.

Ask AI to summarize it for you.

That's what I did.

Yeah. There you go. That's exactly what I did. I don't know if y'all read the CASA one. It was pretty...

But at the end of the day, you just want to see, you know, what did you spend the money on? Show me. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah, I don't really need the stories.

Right, right. We've got all that.

You need the stories in the application.

Yeah.

Okay, so we can re... Well, here we go.

Program outcomes. We have 2,500, you know. Not many of them use that much, of course. Okay.

All right. So I'm going to take out a success story. Any barriers or challenges or adjustments that impacted your project? I can take that out if you guys are good with that. The character limit on that one is $2,500. I can reduce it to $1,500. Ten words. Ten characters.

AI actually told me on a couple of these that this appears to have just gone in their general fund.

You kind of want shorter goals and outcome. So I can adjust those. That would be great. I'll take that out. So really the financial summary, you still want to keep that. And then how you spent the money. Yeah. So numbers served.

Yeah, that's helpful.

And financial information.

Got that? All good? All right. How's the trust doing?

Just doing pretty good. We can walk through this, but based on it, it looks like if we estimate reasonably between a couple of different parameters, we're looking at about 780, 750, 780, somewhere in there. Some of this is still market-driven, so things could happen. We don't know. We're still bombing somebody. It's an important commodity, so who knows what's going to happen. 30% increase, about $180,000 increase. Right now, the balance as of today, checking this morning... About 97.6 round numbers. Can you see my cursor? Yeah, my cursor's up there. About 97.6. So far, year-to-date, yields right around 16. But if you take that and you project it forward... before expenses, and expenses won't change this number, but minutely, that's about 806. If you assume a return of 5%, so all year long, so you have to wipe out a lot of what you did already this year and then you get an anemic response. which even if the market went down, we're investing in a lot of things that would still hold up over that. It's more fixed than just a straight market. Then you get about $750,000. That's 5% from the very beginning of the year, incorporating the payment that comes in in 1st of July. So the midpoint of that is $780,000. Last year it was $599,525. So it's about a $180,000 increase. Awesome. So we'll see. Don't hold me to it. If I had a crystal ball, I probably wouldn't be here.

Actually, it could be more.

It could be more. I mean, if we kept up a return, well, that's taking the return 16, but yeah, it could be more. I mean, some of our investments in holdings are... They don't move quite a bit because they're not market-based. And so they'll report on a, not on a daily basis, but on a periodic basis, an end-of-year type of thing. So those are the more hedge fund, private equity, private debt kind of investments. And so they're not going to change a whole lot until we get to a certain point where they report a change.

At what time does the board have to make a commitment, this is how much we have to distribute?

We get a final balance on July 31st. So our financial consultant gives us a final balance. I ask them every year for July 31st, give us what it is, and they total the assets that the trust has, and that's your number. So somewhere around this. Like I said, expenses aren't included, but expenses are .05. I think they were 0.05 of the total balance. I mean, they're very small. So they're not huge.

Is it July 31st or December 31st?

What did I say?

July, I thought that, yeah. Yeah. It's December.

December.

Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

I was a little confused, and so, okay.

Yeah, sorry. Oh, yeah, July. All right. It happened.

We got some of those.

Stuck in fiscal years, even though that's not a... That's not it either, is it? December 31st, they'll evaluate as of the end of that day, so... January 2nd is when we'll get the number. They get the first off. But we'll have an estimate, and we'll continue to estimate as we get closer and closer. So if things do change, we kind of know. We'll get another estimate when we gather up. What's our next meeting going to be?

We don't have it set up. What time frame? Oh, you say we meet in this... January, February, January, end of January.

Oh, so we meet after the first of the year. So I'll send out, we'll keep an eye on it and I'll just send committee the updates. Maybe sometime first of December. We'll see how things are going.

Unless they want to meet again. We will want to talk about at some point how you want to approach next year's funding cycle, application cycle. based on the increase in funds availability. We had initially had some conversations around a possible two-step process. And so I think if that's the route that you want to go, we need to have that conversation early so that we can announce any changes in a sufficient time before the next grant cycle opens. So I don't know how you want to calendar that discussion in.

So as of right now, our next meeting would be at the end of January unless we work something in?

Right. And we could have that discussion in January if you wanted to. That's up to you guys. But you will be making decisions on applicants, so it may be a two-part meeting where you don't want...

What do you mean by the two-part process?

We had discussed previously about the potential of doing an LOI step, so just a very brief application process that would allow you to review it and then invite applicants to a full application if you wanted to as a vetting process. So just to reduce the number of full applications that you might potentially be looking at.

I think it's a process more common with larger grant gives and this group is getting, you know, hitting that million dollar mark might be a good kind of benchmark to consider.

Okay. I wouldn't mind having another meeting. Do what? I personally wouldn't mind having another meeting.

Really, I mean, it's a good refresher just to go over the software, too, just because I just do it once a year. So if anybody's got an idea on when they might want to meet, it all ends in November 1st.

I know I'm going to be out of the country the first two weeks of October.

I'll be out of the country the second two weeks of October.

October's out.

Well, I mean, we're not going to get to look at this stuff until... 1st of November anyway. So, I mean, does anybody, you got 3rd, that's a Tuesday. The 10th is a Tuesday.

Good 10. Both good with me.

I'm good with either one of those.

10th?

Out of town on the 3rd.

Nope, I won't be there on the 3rd. I'll be out of town. 10th? On the 3rd. What about the 10th? 10th. Wide open. Wide open. Everybody good with the 10th of November? Suggested time, sir. I'm good any time in the afternoon. So does that work for everybody? Do you like it later or do you like it after lunch?

Before the school zone hits.

2 p.m.?

Yeah.

2 p.m. before school. 2 p.m. on the 10th. November 10th.

Good deal. Okay, we'll confirm with the airport. We have this room. Got to check with them, but otherwise it should be good.

And then from there we can schedule our January meeting, if that's good with everybody. Yeah. Other business, we've got some terms ending. So what are we doing?

If everybody's amenable, I'll send an email to the mayor and we'll get it on an agenda and have the council reappoint.

Okay. Just me and Collier and who was the other one? John. John.

Okay. Yeah. I think they usually like to have speeches before. That's easy for you.

All right. I think we all want to be back. Good. All right.

Any other business?

Did we get the calendar, please?

Oh, calendar, yes. Calendar.

WHAT IS IT? OH, I DIDN'T SEND IT. I DIDN'T SEND IT OUT. DID YOU? I DIDN'T DO IT. WE CAN SEND IT OUT. OKAY. IT'S JUST OUR... I JUST SENT IT TO YOU.

OH, I HAD ASKED IF THERE WAS A GRANT SCHEDULE CALENDAR. I DIDN'T SEE ONE. You had mentioned it. That's why I emailed you.

So kind of for our next grant cycle, it follows pretty much the same time frame. We'll send out press releases in September and update the website and start getting the word out. And then October 1st through 31st is when the grant application will be open. November 1st through the 15th is when staff will do the due diligence. And then November 15th through January 3rd-ish for review and scoring. And then come back sometime mid to late January for your final approvals. And then move through the recommendation and process.

Okay. Somebody's very efficient because they just put this on my calendar, the meeting. Sorry. Who did that? It's magic. Yeah, yeah.

It just did it. I'm sorry. It popped up on my screen. That's great.

I missed it. Anything else? I only had, maybe it was answered and I... was somewhere else. Did we ever get any comments from anybody who didn't get the grant? Did anybody come back to us and say, hey, where, you know, especially if they got the grant in the past and then this time around. I was just curious what the feedback was.

I haven't heard from anybody as far as in the community. I heard from one organization.

We did have, so when we sent out the email saying that they were not accepted as a grantee, we offered a review process so they could make an appointment with me. And I think we had four or five organizations who responded back with a review. And I can tell you who that was in just a second. Give me just a second. So Corner to Corner, Ethos, Tucker's House, and Thriving Together were the four organizations that responded back, and we did a review with them.

Could we flag those if they apply again just so that we know they did due diligence afterwards? Not that that would weigh, but at least we would have a recognition that they put the effort.

Yeah. So we didn't hear anything from the cemetery board?

No, they didn't. Yeah, and they didn't move through because theirs was a capital project, so we didn't process that one through. Yeah. There was a gentleman that did call me and talk to me about, not specifically the application, but the... What it could be awarded for. Yes. Yes. Yes. And so I did tell him that we couldn't do campaign...

I don't know about the rest of the committee, but I really appreciate the staff notes. Anything y'all... Absolutely. ...is really impactful for me. Because I often read those and wonder what they thought of it. Amen.

Are we under other business?

Yes. You got anything?

I got a question. Obviously, some of us have direct knowledge of some of the applicants' organizations. And yet, we've gotten a few recently emails from some organizations that we funded that I am not familiar with other than the information that was put on the application. And I'm questioning, is that something that would be good for us to do or bad for us to do to learn more about some of the organizations that we funded? In one hand, you think, okay, we need to review the applications based strictly upon the information provided. But yet, it's no secret that a lot of these organizations I'm very familiar with. So I'm wondering if... What are y'all doing? Are y'all accepting any of the going to any of the events?

John and I both went to the Thriving Together.

Yes, I think that was one of them.

I think that Ann Davis is pulling together some kind of... What's she pulling together?

I don't know that it's been formalized, but she has done several things to help the non-profits. Non-profit leaders do staff development and staff training and promotion and doing a lot of those different activities, targeting those groups and helping them with grant writing or with... use of models and metrics and research and things like that. The Christy Houston Foundation has funded some of those things. So I think kind of as an extension of that, like it was Ann that organized that site visit that was passed on. There were members of different funding organizations that attended just as an opportunity to learn more about a local organization. I was super impressed.

Okay. I will start going to those.

I thought she was doing something broader like a symposium of all the nonprofits. I don't know. Maybe I made that up. Or maybe she just talked about that off the cuff like at some point.

There's also a group called Redstone Sponsors. It's a meet the funders organization where nonprofits are invited. There have been really good participation, 50 or 60 different local nonprofits coming. and then a panel discussion of different funding organizations that rotate out so that nonprofits get a chance to meet different funding bodies that are available to them. I think that's been very successful as well, and Anne has been a part of setting those up also. That's probably worth it.

Okay. Appreciate that. Anything else? Meeting adjourned.