Community Review

The Community Review process is an essential part of the Cambridge Community Foundation’s commitment to participatory grantmaking. Community Reviewers may be community or nonprofit leaders, content experts, or individuals with lived experience in the Cambridge community. The Cambridge Community Foundation equally values knowledge gained through both lived experience and professional or academic work.

AT A GLANCE

Overview

The Community Review process centers the voices of the community in the Foundation’s grantmaking programs.

CONTACT

Danny DiCamillo
Senior Programs and Grantmaking Associate

✉ Send an email
🗓 Book a meeting
☎ 617.865.2216

BECOMING A COMMUNITY REVIEWER

Interested in becoming a community reviewer? Please send an email to let us know you are interested.
Unsure if you would be a good candidate for community review? We encourage you to read the details below.
Our team will reach out to gather more information. The number of Community Reviewers will be based on the number of grant applications received. Once the application closes, we will calculate the number of reviewers needed and invite those selected to review this year. Regretfully, you may not be selected to review this year.

Community Review Process

Community reviewers help the Foundation to center the voices of the community in grantmaking through the following process:

  1. Community outreach: We conduct outreach across Cambridge to identify potential candidates to participate in the Community Review process. Anyone interested in participating in the process is asked to submit an interest form.
  2. Request for proposals: While community reviewers are being identified, the Foundation solicits grant applications from Cambridge-serving organizations.
  3. Individual application evaluation: Within each of CCF’s grant categories, a panel of community reviewers read each application and complete an evaluation rubric using the online reviewer dashboard.
  4. Group discussion: Community reviewers convene to deliberate and make recommendations for funding to Foundation staff.
  5. Funding allocation: Foundation staff follow up with applicants based on community reviewer recommendations and compile a grant docket, which is sent to the Board of Directors for approval.

IDEAL CANDIDATES

When assembling the panel of Community Reviewers, we are specifically looking for people who are:

  • Connected to the Cambridge community. Connections to the community may include your place of residence, work, play, worship, or other community-based activities.
  • Knowledgeable in one of CCF’s grant categories. We prioritize individuals who have unique knowledge of Cambridge-serving organizations through lived experience and/or professional/academic work. Our grant categories are:
    • Arts & Culture
    • Child & Youth Development
    • Community Building & Engagement
    • Economic Security
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Food
    • Health & Wellbeing
    • Housing
  • Mission-aligned. You believe in the power of collective action to ensure a vibrant, just, and equitable city for everyone.

Additionally, we seek reviewers that:

  • Have personal experience living at the intersections of multiple identities related to race, age, economic status, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, immigration status and country of origin, and disability.
  • Can review grant applications in English and have access to a personal computer and internet connectivity.
  • Can commit to review grant applications and attend a group discussion according to the timeline specified below.
  • Are not currently in a leadership position of an organization intending to apply to the Community Fund.

TIMELINE AND COMMITMENT

The Community Review process takes place between January and March each year. Community reviewers commit about 10 hours over roughly two months.

STIPEND

Community Reviewers are eligible to receive a stipend upon completion of the process.

The stipend policy was put into place beginning as one way to increase the equitability of access to participate as a community reviewer.