A lot of effort culminated in last night's AGM and Grants Selection event; the effort made by the many Partners who listened attentively to four very worthy proposals…the effort of the coaches in advising these four organizations on their "business plans"…and most importantly, the efforts of the four organizations themselves in working through their ideas with their coaches and constructing a "business plan" that contains a degree of structure and business thinking that are new to them. And then there are Cindy and Glen having to herd us cats.

So was it worth it? The answer for me, predictably, was YES it was. For better or for worse, the process is Darwinian. Only one of the four organizations receives funding from this grants cycle (with the potential of a second receiving independent funding). And these four organizations were culled from 25 proposals we initially received. Although there is only one grant recipient, all four clearly received very high quality executive coaching from our Partners. The initial 2-page Letters of Intent that got them shortlisted, evolved substantially into the 8-page business plans and corresponding presentations we saw last night. The organizations demonstrated an amazing willingness to adapt how they think about what is clearly their life's work. Obviously the coaching was effective--our secret sauce is this time + money approach. And I suggest that the time -- in the form of executive coaching -- is at least as valuable as the potential funding... for all four organizations.

In the end, the partnership threw their support behind an organization founded by an extremely passionate man from a very difficult background who has caught lightening in a bottle supporting at-risk youth in the tri-cities. Their magic bus concept has proven itself to be innovative, real, gritty, trusted and connected. With their passion, expertise and community relationships and our funding and executive coaching, the goal is see PoCoMo stabilize their organization in the tri-cities into long- term sustainability and, in a perfect world, grow their organization into one that affects, protects and supports at-risk youth across the province.

The grants process isn't perfect. Having the entire partnership vote is new and we will continue to tinker with it. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you'd care to share them. The issue I'm most concerned with is that the meeting last night went into overtime. I find it hard to close down the presentations of our prospective Grantees when they go over their allotted time for fear of taking them out the running after such a large investment of passion and time. And then there's Oliver :)...

There are opportunities to improve the flow and we will work on that for the next time. To the members of the Grants Committee, I thank you for all your hard work.

Our mandate is to represent the larger partnership in selecting and then coaching the best proposals. We measure our performance based on the combined quality of the presentations we saw at last nights meeting, not on who receives funding. And in my two years as chair of this committee, these four were the best quality business plans and presentations that I've seen.

Our sincere thanks and congratulations to partners Dan Bowditch, Andrew Mindell, Wingfield Rehmus, Oliver Gruter-Andrew, Raymond To, Jim Derbyshire, Angela Tzanadamis and Ron Klopfer.

To Cindy and Glen, thanks so much for your hard work on this... especially the improvement in the number and quality of submissions we received for the grants cycle. This always needs to be a focus for us.

To the larger partnership, your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Please consider investing some time in the fall grants cycle. You will find it worth your while.

Lyndon Harvey