Committee adopts revised scoring grid to better differentiate applicants

The committee reviewed changes to the RAP scoring and ranking system intended to produce more varied ratings across applications so the panel can justify differing award percentages. Committee members said the revised scale would help distinguish the strongest applicants in a year when requests far exceed available funds.

One member explained the motivation: the expanded scale should reduce clustering at the top scores and give the committee firmer justification for giving higher percentages to stronger applications. "I advocated for expanded scale...if the scale would result in a little more varied scoring, that would give us some support for saying...that wasn't gonna be at 70% of what they asked for and m and b got 50%," a member said. The group discussed using last year’s awards as a baseline while being mindful of potential gaming of application amounts.

Committee members agreed each member will score all applications in three categories (artistic/cultural vibrancy; public benefit/outreach; organizational capacity) and bring preliminary scores to the deliberations, where adjustments can be made during public deliberation.