Eligibility, Guidelines and Judging Criteria

Eligibility and Guidelines

Entry to the InCommons Collaboration Challenge is open to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and individuals who are affiliated with a nonprofit organization.* Entrants can propose the continuation, expansion or replication of the collaboration described in their entries.

We will consider entries that meet the following guidelines:

• The entry reflects the theme of the Challenge: Collaboration to Solve Community Problems. The scope of the InCommons Collaboration Challenge is to identify innovative local collaborations between nonprofit organizations, leaders (broadly-defined) and community members aimed at solving problems and advancing solutions.
• The collaboration described in the entry is underway or has taken place within the past two years.
• The collaboration described in the entry has demonstrated growth beyond the conceptual stage and has demonstrated progress and impact.
• The collaboration described in the entry is located in Minnesota.
• The entry is submitted in English.

The InCommons Collaboration Challenge is interested in collaborations that reflect a variety of disciplines, issues, and outcomes. Examples could include anything ranging from skills/capacity building, to deliberative democracy, to arts and education. The InCommons Challenge especially encourages submissions that reflect interdisciplinary approaches.

InCommons encourages submisions from young people, communities of color, ethnic communities and from Greater Minnesota.

While the InCommons Collaboration Challenge strongly encourages online entry to the Challenge, paper entries will be allowed upon request. For more information please contact Challenge staff at info@InCommons.org or 612.520.1756.

Please complete the entire entry form and submit responses by Friday, October 29, 2010 at 11:59 PM. All decisions of the judges will be final.

*The InCommons Collaboration Challenge is open to all 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that are listed in the IRS Business Master File (excluding private, non-operating foundations) and individuals affiliated with a qualifying organization. For schools that don’t have an IRS determination, please provide your EIN or TIN number, and your letter ruling or government affirmation letter. If your organization is a religious or faith-based organization not required to file with the IRS, you may be asked to provide the following: (i) your EIN issuance letter, (ii) year of establishment and (iii) denominational listing (i.e., state letter for churches or listing on a national church directory). Finalists may be subject to criminal background checks and background checks with Guidestar and the Charities Review Council to ensure compliance with state standards.

Projects or programs directly managed or led by the Bush Foundation or the nine InCommons partner organizations (Ashoka’s Changemakers, Minnesota Community Foundation, Minnesota Council of Churches, Minnesota Public Radio, The Saint Paul Foundation, Twin Cities Public Television, University of Minnesota Center for Integrative Leadership, Walker Art Center and Wilder Foundation) are not eligible for participation in the InCommons Collaboration Challenge.

Entries will be reviewed by a panel of independent judges, and three finalists will be put to a public online vote.

Criteria for Evaluating and Judging Entries

The three finalists put to public vote will be those entries that best meet the following criteria.

Innovation: The entry must describe what makes the collaboration in problem solving innovative. The entry should reflect a unique approach that demonstrates a substantial difference from other attempts to solve the same or other problems at the local level.

Examples of innovative collaborations to solve community problems could include those that:

• Demonstrate risk-taking and/or embrace conflict.
• Cultivate relationships with communities or affinity groups that an organization has never worked with before.

Partnership: Entries will also be evaluated based on how collaborative they are, including whether they:

• Involve partnerships that are outside or cross traditional organizational or sector boundaries with local leaders (broadly defined), organization(s) and the community in co-creating and implementing the collaboration.
• Make community members the primary partners in solving a community problem or advancing a solution.
• Make representatives of under-served populations equal partners in the collaboration.

Progress and Impact: It is important that the collaboration has made strides in achieving its goals. That said, success will not look the same in each case. Some collaborative efforts may have proven success at a small level, others may have already achieved a large impact that is replicable elsewhere, and others may have seeded change by building capacity for the longer term. Whatever the demonstrated level of effectiveness, the effort has to have moved beyond the conceptual stage and should be on the road to diminishing the problem it seeks to address.

Next Steps: Collaborations will be judged on how well entrants can articulate the way(s) in which they would continue, expand or replicate (in the same community or elsewhere in Minnesota) their collaborative effort. Entrants who are individuals (versus nonprofit organizations) should take care to describe what nonprofits they would be working with and/or what would be the fiscal agent to continue, expand or replicate their collaboration.