WIN Grants Committee members conducted eight site visits via Zoom meetings in July, with seven to 13 members attending each one.
While not the same as the in-person meetings, the sessions remained conversatonal and informative. Each grant seeker provided WIN with PowerPoints or other visual materials shared at the visit. WIN also asked grant seekers to prepare short, phone-recorded videos to share with our group. These videos were shared with all members of the Grants Committee prior to the July 28 meeting where finalists were selected.
Both the site visit materials and the videos will be posted on WIN’s members-only site as WIN voting on grant recipients begins Aug. 1.
While Grants Committee members have had practice using Zoom with their own committee meetings for several years, this was the first year site visits were conducted only via Zoom. (WIN tried a blended traditional site visit in Scottsbluff with presenters and WIN members also joining via Zoom a few years ago.)