Not Enough Proposals Submitted

What can be done to prevent situations where not enough proposals are submitted into a funding categorisation?

Problem

There is a risk that in a funding round that certain funding categorisations do not receive enough submitted proposals. This will cause a lack of competition and increase the chance that weaker proposals are selected for funding. For Catalyst to effectively scale it will need to be able to distribute funding effectively to high quality and impactful initiatives.

Relevance to funding categorisation

Funding categorisation is relevant to this problem as funding categorisations determine what proposals can be submitted in a single categorisation. The following categorisation approaches impact how many proposals can be submitted into the categorisations:

• Broad vs specific categorisations - The more broad a categorisation is the more types of proposals that can be submitted into the categorisation. Specific categorisations will mean only requesting certain proposals with a certain focus or type to be submitted.

• Inclusive vs exclusive categorisations - Inclusive categorisations in a funding round will mean inviting all forms of ideas to be submitted which will increase the number that can be submitted for consideration. Exclusive categorisations will mean excluding certain areas from being able to be submitted which reduces the total amount of proposals that could be submitted.

Potential Solutions

Broad categorisations

Broad categorisations help to increase the amount of proposal types that can be submitted into a single categorisation. This helps to reduce the probability of facing the problem of not having enough proposals to consider and compare in each categorisation.

Inclusive categorisations

Inclusive categorisations will help to increase the total number of proposal types with different focus area that can be submitted. This will help reduce the probability that there is a categorisation that doesn't have enough proposals due to the range of ideas that can be submitted.

Proposer outreach

More effort can be done to do proposer outreach before and during funding rounds to encourage people to submit proposals. The more effective these efforts are the more that this potential problem can be prevented.