Lever for Change centers its work on the core values of transparency, openness, equity, and inclusivity. We take intentional steps to ensure these values are represented throughout our activities and within each customized competition, including sourcing from diverse networks, and building community engagement into competition design from the beginning. We provide applicants with detailed information about the competition, such as evaluation criteria and scoring rubric, competition timeline and process, and the names of judges.

Lever for Change only shares final prospectuses with donors and technical assistance providers who are under non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). We do not share them with other parties. However, all finalists will receive technical assistance and advising throughout the process. Typically, teams have 20-30+ hours of support via one-on-one, bi-weekly check-ins and offline reviews, which we believe will benefit finalists much more than reviewing a sample of a successful prospectus.

As finalists, your final prospectuses will be added to our Bold Solutions Network, where we match donors with nonprofits and social enterprises whose solutions to significant social challenges were highly ranked after rigorous evaluation in one of our competitions. Learn more about the Network.

As a part of our effort to raise the visibility of all finalists and increase their potential to secure additional funding, Lever for Change (LFC) will share relevant proposal and due diligence information with potential donors. While we may share your original proposal and prospectus narrative with a potential donor, it is LFC’s policy to have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or other contract that contains an NDA clause in place before sharing any due diligence information or appendices with an external party. In response to an initial request from an interested donor or intermediary, LFC will share the following items, if available:

• Original submitted proposal
• Revised Proposal/Prospectus narrative
• Project Factsheet/Two-page solution overview

Should a prospective donor express interest in learning more about a proposal, including viewing a prospectus’ accompanying appendices or additional due diligence materials, LFC will work with the relevant party to execute a mutual NDA or other contract. Once a signed NDA is in place, LFC will share the following due diligence items as is appropriate and if available:

• Anonymized Peer-to-Peer and Evaluation Panel scores and comments
• Revised Proposal/Prospectus appendices
• Anonymized technical reviews
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion reviews
• Inclusion of persons with disabilities reviews
• Organizational legal and financial health reviews
• LFC insights as applicable and appropriate

Finalists can typically expect to receive the results of their reviews one month after being notified of finalist status. For the second round of reviews, the DEI technical assistance providers will evaluate your submitted prospectuses to understand how your diversity, equity, and inclusion thinking has continued to evolve over the prospectus development period. Finalists can expect to receive feedback two weeks after submitting final prospectus materials.

During the finalist stage, the DEI reviewers will be available for one-on-one conversations with you to go over the details of their reviews and provide additional feedback, resources, and support.

Yes, all information collected in our process is provided to donors.

If the initial video you submitted with your proposal contains information that is no longer relevant or true, finalists are welcome to send a modified version of their video. Please contact the award director of your specific competition to coordinate this. We ask that you keep videos as close to 90 seconds as possible. While we know people want to say more, what we have found is that interested donors want most is for teams to be clear, concise, and brief.

Swift Grants are a funding opportunity for Bold Solutions Network members offering small grants of up to $25,000 for collaborative projects. Visit the Swift Grants page to learn more about the grants and process.

We anticipate that there will be another round of awards in 2022. To keep up to date on offerings please sign up for the Lever for Change newsletter.