By Yuzuko Nakamura
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Thursday, April 13, 2006, The OG, news

[Note: This article has been revised and updated since it was originally published. The changes include the amount of the proposed grant, which the author of the proposal, Isaac Chambers, has increased to $15,000. The original amount was $10,000. The article was updated at 11:15 p.m. on Friday, April 14.]

Isaac Chambers has shown an extraordinary amount of initiative in his planning and arranging of the freshman Allerton field trip, scheduled for April 26-28. Therefore, it's not all that surprising that he is writing up a proposal to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asking for a grant that would go to Uni for use in X-Week fundraising events.

Chambers is applying for a $15,000 grant from the Gates Foundation under the “Charitable Sector Support” category of eligible organizations. His plan is to put the money into a one-year certificate of deposit account, and then use the interest income to enhance X-Week fundraisers. For example, the interest income (about $500) could buy more enticing raffle prizes without cutting into a raffle's profits, Chambers said.

Originally Chambers intended to ask for a $10,000 grant, but he has increased that amount to $15,000.

“The reason for this is simple,” he told the Gargoyle in an e-mail message. “First it gives just a little bit more money to work with, and second, as stated on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Web site, ‘Rarely do we award grants of less than $15,000 or more than $1 million.' “

Chambers is almost finished writing the final draft of his proposal. Once he's done, he will submit a letter of inquiry (LOI), as required by the Gates Foundation. An LOI usually takes about four weeks to be reviewed.

If Chambers' LOI is approved, he will submit his proposal. The process for reviewing a proposal takes two to three months, according to the Gates Foundation.

The idea for seeking a grant came to Chambers as he worked on this year's and last year's X-week raffles. In order to organize the freshman X-Week raffle, he contacted several companies, including Microsoft, to see if they were willing to donate prizes. Microsoft responded by saying the company doesn't donate prizes to individual events and instead directed him to the Gates Foundation.

From his experience with last year's raffle, Chambers knew that the cost of prizes significantly cut into the money raised through a raffle, so he wanted to seek out prize donations. However, upon finding the Gates Foundation, he began to think of a way that Uni's X-Weeks could benefit year after year.

So what are the chances that the Gates Foundation will approve the grant?

“As far as how hard it is to get money, foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are very generous with their funds,” Chambers said, “but the hard part is convincing them that giving funds will help better their mission in a significant way. I hope that in the grant proposal I effectively expressed … Uni's long-standing culture and dedication to philanthropy and putting back into the community.”