Title IX related donor preferences

Carrie Norris

Hi all, we are in the BBAM development stage and creating qualifications for opportunities. What is best practice for title IX related preferences in fund agreements? Do you list as a qualifications in BBAM or not list the preference as a qualification and award based on preferences after you receive the initial pool of applicants?

Jonathan Blevins

Hello, @Carrie Norris!

We, as a public university, use a pool and match process to address Title IX and other concerns regarding discriminatory qualifications.

If a discriminatory criteria is required, per the fund, we will include it in the qualifications for the opportunity. If a discriminatory criteria is preferred, per the fund, we will create two qualification sets - one with the criteria and one without. This way, when utilizing the grid view to make awards, we can toggle to see if students meet both qualification groups or just one.

If we have a student that meets the preference, awesome, we will go ahead and award the student within the scope of our P&M process. If not, we will move on to award a student that meets the non-discriminatory qualification set.

I hope this helps.

Jonathan Blevins

Stephanie Lamphere

@Jonathan Blevins we do the same. Some of our opportunities only have one qualification point/set, other have a half-dozen. We sort and filter by number of qualification points, but can review the entire pool of minimally-qualified students prior to awarding.

Carrie Norris

@Jonathan Blevins thank you for your reply and feedback! This is helpful. One question when the criteria is a protected class that is required, are you pooling and matching as you reference above to resolve title IX concerns?

Virginia Mauney

@Jonathan Blevins, I am working on implementing pool and match with the scholarships awarded through the Greenville Tech Foundation. I know your post is more than 2 years old, but if you'd be willing to share your pool and match “how to” document, or other guidelines, I would be so grateful.