The Division II Membership Fund Selection Committee approved five grants totaling almost $30,000 to member conferences to help drive strategic growth for the division.

The seven-member selection committee chaired by Charles Dunn, former Presidents Council member and president emeritus at Henderson State, met November 16 to review 15 grant proposals totaling more than $140,000. It narrowed its selections to those that best met the fund’s criteria of encouraging Division II growth or retaining current members.

The committee approved the following proposals:

• $1,500 to the Great Lakes Valley Conference to conduct a follow-up visit to newly accepted member William Jewell (which also has been accepted into the Division II membership process) to assist the school in its reclassification.
• $4,000 to the Pacific West Conference to explore expansion opportunities with prospective schools in the West region.
• $5,000 to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference to explore expansion opportunities with prospective schools in the West region.
• $10,000 to the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference to facilitate campus visits for prospective new member institutions.
• $8,495 to the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference to facilitate exploratory visits to four prospective member schools.

The grant to the GLIAC was about half of what the conference had requested, but the committee reasoned that a request for consultant fees covered duties that could be carried out by the league office.

Committee members also tabled two requests, including one from the East Coast Conference that was part of a three-part approach to strengthening conference membership. The committee approved a $24,000 grant in June for Phase 1 of the project but decided to table a $22,000 Phase 2 follow-up until results of the Phase 1 outreach are better known.

The committee also tabled an $18,000 request from the Gulf South Conference to allow the league to provide specific budget lines for the six components of the initiative to conduct exploratory expansion efforts.

Both the ECC and the Gulf South requests will be revisited at the committee’s next meeting in June.

The November 16 session in Indianapolis was the committee’s second in-person meeting since the Division II membership fund was created last year to use strategic programming to spur new growth, bolster current membership and discourage attrition.

The Division II Presidents Council approved an annual $250,000 allocation to the fund. The selection committee allocated about $75,000 in grants at its first meeting and $28,995 at the second, leaving about $337,000 in the fund. Selections are decided in June and November each year.

Committee members noted that the fund’s remaining dollars exceeded the grants so far, but Dunn attributed the overage to strict adherence to guidelines rather than the group simply being conservative.

“Applicants are only just now becoming familiar with the type of programming and initiatives that match the criteria,” he said, “so it is not surprising that we have leftover dollars this early in the process.”

The committee even discussed possibly adjusting the annual allocation to the fund but decided to hold a decision until after another review period. In the meantime, Dunn said the committee will be looking for strategic ideas.

“We’re seeking creativity and long-term thinking from member institutions and conferences,” he said. “With the emphasis that Division II has placed upon strategic planning in the last few years, I would expect most every institution and conference to be implementing a strategic plan of its own to align with the broader Division II goals.

“In light of that, I also would expect some innovative ideas from members to plan for the future growth of the division.”

Dunn noted that the five most recent grants – as well as the two that were tabled – were from conferences. He urged institutions to consider applying as well, as long as the initiatives were in line with the fund’s criteria that are intended to affect the division as a whole.

In addition to deciding the second round of allocations, committee members also suggested improvements to the submission form that would help conferences and institutions more clearly align requests with the fund’s guidelines. That includes identifying whether the funds requested represent “seed dollars” for ongoing projects or if there is a matching-fund component from the entity making the request.

The committee also reviewed the recent minimum expectations of prospective Division II members as outlined by the Division II Membership Committee and noted the need for conferences requesting dollars from the fund to be aware of those expectations (and the membership process in general) as they approach potential new members.

Allocations from this second round of proposals will be distributed in January. April 30 is the next deadline for applications to the membership fund. The selection committee will meet in June to determine allocations from that pool that will be distributed in August 2010.