Unfunded List’s evaluators provide helpful and candid feedback to grant proposal authors from all over the world. Our learning community reads and reviews hundreds of proposals each year. Sign up and receive assignments next round.
Our committee is made up of dedicated professionals—including funders, nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs, and subject matter experts—who volunteer their time to strengthen the social impact sector by sharing practical insights and advice. Whenever possible, we try to include reviewers with direct experience with the issues of the proposal.
We welcome new reviewers! If you are passionate about helping promising ideas reach their potential, complete our reviewer interest form on the website. We’ll get in touch to discuss your experience and the review process.
Reviewers commit to reading and providing thoughtful feedback on proposals during our review cycles. We prioritize fairness, clarity, and actionable advice. Training and support are available for new committee members.
We also actively recruit our applicants to become reviewers. Approximately one-fifth of the committee has also been reviewed by us and most reports include someone who is also fundraising or has experience fundraising on the same issue or topic.
One hour on average. Some of our speedier evaluators can review a proposal in under half an hour. Others do deeper research and might spend a few hours on their reviews.
We encourage our evaluators to take as much time as they need. Just please hit our deadlines and give honest feedback to the proposals you have been assigned.
Serving on our evaluation committee is both a personal growth experience and a professional development opportunity. Reviewers sharpen their critical thinking and grant evaluation skills, gain exposure to innovative projects from all over the world, and expand their networks with fellow leaders in philanthropy, nonprofits, and social enterprise.
It’s also a direct and meaningful way to help sustain small and emerging organizations. Groups that often operate with limited resources but deliver outsized impact in their communities. Many proposals you review will come from organizations whose long-term stability can be significantly strengthened by your feedback.
Our evaluators consistently report high satisfaction with the experience, with over 90% saying they find the work rewarding and would recommend it to others.
Each round, you’ll be matched to a small batch, typically three to five proposals, based on your professional background and areas of interest. Whenever possible, we try to match you with proposals related to issues you have direct experience with, so your feedback carries real expertise rather than general impressions. Proposals come from organizations of all sizes and sectors, working on every kind of social mission, from small local nonprofits to large-scale international efforts, so you can expect variety within your batch even as it’s tailored to your background.
Yes, and we encourage it. Roughly one-fifth of our evaluation committee has also had a proposal reviewed by Unfunded List, and most feedback reports include at least one evaluator who is also actively fundraising or has direct fundraising experience on the same issue. We believe breaking down the wall between grantseekers and grantmakers benefits everyone: evaluating other proposals often sharpens your own grant writing, and your firsthand experience as an applicant makes your feedback to others more grounded and useful.
Yes. We hold free trainings each round to help evaluators get comfortable with the process, including a general proposal review Q&A along with sessions on more specific skills like budget review. New evaluators also get direct support from our team as they get started. You’re never expected to figure it out alone, and we encourage evaluators to take as much time as they need with each review, as long as deadlines are met and the feedback is honest.
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For a more inclusive philanthropy, co-review with our Evaluation Committee
Our evaluation committee is made up of grant-writers, issue experts, founders, funders and volunteers that want to lend their knowledge and expertise to underfunded change makers.
Providing feedback and advice to unfunded proposals will help change makers hone their message, improve their ideas and potentially increase their chances of securing funding, find collaborators or achieve their mission.
Twice a year evaluators receive a curated batch of proposals most relevant to their interests and are given up to two months to provide their feedback via our website.
We provide helpful and candid feedback to every proposal that is sent to us and our goal is to keep our Evaluator Committee as diverse and varied as the proposals we receive.
