The Events Planning and Coordinating Committee (EPACC) administers funding for artistic and intellectual events that enrich the academic and cultural life of the college community. Our charge is to produce a diverse program of special events, concerts, lectures, and lively arts presentations. We plan to sponsor several major events each year that appeal to a broad spectrum of the college community, and to support smaller events connected to particular programs, departments or topics.
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Proposal guidelines
Proposals for events that will take place during the upcoming academic year may be submitted by faculty, administrators or staff.
Applications are made via an online form in PeopleSoft. The form requests basic information (title, dates, venue, contact information, etc.), a description of the event and budget information. The narrative description in the proposal should indicate the department or program that sponsors the event. This cannot always be determined from the title or the name of the individual submitting the proposal.
Instructions for using the PeopleSoft form for EPACC (opens in new window)
Evaluation criteria
1. Audience Appeal
Proposals are assessed for depth and breadth of appeal of the event to its target audience. The target audience should be specified. Is it a large event that would appeal to the entire college community? Is it a smaller event of interest primarily to a department, program or other constituency? If so, what departments or constituencies would the event appeal to? The proposal form allows you to indicate if you are proposing a larger (campus wide) or smaller (departmental/programmatic) event. This category should be addressed in the narrative description portion of the proposal.
2. Quality of the Proposal
This category includes both the merit of the programming and the practicalities of the proposal. How would the event enhance the curricular/co-curricular goals of the College or sponsoring department(s)/program(s)? How would it enrich the academic and cultural life of the college community? What outcomes are expected from the event? How will students participate or be impacted by the experience? How many people would be expected to attend? How will the event be publicized to increase exposure? Do the stated goals seem achievable in terms of the other aspects of the proposal, e.g. budget, venue, collaboration, etc.
Please provide as much detail as possible on specific artist(s)/speaker(s) or program(s). Proposals with such information are considered stronger than those that are more vague. If a specific guest has not yet been identified please explain why.
This category should be addressed in the narrative description portion of the proposal.
3. Budget and Effective Use of Funds
The committee will assess the cost of the event against its campus and programmatic impact. Effective use of funds is the qualitative issue. Are the funds allocated for worthy purposes? Would the use of funding make a big impact on students? Does the proposal request reasonable amounts of money for the specified costs? The budget area of the proposal form includes opportunities to describe both specific costs and qualitative justifications for the costs.
The clarity and precision of your budget is crucial: numbers must add up, total funds requested must mirror the bottom line, and the budget should account for all of the costs for your event. The committee will not allot more money to lodging than the seasonal Gettysburg Hotel rates. Please calculate mileage reimbursement at 55.5 cents/mile. The College does not pay for travel expenses in advance of the event: such costs must be reimbursed after the event. Evidence of cost saving measures will strengthen your proposal.
4. Departmental/Programmatic and Collaborative Sponsorship
The sponsoring organization(s) for the event should be clearly stated in the proposal. Applications are submitted by individuals, usually on behalf of a department or program (or a coalition of sponsors). The committee cannot always determine sponsoring organization simply by knowing who submitted the proposal, so this information must be explicit.
Collaborations among programs and departments are strongly encouraged where appropriate, and tend to strengthen proposals. The committee recognizes that some (usually smaller) events, such as departmental colloquia or artistic presentations, may reasonably have only a single sponsor. The committee evaluates the issue of co-sponsorship separately from the other criteria, so, although co-sponsorship for smaller events can certainly strengthen a proposal, lack of co-sponsorship will not penalize a proposal if single sponsorship is appropriate.
For larger events, designed for broad appeal to the campus community, coalitions of sponsorship (i.e. funding from several sources) almost always strengthen a proposal. Please identify all departmental/programmatic and external funds that would contribute to support the event: departmental honoraria budget, endowed lectureship funds, external grants or co-sponsors. If your department/program cannot contribute funding, please stipulate. Descriptions of collaborations that bring specific funding to the project strengthen the application.
There is a section in the application form where event sponsors and amounts of support can be listed. Further explanation of collaboration, if desirable, can appear in the narrative description of the event.
In the narrative description, please include a sentence indicating that the appropriate Chairs/Coordinators have been consulted. To help prioritize a high volume of applications from an individual department/program, the committee may need to contact a Chair/Coordinator.
Evaluation of proposals
The committee will evaluate each of the three categories (Audience Appeal, Quality of Proposal, Budget and Effective Use of Funds) on a scale of 1-5 to arrive at a combined score for each proposal.
Because co-sponsorship may not be appropriate for every smaller event, the committee considers co-sponsorship as a separate issue from the other criteria. This ensures that a proposal that does not require co-sponsorship will not be penalized in the scoring system. Of course, even for a smaller event, co-sponsorship can strengthen a proposal.
The committee will notify applicants about the status of their applications by mid-April.
Assessment of the event
Within two weeks of the completion of an event, coordinators should submit a brief assessment of the project. This assessment is required, and will be a consideration for future EPACC funding requests.
The committee sponsors a Moodle site to facilitate submitting the assessment of your event. If you receive funding you will be enrolled in this site, which contains a simple form to complete that fulfills the assessment requirement of the funding guidelines.
Questions and answers about EPACC funding
How can I get advice about my EPACC proposal?
Feel free to contact the Provost’s Office with questions about any aspect of the EPACC process. It is also likely that many of your colleagues have experience with the EPACC funding process and can provide help. Your department chair or program coordinator may be able to help, particularly with sponsorship suggestions and additional funding.
How much money can I ask for? How much funding can I hope to receive?
This depends on the number and quality of proposals submitted in a particular year.
In past years, requests ranged from $500 to about $7,900. It is rare for events to be fully funded, but two proposals were fully-funded this year. Others were funded at 95-96%, 90%, 85%, 80%, 75%, 70%, 60%, 50% and lower. The point is that the funding level can vary widely depending on the evaluation of the criteria by the committee, and the amount of money available in a given year.
How precise does the budget need to be? What if I don’t know how much something will cost?
The budget should be as precise as possible, and the committee recognizes a good faith effort to be precise. More well-defined proposals are generally stronger. For instance, if you’ve planned for a particular guest and know where they live, it is possible to make a good estimate of how much a plane ticket will cost. By contrast, a proposal that doesn’t specify a guest and where they’re from but includes a $1,500 line item for transportation is not as strong as the previous example.
What support is available for producing events that are funded by EPACC?
EPACC’s main purpose is to administer funding for events. Producing and managing the events is the responsibility of the event coordinator. Help and advice can be found. Departmental administrative assistants can help with booking transportation and making hotel reservations. Venues on campus can be reserved through the R25 system, and John Rudy (jrudy@gettysburg.edu) can assist with finding the right venue and avoiding conflicts with other events. Ricoh print services can help with designing and producing programs or other materials for an event.