The selection process has begun to crystallize as we narrow down the choices to a group of applicants whom we all feel at least somewhat strongly about. Based on the phone interviews, I believe that the strongest applicants are those that do not merely offer academic support or tutoring supplemented by an elective designed to motivate children to excel academically so that they stay in the program. Although this sort of motivation may be promising, in the long run a child could lose motivation after he or she graduates from the program, thus removing the incentive to perform to the best of his or her abilities. Instead, I prefer those that concentrate on instilling a love of learning through hands on and real world experiences. Ultimately, it is this sort of passion-shaping that will enable children to rise above their circumstances, find the motivation to succeed when school becomes difficult, and finish high school with promising career or higher education plans.
Regardless of which organizations we choose, by the end of next class we will have decided upon a couple of applicants who we would be hopefully at least somewhat satisfied with. I have quite enjoyed our debates so far, especially the process by which we seek to resolve our sometimes significantly differing opinions on how it would be best to use our grant. By and large, we have all done a good job being respectful and open-minded when listening to each other, and have been considerate in allowing our positions to be influenced by theirs. I hope that we can maintain the civil and cordial attitude that we have thus far sustained in the classroom as we move towards a consensus on which organization would be able to create the most significant impact and do the most good with our funds.
-Evan M
The Art and Science of Philanthropy 
I agree, this process has been very stimulating and exciting. It is hard to separate out our opinions of the spokespeople during the phone interviews with their written grant proposals. I feel that the spokespeople either added credibility to the proposals or made us lose interest in the proposals. It is a good lesson for us as students in the future on how to effectively communicate and market ourselves.
I agree that an important part of whatever organization we choose is their ability to get children motivated to learn on their own, without guidance or discipline from others. Your description of the ideal organization sounded a lot like EduSerc to me, which focused on helping students understand the purpose of what they are doing. However, after the phone interview, the class agreed that EduSerc wpuld not be the best place to invest our money. I think that this is a really good indicator of how important the phone interview and site visits are because, on paper, EduSerc looked really good, but we discovered that they are actually not the strongest organization for us.