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Dr. Victor AkaezeVerified personFounder at Truthsprout Network

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Is IELTS required for every masters scholarship?

The test is expensive, and it is hard to tell when it is really required. Some universities accept a letter from your school saying you were taught in English. When is that enough, and where do you check?

Every job wants 3 years experience. How did you get your first one?

Roles advertised as entry level often ask for three years of experience. How do people get the first one?

What should a one-hour session on CV writing cover?

For a small online group of recent graduates and one hour, what belongs in a session on CV writing, and what can be left out?

How do you write a budget when you have never managed one?

When a funder asks a volunteer-run project for a budget for the first time, what level of detail do they want? Every item, or categories?

If a thread here helped you, come back and say what happened

Many threads end with good advice and no word on whether it worked. If you asked something here and later learned how it went, say so under your own question, whichever way it went. The next person with the same question learns more from...

Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program: you apply through a partner university

The Scholars Program is run through partner universities and organisations. You apply to a partner, not to the Foundation, and the partner makes the decision. The Foundation says the support includes tuition fees, accommodation, books and...

Asked to pay a fee to "process" a scholarship. Is that normal?

A message that many people receive: you have been selected for a scholarship abroad, and you must pay a processing fee to secure your place before a deadline a few days away. There is a letterhead and a phone number. Is this ever how a...

How do you convince parents to let girls finish school?

Where the obstacle is not fees but that families need the labour at home and see school as a cost with no return, what changes minds?

How do you make public budget data readable for people who do not use spreadsheets?

Public budget data, once cleaned, still looks like a spreadsheet, and the people who most need it are not spreadsheet people. What makes a budget tool usable for them? And where the work is unpaid to begin with, how should that be said to...

How do you find an editor when you are too close to your own footage?

A long documentary shoot leaves a director with far more footage than film, and too close to it to cut it well. Where do independent filmmakers find an editor when the budget is small?

What do you do when farmers do not want the improved seed?

An improved seed variety can do better in trials and still be taken up by only a small share of farmers. When that happens, what question has the programme failed to ask?

What a fellowship selection usually looks at

This is an example organisation account, run by the Shamp team to show how an organisation posts here. It is not a funder and there is nothing to apply for. The post is a general note for anybody reading a fellowship call for the first...

Facilitating a difficult meeting: three situations people get stuck in

Three situations come up again and again when you run meetings: one person dominates every session, nobody speaks at all, or two people keep having the same argument. For the first, go round the room so each person speaks once before...

Chevening Scholarships: what the application asks for

Chevening Scholarships are fully funded and are for a one-year masters degree in the UK. You apply through the page for your own country or territory on chevening.org. To be eligible you need at least 2,800 hours of work experience, about...

Grant funding or an investor for a solar business?

For a small business installing mini-grids, the choice can be a grant that covers a fixed period or an investor who wants equity and a return. The grant is easier to live with. Is it better?

Plan for more people than you expect

People starting a youth group worry that nobody will come. The opposite problem also happens, and it is harder to handle on the day: far more people than chairs, paper or helpers. It is worth deciding in advance what you will do if three...

Who maintains the pump after the project ends?

Handover plans often say the community will maintain the pump, and pumps still break and stay broken. What is missing from the plan?

Unrestricted grants: what the word means and why it matters

Some grants are unrestricted. That means the organisation decides what the money pays for, including salaries and rent. Many grants are tied to a project and limit what they will pay towards either. When you read a call, look for that word...

Does anyone here actually use AI tools in their programme work?

Not asking about the hype. Asking what people genuinely use day to day, and what broke.

What open source fellowships tend to look at

Some fellowships support people who maintain or build open tools used in the public interest. Where a programme like that asks for your repositories, the code is the application: a clear README, a history that shows steady work, and issues...

Where do reading clubs find books at the right level?

A weekend reading club for children who are behind in reading needs books at their level. Donated books are often too hard, and a book that is too hard makes a child feel worse, not better. Where do small clubs find levelled readers...

Has anyone published from a masters dissertation? How did you start?

A dissertation can be publishable and still be a long way from a paper, and supervisors do not always have time to help. For somebody who has never submitted to a journal, where does the process start?

What makes a practitioners' meetup worth the travel

A meeting of practitioners is most useful when it is made of working sessions: people bring a real problem and leave with something they can use. A programme of talks can be read at home. If you are organising one, say plainly who it is...

Does anyone regret registering as a nonprofit rather than a business?

For a new organisation choosing between the two, the advice tends to split down the middle. What should decide it?

What a budget template needs

A budget that a reviewer can follow has three parts: categories, a notes column that explains how each number was reached, and a summary. The notes column is the part that matters. A reviewer is checking whether you thought about the...

How do you find a co-author with the skills your paper lacks?

A policy paper built on interviews sometimes needs quantitative work its author cannot do. How do researchers find a co-author for that part, and how should the order of authors be agreed?

Publish the plain version of a data tool first

A public data tool does not have to be pretty before anybody can use it. One dataset, searchable, with a chart that loads on a slow connection, is already useful to a journalist or a citizen. Publish that, see who uses it and for what, and...

How do you keep participant data safe with almost no budget?

For a small organisation working with refugee families, the data it holds could put people at risk if it leaked. With no IT staff and no budget for a system, what can be done?

A high repayment rate does not show that loans are working

Repayment rate is the number small loan programmes report most, and a high one is usually read as success. It can hide the thing that matters. People can repay on time by borrowing somewhere else, which moves debt around without growing...