Assessment is Comparative

Not Absolute. 

Have you ever stopped to wonder what changes when you step into the assessor’s shoes?

In my experience, there’s a moment that changes how you see funding forever.

It’s not when you’re rejected.
It’s not even when you’re funded.

It’s the moment you realise you’re no longer reading your own application as the person who wrote it — but as the person deciding between it and a dozen others.

Most founders never take the time to cross that line. They stay inside the work in getting the application done: the effort, the intent, the late nights, the care taken to get things right. From the position of the 'doer', assessment will always feel confusing, sometimes unfair, and often personal.

Here's the thing, everything shifts when you step into the assessor’s shoes.

The shift most applicants never make

When you read your application as its author, the question you’re asking is usually some version of ... Is this good?

When you read it as an assessor, the question changes entirely.

It becomes: Where does this sit in relation to the others I’m reviewing right now?

That shift sounds subtle, but it isn’t. It changes the frame completely.

From the assessor’s side, there is no absolute scale. Applications are not assessed one at a time, in isolation, and then ranked neatly at the end. They are read in waves, compared constantly, and revisited as the cohort takes shape.

Assessment is dynamic. Confidence rises and falls as each new application enters the mix.

This is why a “good” application can lose without anything being wrong.

What becomes obvious from the other side of the table

When you sit in the assessor’s seat, a few things become immediately clear — and they’re often uncomfortable.

The first is that the effort you expended to prepare the application disappears. Not because it doesn’t matter, but because it’s not visible. Assessors can only work with what’s on the page, not the story of how it came together.

The second is that strengths behave differently when placed side by side.

A strong vision can lift confidence when it’s anchored in delivery — or raise questions when it isn’t. A highly compliant application can reassure — or quietly fade into the middle — when everything else in the pool is also correct.

You also start to notice how quickly confidence forms, and where it hesitates. Rarely because something is “wrong”, but because something feels unresolved once it’s compared to other options.

From the assessor’s side, this doesn’t feel personal. It feels procedural.
From the applicant’s side, that gap is where confusion (and disappointment) lives.

The quiet work assessors are actually doing

Assessors are not hunting for flaws.

They are managing trade-offs.

Every funding decision is made under constraint: limited money, limited time, and more credible applications than can be supported. Saying yes to one organisation necessarily means saying no to others that may also be strong.

So the work assessors are doing is less about evaluation and more about calibration.

They’re asking themselves questions like:

• Where do I feel certainty early?

• Where does doubt accumulate as I read?

• Which risks feel understood and contained?

• Which ones feel like they might surface later, once the funding is out the door?

This is why outcomes often hinge on confidence rather than capability.

Why this perspective is uncomfortable — and necessary

Stepping into the assessor’s shoes is uncomfortable because it removes the idea of fairness as most applicants understand it.

Assessment isn’t asking whether an application deserves funding.
It’s asking whether it surpasses a confidence threshold relative to the others in this round.

That’s confronting, especially for women founders who are often taught — that doing everything right should be enough.

It also explains why feedback (if you're lucky enough to receive it) so often feels vague. When a decision is shaped by comparison rather than a single fault, there isn’t always a clean answer to the question What do I need to improve?

The issue usually isn’t one thing. It’s how multiple signals stack up.

The moment this really lands

The shift becomes real when founders begin to read their own work as if it’s one of many on the table — not the only one that matters.

When you do that, different questions start to surface:

• Where does my confidence rise quickly?

• Where does it stall or hesitate?

• What am I asking the assessor to assume?

• Which strengths are obvious, and which require interpretation?

This isn’t about being harsher on yourself. It’s about being more accurate about how decisions are actually made.

Once you learn to read your work this way, it’s very hard to go back.

Why this matters more than most people realise

Once you’ve stepped into the assessor’s shoes, something subtle but important changes.

You stop experiencing outcomes as a straight judgement on quality, and start noticing the role of context. What else was being assessed at the same time. How your strengths landed alongside others. Whether this particular expression of your work arrived at a moment when it could be clearly seen.

This is where many founders get stuck — not because their work isn’t strong, but because they keep pushing forward without adjustment. They keep refining the application itself, rather than stepping back to ask whether this is the right pathway, or the right moment, for it to be received well.

Assessment doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens inside a moving system, shaped by comparison, constraint, and human judgement.

A quieter shift in how you orient yourself

When founders begin to take this perspective seriously, the question shifts again.

That shift doesn’t make outcomes predictable. But it does make them easier to understand.

Over time, this way of thinking changes how you prepare, how you choose opportunities, and how you interpret results. You stop chasing certainty, and start paying attention to alignment.

And that’s when assessment stops feeling like a verdict — and starts feeling like information you can actually work with.

Lisa Erhart is the founder of Funding4Growth and works across funding assessment and large-scale innovation programs. Her work focuses on helping founders see their applications the way assessors do — and make better decisions as a result.