Thank you for your question (and to Nicolas for chiming in). The answer is it depends. And here is what it depends on:
If you are providing vouchers or large prizes as part of your competition and T-shirts (or stationery) are a secondary prize for the same individuals who would receive these large prizes, then we would ask you to remove them from the budget.
However, if you are printing a small number of T-shirts (or stationery) as the only prizes for a small number of people, then we would not take them off your budget.
The general rationale is that, in Rapid Grants experience, T-shirts and stationery end up being high-cost items in most grant proposals, and, unless they are given out strategically, they will add to a pile of things that people don't use. We don't think the world needs more of that!
Now, more specifically about T-shirts. Let's say that you are considering T-shirts as the main prizes in your competition. We will not say no, but we will encourage people to consider other gifts, such as notebooks or mugs, for the following reasons:
- When you are designing and printing T-shirts, you generally go with a set shape or size that might not fit the people who will receive it in the end. So T-shirts can end up excluding people who do not fit in this average because they are too big or too small… You can read what others have said about this issue (for example, on
this blog post).