Selection guidance requested

Hello fellow Philmont fans,
this will be our 3rd year to go to Philmont. It's about $1K per trekker when you add it all up if you don't have to buy much gear.

My goal for next year is to raise $10-12K through a foundation we're setting up to take 10 kids from the District / Council to Philmont that want to go but don't have the means(and not from our troop.)

I'm not soliciting $'s, I think we have that covered, but would like any bullets on what selection criteria you would use:

Should it strictly be based on financial need only? What about rank, service, etc? Should they / their parents have skin (some $'s) in the game? What about a competitive downselect: Select 20 and those 10 that show the most interest/prep over several months get the slot?

If you have any experience in selection criteria for anything remotely related, or just some good ideas, I'd really appreciate some feedback.

Feel free to respond here or to [email protected]

Thanks in advance,
Mike