First off I will be out of town until Thursday night so launching this contest a 13hours early to make sure there are no hiccups with the post going live as I know I'll have internet at 11am still. All entries will be visited by the judges while I gone, but I will be confirming them and adding them to the post Thursday night or Friday based on how late we get home.

This means anyone who likes to visit the posts will need to dig around in the comments this week and not rely on the list at the end of the post. Thank you all for a little added patience this week. If I happen to have internet and find a little free time I'll jump on and do what I can.

The Winners Post for Week 16 Might be Delayed until Thursday Night vs Wednesday at 12:01am. Sorry about this, but hope everyone can understand if it happens. Still will do my best to be ontime.

Looking Back

@bengy and @viking-ventures both have done a looking back post on those who they featured in the past. Both of them have a good eye for quality content and have won many judges choice awards over the weeks. Both also happen to have been around from the beginning of the contest so there is a lot of bloggers who they featured.

Interesting thing when looking at the number of their featured bloggers who are still active is that way more of them are still here after up to 4 months from the time they were featured vs the steemit average. This tells me that simple interaction and added exposure helps increase retention.

This contest isn't about winning an SBI share or a few pennies worth of SBD. It's about making a difference to the bloggers who get featured. I love to ask everyone this week to take a minute and look back a few of your past entries and visit some of those bloggers. Give them an upvote and leave a comment of encouragement. Then if you have time write a post talking about the people you have featured in the past.

@bengy went all out and covered every week in 1 post which you can see here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@bengy/wherearetheynow15weeksofcurationwithpayitforward-ndes24tf9v

@viking-ventures took a different approach and covered her first 4 weeks of entries here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@viking-ventures/pay-it-forward-weeks-1-4-revisited-0edd4a498ce6fest

Now this request isn't part of the official contest, but use the #payitforward tag and tag me in the post and I'll make sure to visit the post and reward the efforts. For this contest to make a real difference we need to visit some of those we feature on a more regular basis to remind them their work is appreciated.

As a bonus if you find 1 blogger who has recently written a great post and still qualifies for the level 55 and below rules you can include them as one of your featured bloggers. Thank you all for your efforts, we are making a difference!

Contest Date Range

This contest run from Now until 07/28/18 at 11:59pm CST (USA, Chicago). The winners will be announced on Wednesday 08/01/18 at 12:01am

Week 17 Rules (Staying with Level 55)

For week 17 you will need a curation style entry that includes 2 High Quality Original Content Blog Posts from steemians with a reputation score of 55 or under.

• Curation Style Post of 2 Bloggers who are posting Quality Original Content
• Link to 1 recent blog post per featured blogger. Keep in mind that many will follow this link and upvote so pick a post that isn't close to payout!
• Include a link to this contest in your entry post
• The 2 bloggers you curate need to be rank 55 or below
• You need to comment on this post with a link to your post, this is how I track everything!

👉👉Clarification for Quality Required for valid Entry👈👈
We are looking for Quality Original Content. We want to see no less then 200 words of original written content. So a single photo is fine as long as there is 200 words with it.

200 words is about 12 lines of content.

Posts from Parley and dmania are not acceptable.

@pifc

@pifc is about to launch a new contest and think we have ironed out that there will be a weekly Spotlight Post. The exact details will all be announced on @pifc so if you haven't started following the new account now is the time!

Prizes: Steem Basic Income

This week at least 6 winners are going to get a sponsorship for #steembasicincome!
There will be 1 SBI Sponsorship per 8 entries into the contest on a random basis (minimum of 2).
There will be 4 Judges Choice SBI Sponsorships awarded based the quality of the bloggers you feature in the eyes of our Judges, @tryskele , @lynncoyle1, @energyaddict22, & @wolfhart.

@steembasicincome is run by @josephsavage and is a great program designed to provide a lifetime income to members who have SBI Shares.

Prizes: Steem-Bounty

@steem-bounty of 2 SBD has been created. I will only upvote entries for the Author's 80% of the Bounty. No other comments will be upvoted as the goal is to reward those who enter the contest.

Sponsors, Visit Them and Upvote Them!!

Current Entries - Please Visit!!!

This is the real purpose of this contest, visit these posts and help upvote the bloggers featured. This list will be updated as new entries are added. Please check back during the week!!