In this article
- How to create and manage a dynamic scholarship program
- Examine the purpose and goals of the scholarship program
- Establish the award constituency, terms and scholarship eligibility criteria
- Design a scholarship program management plan and calendar
- Call attention to the scholarship program
- Use scholarship management software
- Set up an application process
- Implement defined evaluation criteria and process
- Award the scholarships
- Monitor students’ performance in line with scholarship agreement
Providing scholarship opportunities for students is an incredible endeavour and an invaluable investment in the future. No doubt you can imagine the joy of receiving such financial assistance to make a dream or passion come true.
Scholarships work to provide financial aid to students to provide access and support for higher education.
These opportunities can be created for a variety of reasons and goals: helping students who face financial hardships, a way to sponsor and promote higher education in a particular field or perhaps a way to reward and foster excellence in an academic pursuit.
Regardless of the motivations behind your scholarship opportunity, the fact remains that managing such a program involves a myriad of nuts and bolts. From defining and building the program and marketing it to accepting and managing applications and rewarding the scholarships to deserving applicants, there’s so much to do.
Here we offer a comprehensive handbook for scholarship managers to effectively run a scholarship program.
How to create and manage a dynamic scholarship program
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of setting up and managing a thriving scholarship program.
1. Examine the purpose and goals of the scholarship program
Often, the successful creation and management of scholarship programs are predicated on the reason for awarding them. As a scholarship program manager, it’s important to ensure that the program’s purpose and goals are in sync with your organisation’s values and goals.
Proper consideration of the program’s purpose and goals makes it easy to identify what will work best for the scholarship and how you will decide who deserves to win the opportunity.
Some goals could include:
- Help students facing hardships in terms of finance or otherwise
- Commemorate a notable person in a specific field of study
- Provide financial support to students who attend a particular school or study a particular field
- Financially assist students who are making a significant impact in their community
- Provide opportunities for students of certain ethnic or cultural backgrounds, gender or geographical origin
2. Establish the award constituency, terms and scholarship eligibility criteria
When discussing how to create a scholarship program, it’s important to start with defining the constituencies, the terms and the eligibility criteria.
The constituency is the country, group of countries, territories, regions or states grouped together for the purpose of managing the scholarship program. The terms are the guiding rules and policies that regulate application, entry and participation in the program. They should be defined and spelt out in writing to ensure compliance on the part of all parties.
Setting eligibility is key to creating a transparent opportunity. Therefore, as a scholarship program manager, it behoves you to guarantee that there’s no uncertainty in that regard. Clarity about it saves time for both you and the applicants.
To determine the eligibility criteria for your scholarship program, think about the kind of students you want to attract, and why you want to attract them. This will give a strong compass on what the standards of qualification should be.
Usually, eligibility criteria are determined by the purpose or goals of the scholarship program. Some common criteria might include:
- Financial need
- Academic feats
- Work history
- Leadership skills
- Degree of community involvement
- Accomplishments in a particular industry
Whatever eligibility criteria the scholarship management team decides on, be sure it’s equitable and transparent.
3. Design a scholarship program management plan and calendar
An affair as delicate as a scholarship program shouldn’t be subject to whims and vagaries. Not when it’s vital to the fulfilment of the dreams of many. Thus, it’s important to lay out a calendar with timelines for each stage of the program.
Also, the plan and calendar should determine deadlines, the duration of the program, whether it should be a one-time award or have multiple cycles, your budget and how many applicants you plan to fund.
This aspect of scholarship management demands meticulous planning and realistic thinking.
4. Call attention to the scholarship program
Proper scholarship management requires that you spread the word, especially in the appropriate communities.
Marketing your scholarship program presents the perfect opportunity to inform the public about the relevance of the scholarship, its terms, target applicants and your organisation’s values and mission.
Below are some different avenues in which to advertise your scholarship program.
a. Your website:
A website is the perfect beginning to your marketing efforts. To effectively promote the scholarship program, create a dedicated website or a landing page on your organisation’s already existing website.
Publish details about the program and answer frequently asked questions. This way, interested persons will find relevant information there. Engage in blogging and link-building on the website to boost its visibility. If you’ve awarded scholarships in the past, showcase previous scholarship recipients for inspiration.
b. Word of mouth:
Tell a friend to tell a friend!
Since 64% of marketers agree that word of mouth is the most effective form of marketing, it’s an important reminder to get out in the community to talk about the opportunity. Groups of people that can help advertise the program via word of mouth include
- Your team members and collaborators
- Past recipients of your scholarship, if any
- Parents and guardians
- School guidance counsellors
c. Email campaign:
An email campaign is a good way to draw attention. You can announce the launch of the scholarship program and provide relevant details. You can also direct the recipients to resources on your website and elsewhere. Encourage your subscribers to forward the emails as much as possible; you never know who might take interest in the program.
d. Direct contact:
If you happen to spot any promising potential applicants, it won’t hurt to contact them directly. You could do this via email, social media or by reaching them through their school or place of work.
e. Social media posts and ads:
With almost 59% of the global population on social media today, it’s an important place to spread the word about your opportunity. Your organisation and team members can build publicity by posting content about the program on various platforms.
Besides boosting reach organically, paid targeted social media ads are also super effective. Spending a little extra money to cover more grounds won’t hurt. Across the various social media channels, use the same hashtags to demonstrate professionalism and foster a sense of community.
f. Media outreach:
Good public relations can help you get your scholarship program in the spotlight. Your brand can team up with media houses to publish press releases, news reports and media stories. Inspiring stories about why you started the scholarship program will naturally brandish a human element, warm the heart and draw more eyes.
g. Scholarship websites
Some websites such as ScholarshipOwl and Unigo are dedicated to publishing available scholarship programs. Quality applicants frequent such websites in search of scholarship opportunities. Getting listed on such sites is a clever way to promote your scholarship program.
Whatever avenue you choose to promote the scholarship, recall that effective marketing involves a keen understanding of human psychology. Leveraging rewards and the fear of missing out (FOMO) is always a good way to motivate customers – in this case, applicants – to take action.
As you advertise the scholarship program, it’s also a good idea to emphasise early bird incentives and deadlines. This will motivate many to complete their applications early enough to reap the extra reward or at least meet the deadline.
5. Use scholarship management software
Do you care about applicant experience? Are you interested in saving time, energy and money?
We know if you’re like us, you do!
To achieve this, it’s ideal to harness reliable scholarship management software. It will make your scholarship management process a breeze. A manual setup, which is time-consuming and fraught with the risk of misplacing documents, is best avoided.
With trusted scholarship management software such as Good Grants, you, your review team, and your applicants can all enjoy the following:
- Seamless registration
- An intuitive application process
- Effortless tracking of application processes
- Instant notification and broadcast communication with applicants and reviewers
- A fair reviewing process
- High-end branding options
- The option to run the program in multiple languages
- Engaging application forms
- Customised scoring and review models
- Submission of various file types
Simply put, the pros of scholarship management software are innumerable. They add a certain touch that takes the scholarship program from meh to Woah!
6. Set up an application process
All the previous steps have led up to this point. It’s time for your applicants to actively get involved.
Dealing with the application process can be all-consuming. However, with scholarship management software, it can be much easier. Here are some other points to consider:
a. Scholarship application form:
Create a scholarship application form containing questions that allow applicants to express themselves well. The forms should only collect essential information and do so only once instead of requesting the same details multiple times.
b. Multiple assessment types and recommendations:
Everyone is unique and so are their strengths. The application process should employ varying assessment types such as videos and graphical presentations which can avail some insight into the personality of the applicant. You can even request third-party endorsements in the form of recommendations and testimonials.
c. Nature of questions:
The questions asked should be comprehensive enough to gather all relevant information about the applicants, but not too long that the students abandon the application process.
d. Time:
Time, too, is a crucial element of the application process. Ensure that your program follows the dates you set, be it deadlines or early bird submission dates. As long as you’ve afforded enough time for the public to research the scholarship program, it’s only fair to stop accepting applications after the deadline.
However, if you feel generous, reasonable extensions can come into the picture. Just make sure you announce and publicise it well.
7. Implement defined evaluation criteria and process
Having collected applications, it’s time to evaluate and pick the most qualified applicants. This stage of scholarship management is important because the decision-making to choose the best applicant(s) can be challenging.
This is also where the importance of scholarship management software comes in, where you can combat any problems of bias or partiality. Also, the software makes it easy to handle hundreds or thousands of applications as it identifies the cream of the crop for your scholarship, thereby eliminating the chore involved.
Randomised reviewer assignments, reviewer panels, blind reviews and a customised scoring process are some of the features of the software that ensure an impartial evaluation process.
Additionally, make sure that the evaluation criteria and processes are the same for all applicants. Do well to communicate the criteria from the very beginning.
8. Award the scholarships
The moment we’ve all been waiting for!
Having picked the most qualified applicants out of the bunch, the next stop is to make it known.
As a scholarship manager, you know that winning a scholarship is of great magnitude. Countless wishes and prayers must have been made and said. Hopes are running high. An element of personalisation or celebration as you break the news to the winners and everyone else is necessary.
A phone call from you or your team to the winners, announcing their selection, is a memorable way to break the news to them. The excitement will be palpable. Emails are another popular way to inform the winners. And social media is a great way to share in excitement with your winning scholarship recipients.
Post the good news across your social media channels and on the scholarship program’s website.
If your budget permits, host an award ceremony to recognise the scholarship recipients. Besides the pomp, this will be an excellent forum to connect the winners with former recipients, if any.
Re-emphasise how the winners were selected and how it actualises the main goals and purposes of your program.
9. Monitor students’ performance in line with the scholarship agreement
The hard work is done, yes. But, there is often more work to be done, especially if your funding opportunity requires further reporting and monitoring. For example, some programs require a specific GPA to continue receiving funds semester after semester. Some require program or community involvement. This, of course, depends on your specific funding requirements.
If further monitoring or auditing is required, you can use forms and reporting in your scholarship software to help you stay organised. Be sure to communicate program requirements with your scholarship recipients and send them regular reminders about any upcoming program reporting deadlines.
Clearly, starting and running an impactful scholarship program can be complicated. These tips, however, can make your management a breeze. The hard work you put in will pay off in dividends as you give students’ dreams wings to fly.
