In today’s world, finding students to award scholarships seems like it should be a very easy task. There are obviously a lot of students in need of financial assistance to help with their education. However, the reality is that finding students to award scholarships to is a huge challenge for colleges and universities across the entire globe. Due to lack of technology, it is difficult for colleges to find the right students to fill available scholarships on campus. This results in millions of scholarship dollars going unspent and strained donor relationships, all while enduring large administrative costs for ineffective processes.
While awarding scholarships may not be a part of your direct responsibilities, the results of an inefficient scholarship process can lead to consequences for everyone on campus. Technology can play a big role in helping your campus use all scholarship funds, support more students, and even improve relationships with key donors.
3 ways to use technology to maximize scholarship management efforts
1. Create a connected campus.
Traditionally, scholarships have been awarded by many varying offices on campus using disparate systems and different applications. Spreadsheets fly around via email leading to FERPA security concerns and outdated information. By bringing all awarding entities on campus into one technology, you can make it easier for administrators to make accurate awards faster, and, most importantly securely. Scholarship-management technology will allow you to access information on current scholarship criteria, ongoing application information, and accurate award availability—all in one place.
(Next page: More ways to fix your scholarship process.)
Tim Hill joined Blackbaud in October 2016 as president & general manager of higher education solutions. He is a visionary, award-winning global marketing, sales, and operations executive with more than 25 years of experience at high-growth technology companies. He has led worldwide sales, marketing, and operations teams at leading corporations like Blackboard, SAGA Software (Software AG), and Iomega Corporation. With more than two decades of success in technology sales/marketing strategy and brand development, Hill has been named one of the “Top 10 U.S. Marketers” by Crain’s Business Marketing, “Top 100 Executives” by Advertising Age, and won “Product Launch of the Year” from Marketing Computers (for the Iomega zip drive).
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