Scholarship Administration and Software Tools: Getting Started

1. Scholarship Administration and Software Tools: Getting Started Presenters Phil Knight – Next Gen Web Solutions Ellen Barbour – Purdue University

2. Getting Smart With growing student populations, scholarship administration has become a real challenge. The session explores technology and techniques that can help you improve assigning funds to your students.

3. What are my options? • Homegrown solution • Hire a software company to build a solution for you • SaaS Scholarship Management solution (Software as a Service)

4. Current costs • As you think about your budget, what are you currently paying? • How many hours are you spending on the process? • Do you have to employ temporary help? • How much time are your IT staff spending on the process? • What are your opportunity costs? • Students struggle to find scholarships? • Unable to use all funds? • Would love to spend more time on retention but you don’t have it?

5. Stakeholders • Financial Aid • Foundation • Foundation Board Members • Accounting • Enrollment Management • IT • Academic Departments • Donor Relations

6. What do your stakeholders need? • Simplified matching of qualified students with available scholarships • Removal of paper – online application • Increased Donor Engagement • Increased Automation • Improved Recruitment • Improved Retention • Reporting – Identifying trends

7. Gather and prioritize your requirements • Engage your stakeholders • Identify your objectives • Document your current process • Identify gaps in your current process • What is missing, what do you need? • Capture all your requirements • Look at the process over years, not just now • What do you need now? What would your ideal be? • Think about exception processing • Prioritize all your requirements

8. Homegrown solution • Ceteris Paribus – The best solution! • Built to match your specific needs • Access to developers • Data remains on your servers • Maintained in house • Trust in the IT/support team • You know them • You control their priorities • You control the enhancements • Control!

9. Purdue University-Building Your Own • At Purdue we wanted to create a one-stop arena for scholarship administration • Built in phases due to scope of project • Collection and storage of fund criteria, history and security measures • Collection and storage of student data needed for scholarship selection and reporting • Collection and storage of donor data • Creation of online student scholarship application form

10. Purdue University-Building Your Own • It was built by Student Services Computing Area • Maintained by Financial Aid Data Area

11. Purdue University-Building Your Own • Must get representation from all user areas • Need clear understanding of end user needs • Find best place to harvest information • Get buy-in

12. Purdue University-Building Your Own • Purdue University • We use it for • Funds management • Awarding • Reporting • Stewardship • Student application process

13. Purdue University-Building Your Own • Purdue created standard queries • Funding Queries: all active accounts, unspent funds, renewable funds • Donor Queries: donor names and addresses • Student Queries: recipient list, scholarship eligible, application responses

14. Purdue University-Building Your Own • Benefits • Flexibility – we have been able to build enhancements as needed • Specificity – enables us to truly tailor information • Security – all data stays within the university

15. Purdue University-Building Your Own • Enabled automation • can upload awards from the database into award packages • Creation of new funds in financial aid system is also automated

16. Purdue University-Building Your Own • Tips • Try to pull in key players from all affected areas • May need to build in phases • Work with developer to keep tool easy to use • Get users from all areas involved in testing • Dedicate staff to creation and maintenance

17. All things are not equal • Expensive to build from scratch • Do you really have control over IT priorities? • Will the resources that build it be available next year? • Infrastructure costs • Could be cheap – Graduate student builds it as part of their thesis • What happens when they leave?

18. Outsourcing • Available resources – not having to rely on your over-burdened IT staff • Solution will be specific to your needs and goals • Can still host all the data on your servers • They can manage the project • Free you up to keep your focus on the day-to-day

19. Outsourcing – are you sure? • Will a “generic” software company understand the business? • They can build software, but they may not know best practices • A good looking website doesn’t mean they know anything about scholarships • Delivery problems – what happens when they get behind schedule? • Hourly costs will quickly grow – very expensive • What will they offer for support a year from now?

20. SaaS – Software as a Service • Salesforce.com • One of the best known and most widely used SaaS solutions • Scholarship Manager – Next Gen • Off the shelf, more affordable • Likely some customization options • Built specifically for scholarships • 80-90% of your needs may be covered • Company should have experience with other schools – ability to offer knowledge about best practices

21. SaaS – Things to think about • They likely won’t cover 100% of your needs • You won’t have direct control of their priorities • You should have influence. If you don’t, think twice • Involve your IT staff in the decision • Will your data be secure • Can the company provide audit reports • Talk to their current customers • Present your requirements to them – find out what they can and cannot do. • Ask for proof • Demo of the system, screenshots • Be prepared – have a list of what you need before any demo meeting

22. SaaS – Things to think about • If there is something they cannot do, how important is that? • Might they consider an enhancement? • What is there enhancement process? • Again, think about the process over multiple years – you need more than an online application • Access to old data – ability to locate student applications in the event of an audit • Support for renewable scholarships • Ability to identify trends

23. Data, data, data • Whatever solution you choose, think beyond an online application! • Looking at data across multiple years allows you to: • How many applications did I receive over the last 5 years? • Did our outreach program to local high schools lead to an increase in the number of applications from those schools? • What do those numbers looks like over the last 5 years? • What percentage of students that were awarded freshman scholarships actually went on to graduate? • For this group of targeted scholarships, how many qualified candidates have there been over the last 5 years? • What scholarships have low candidate numbers over the last few years that we should consider changing the requirements

24. Iowa Lakes Community College • Donors and Board members are interested in: • Performance • Return on Investment • Assurance their gifts have a positive impact

25. Iowa Lakes Community College • Student applications • Are there students that may not be returning • Are there potential students not in their “interested student files” • Who do they need to talk to? • Identify additional partnership opportunities – geographic data • Analyze scholarship effectiveness • Does a scholarship help with retention • Are there scholarships that appear to be having little impact?