Buyer’s guide to scholarship management software

Buyer’s Guide to Scholarship Management Software

According to the Society of Association Executives, “Associations that focus on leveraging data, improving processes, and investing in new technologies, the hard work will likely pay off in more engaged and satisfied members”. So, in the case of scholarship management software – how do we evaluate and invest in the right tool?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. In this webinar we dive into what to look for when evaluating scholarship management software, what questions to ask your potential vendor, and the essential features you need for success. Without further ado, here is your Buyer’s Guide to Scholarship Management Software. Let’s get started.

Questions to ask

Evaluating your potential Scholarship management software vendor should be like dating, get to know them before getting married. The first step in the Buyer’s Guide to Scholarship Management Software is to ask questions.This means spending time on due diligence and digging deep into what your needs are and how they align within that software. Here are some key elements to discuss:

• History
  • Why does the company exist and why do they do what they do?
    • Did their team come from your industry and experience the same challenges you are looking to solve?
    • What drives them to continue to innovate and provide their clients value? 
    • How long have they been in business?
    • What does their product development and feature release schedule look like?
    • What’s their year over year customer retention rate?
    • Is software development performed in house or outsourced?
    • Are references available?
• Data and security
  • What type of security protocols and policies are in place?
  • What security needs are essential to your needs?
    • Avoid vetting vendors on security protocols not necessary to your needs – you may unjustly disqualify the right tool for you.
  • Who owns the data captured in the software?
  • Where, and how, is the data stored?
  • Is the data and security protocols documented?
• Support
  • What is the customer support policy?
  • What are request and support turn around times?
  • Where is the support staff located and is it outsourced?
  • What does the on-boarding process look like?
  • How long does implementation take?
  • Will you have a dedicated account manager?
• Budget
  • Discussing budgets doesn’t have to be taboo. 
  • What is the investment?
  • Does the pricing model actually make sense?
  • What does the investment look like long term as your program continues to grow?
  • What does the investment look like with multi year commitments?
  • Do you have a partner program (i,e, referral bonuses)?
  • Remember – the investment isn’t an arbitrary dollar amount – it reflects the value associated with solving the challenges you seek solution for.

Essential Features

The 2nd step in the Buyer’s Guide to Scholarship Management Software is verifying the tool has the essential features you need. What constitutes as an “essential feature” is going to be different for everyone. It’s vital to audit your awards, grants, scholarships, competitions, etc to define what features are essential to you. Reviewr has an endless list of features but in speaking with clients, we have narrowed down a list of three main categories (Submissions, Administrative, and Evaluation) and specific features within. For more essential features, check out the webinar, “3 must have tools for award, grant, and scholarship managers”.

•  Product development philosophy
  • This drives everything – how are features selected for development
• Submission management
  • Scholarship management software is more than just online forms.
  • The online forms are just one element that makes up the submission – the applicants profile.
  • Other elements consist of file uploads, payment, communication, results, etc.
  • Collect files, including multimedia, and have a way to manage and access them.
    • In Reviewr, files get embedded in the software for quick and easy access.
  • Program specific submission features.
    • Letters of recommendation
    • Dedicated post grantee follow up workflow
    • Online payment capture
    • Conditional logic and workflows
    • Save and return capability
    • Automated confirmation emails
    • Ongoing additions and edits of an applicants profile
• Administrative tools
  • Program insights and visibility
    • Quick pulse check of key program metrics
    • Dates and deadlines at a glance
    • Make changes on the fly at any time on your own
  • Reporting
    • Data is king 
    • What reporting do you need and how is it accessible
    • Think long term reporting and archiving – this helps define what data needs to be collected during the initial setup process
    • Check out our webinar diving deeper into this by clicking here.
  • Access to submissions/profiles
    • Sort, filter, and find entries
    • Access submission data and profiles
    • Easily manage and navigate content within the profile. This includes:
      • Files
      • Comments
      • Evaluations
      • Workflows
      • Form data
  • Create workflows
    • Workflows can consist of things like:
      • Phases/rounds
      • Evaluation groupings
        • Assign entries to judges/reviewers
          • Dedicated tools for the many ways entries may be assigned to teams.
      • Categorization
  • Communication
    • Email templates
    • Built in notes and comments
    • Bulk notifications and emails
• Evaluation tools
  • How entries are evaluated is generally unique to everyones workflow – there is no one size fits all. Tools like Reviewr must be equipped to cover it all.
  • Full circle, all-in-one, online evaluation/review.
  • Assign entries to evaluation teams/reviewers/judges.
  • Unique scoring process
    • Scorecards
    • Weighted scoring
    • Subjective deliberation
    • Forced ranking
    • Public voting
    • Simple approve/deny
  • Different evaluation/scoring process for each workflow/phase
  • Automated results
    • Avoid human error by automatic tabulation based on your unique evaluation needs.
  • The experience rules all – review teams are often volunteers and desire a simple, yet powerful, review tool. Gone are the days of emails, spreadsheets, and paper. 

Social Proof

The final step in the Buyer’s Guide to Scholarship Management Software is gathering social proof. At Reviewr, we’ve seen everything. We like to think we know a thing or two about running world class awards, grants, scholarships, competitions, etc – but no one knows more than our clients. It’s critical in your journey of evaluating scholarship management software that you gain social proof by looking up online reviews, reading testimonials, and auditing references. Here are some powerful quotes and testimonials pulled from our Capterra and G2 reviews.