See how Reviewr helps banks and credit unions give every scholarship and grant applicant a fair shot.
Member and community scholarships, educator and classroom grants, and community grants are some of the most visible things a bank or credit union does for the place it serves. They're usually run by one person with another job. Applications come in by email, on paper and through a form. A committee of employees or board members reviews them, and the scores, notes and final picks end up in a spreadsheet.
So who actually decides? Often it's whoever knows the applicant. A committee member recognizes a student's last name. A branch manager puts in a good word for a customer's child. A reviewer gives extra points to a school their own kids attend. Sometimes one person scores every application alone, because no one else had time.
This session is built around two of the five dimensions of Review Integrity, a framework for judging whether an application and review process is fair, consistent and defensible.
The first is Reviewer Calibration: are reviewers trained, are conflicts enforced, and are their scores checked against each other? For a scholarship or grant program, that means every application is reviewed by people with no tie to the applicant, on the same scorecard.
The second is Rubric Clarity: are criteria written, weighted and visible before anyone applies? Could a student or teacher see what you're looking for, and how it will be scored, before they start the application?
When those answers are no, similar applicants get different results depending on who reviewed them. Names get whited out by hand, or not at all. The person running the program has to explain decisions they can't fully see. In a small market, the student who didn't win and the teacher who wasn't funded are also members, customers and neighbors. And when leadership asks how winners get chosen, "the committee liked them" isn't an answer.
Scholarship and grant windows open on a set calendar, and the review process behind them usually carries over from last year without anyone choosing it. The best time to set that process is before applications open.
Marketing, community development and foundation staff at banks and credit unions who run scholarships, educator grants or community grants, plus the committee members, executives and board members who review and approve them.
Can't make it live? Register anyway and we'll send you the recording.
Does Reviewr send scholarship or grant payments? No. Reviewr tracks acceptance, proof of enrollment and grant reports. It doesn't disburse funds or track fund balances. You can export a recipient report for your finance team.
Is Reviewr secure enough for a financial institution, and for student data? Reviewr is SOC 2 Type II certified and supports single sign-on. Your organization owns its data and can export it.
We only run a few scholarships. Is this for us? Yes. Most banks and credit unions run more than one kind of program: scholarships, educator grants and community grants. The session covers how to run them all through one consistent process.
Founded in 2011, Reviewr has processed more than 1 million applications for thousands of organizations.
The all-in-one platform for managing scholarships, grants and awards programs.
