Award Programs Your Brand Can Stand Behind

A 30-minute session for brand, marketing and CSR teams on running awards, scholarships and community grants with clear criteria, consistent judges and a record of how every winner was chosen.

People trust brands more than most institutions. In Edelman's 2025 Brand Trust report (15,000+ people in 15 countries, fielded April–May 2025), 80% said they trust the brands they use to do what is right, well above the trust they place in business in general.

When a company runs an award, a scholarship or a community grant, that trust comes along. The winners carry the brand's name. So do the applicants who didn't win, the employees who nominated a colleague, and the customers who notice who gets picked.

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 Decision Traceability: can any decision be reconstructed and defended? If a finalist, an employee or your leadership team asked how a winner was chosen, could you show the criteria, the scores and how the decision was made?

The second is Reviewer Calibration: were judges kept off entries they're connected to, and did they score the same way? On brand programs, judges are often executives, employees or partners who know some of the people applying, and one tough or generous judge can quietly tip the result.

When a program runs on a web form, a spreadsheet and a group email to the judges, the decision is hard to explain after the fact. A finalist who didn't win is still a customer. An employee scholarship that seems to favor certain departments becomes a story inside the company. And a program that's hard to explain is hard to report on or defend when budgets are set.

Who applies, and how they'll judge your process, is decided before the first entry arrives. The best time to set clear criteria, the right judging panel and a clean application is before your next award or scholarship window opens.

In this 30-minute session, you'll learn how to:

• Launch a branded application portal, with save-and-return so applicants can finish when they're ready
• Screen out ineligible entries up front, including employee verification for employee-dependent scholarships
• Publish clear criteria and score every entry against the same weighted scorecard, with the entry and scorecard side by side
• Assign judges by category or region, and keep people off entries they're connected to
• Spot a harsh or lenient judge before their scores tip the result
• Hide applicant names and other identifying form fields when you want a blind review
• Send every applicant and winner email from your own domain, so communication looks and sounds like your brand
• Collect acceptance forms, headshots and thank-you notes from winners after the award
• Download results and reports for leadership and your CSR report
• Clone the program for next year instead of rebuilding it

Who should attend

Brand, marketing, communications, CSR and community-relations teams, corporate foundation staff, and anyone who runs a company-sponsored award, customer or community scholarship, employee-dependent scholarship or community grant. It's especially useful for teams of one or two running programs with the company's name on them.

Can't make it live? Register anyway and we'll send you the recording.

Common questions

Does Reviewr pay winners or track fund balances?No. Reviewr runs the application, judging and selection, and collects acceptance forms, receipts and thank-you notes. It doesn't disburse funds or track fund balances, so your finance team stays the system of record. You can export a recipient report for them.

Is this legal or tax advice for our company foundation's scholarships?No. The session covers general practices for documenting criteria and selection. For your foundation's specific requirements, talk with your counsel.

Can applicants and judges sign in with our company's login?Reviewr supports single sign-on (SAML/OAuth) for sign-on. Confirm your setup with the Reviewr team.

‍