When I started in this role three years ago, I was responsible for building an efficient and effective scholarship program from the ground up. We needed our program to work with a small staff, be accessible to applicants, and replace the archaic and manual process we had in place.

Our existing process was too time-consuming administratively, especially when it came to matching applicants with scholarships, and was distracting us from marketing our scholarship program. We weren’t as donor- and student-focused as we needed (and wanted) to be.

I spent two years researching and doing my homework on implementing a scholarship management software option. During this time, I surveyed applicants for feedback and analyzed ROI on such an investment.

I quickly realized that the cost for an accessible and efficient software is minimal when you consider how it will transform your process. AwardSpring stood out immediately from other vendors and we received many positive rave reviews from other Washington colleges who told us that their numbers skyrocketed after implementing the software.

During the sales process, I felt like our sales representative provided me with expert information and presentations tailored to our process. He was always friendly and never pushy.

The functionality of the platform significantly aligned with our program goals so we signed up. It’s been about a year since then and we are thrilled with the results!

Because of the overall improvement to our process, from application through reviewing and awarding, I no longer feel like I need to hide and barricade myself in my office to get through our award cycle. From the start of our implementation, through to today, it is evident that AwardSpring focuses heavily on customer service.

When working with the support team, I am never made to feel dumb or like a burden and I am always patiently walked through the process so I can work through it on my own next time. Between the support and training experiences and referring to the Help Center, I feel like I’ve become a subject matter expert in a short period of time.

Because everything is more streamlined and efficient, I’m able to spend more time being innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial in working toward our overall program goals. We are working to bring on two more programs which never would have been possible before AwardSpring!

The data and quality of information I can get and share with board members and donors is invaluable. I am comfortable and confident with the concrete metrics I can get from AwardSpring and can easily access the more subjective information like applicant essays as well.

Having this information available allows me to go back to the donors to say, “We have more quality applicants, can you provide us more money?” I am ecstatic that I now have a perfect system to be able to push money back out to students.

Having this data has also opened the door to communication with our institutional research team who is building out our recruitment and retention program. The data we can pull from AwardSpring will help us to track the success of scholarship recipients and our scholarship program as a whole.

I also use AwardSpring data and the resulting analysis for presenting at board meetings so I can show the members how far our program has come. AwardSpring has been transformative to our scholarship program.

With a small staff, limited resources, and a small budget, the software has been worth its weight in gold. The results and benefits of the software have transcended every aspect of my job.

AwardSpring has helped me to be proud of where I work and the work that I do! I believe AwardSpring is the best deal out there and will be the answer to your scholarship program woes.