A Donor’s Guide to Creating a Student-Centric Scholarship: Making a Real Difference
Do you have a passion for education and want to make a lasting impact? Establishing a student-centric scholarship is an incredible way to empower students and fuel their dreams.
This resource shares an overview of the process Students First Consulting uses with clients to get scholarship programs off the ground. It includes our tips on how to create a program that prioritizes students' needs and helps them achieve significant change in their lives.
Use this to guide for your own program launch, or schedule a free consultation with us if you need support in positioning your new scholarship for success!
Decide What You Want to Do and Why You Want to Do It
What’s Your “Why?”: We always start by helping donors to identify their philanthropic goals. Is it supporting students who haven’t traditionally had access to higher education? Influencing workforce development in your industry? Getting focused ensures that your scholarship has a targeted impact and effectively meets students’ needs.
Create a Roadmap: Develop a logic model or another tool to outline your program's objectives and how it will achieve them. Practical resources like this will help to guide your scholarship's creation and track its success in supporting students.
Student-Centric Tip: Talk to students! The best way to develop an impactful scholarship is to first understand today’s students’ circumstances and needs. If you don’t have ready access to students seeking or enrolled in higher education, we can help. Our Student Advisors includes a diverse mix of college, university, trade, and vocational students from many types of backgrounds and around the country. They’re a great resource to help donors think through what type of program or opportunity would be most beneficial to students like them.
Decide How You Want to Do It
Holding the Reins: There are numerous ways you can manage your scholarship, including by directly managing yourself through the development of a 501c3 foundation or nonprofit entity. Using this path, you can directly manage the scholarship program, ensuring complete control over its operations.
Partnering for Success: Other options include allocating funding to established organizations that can facilitate scholarship programming on your behalf. Such partners might include community foundations, college or university foundations, scholarship networks focused on specific types of students, or scholarship management service providers. This leverages their expertise in scholarship awarding while aligning with your vision and mission for your giving.
Student-Centric Tip: Whether you start your own scholarship organization or find a partner to help you administer your ideal program, ensure that students are actively involved in the organization. Students can be extremely effective in leadership roles, such as on the Board, as advisors, or heading or participating in committees. Other positions for them include as application reviewers, mentors, interns, or fellows. If you’re leading the work, create opportunities for them to serve in these meaningful ways; if you have an administrative partner, ask how students are involved and encourage that they host significant opportunities for students' participation.
Operationalize Your Activities
Scholarship Administration: No matter whether you manage your scholarship directly or you work with an intermediary, you'll create operational plans and timelines that include all activities along the scholarship lifecycle. This includes outreach to applicants, application intake, scholar selection, award disbursement, and post-award support for students. Industry best practices should guide your program design, ensuring a smooth and supportive experience for students.
Engage Stakeholders: All successful scholarship programs include stakeholder engagement strategies and tactics. Involving students, volunteers, additional donors, and any other relevant group helps to strengthen your program and expand its impact.
Evaluate Your Work: Regularly evaluating your program’s efficiency and effectiveness ensures it’s meeting established goals, particularly those focused on student success. Your “Why?” and a logic model can help you determine what to assess, when, and how.
Student-Centric Tip: Students’ feedback on their experiences as applicants and recipients (in addition to their lived experiences as students!) can help inform big-picture visioning and day-to-day management. Survey applicants as part of the application process, host focus groups among recipients, and communicate that you’re open to feedback on how well you’re doing towards meeting their needs.
By considering your philanthropic goals and following these steps, you can establish a scholarship program that truly supports students and makes a lasting difference in their lives. Remember, Students First Consulting can assist you at any point in this process, so don't hesitate to schedule a consultation to turn your vision into reality!
