How to Start a Scholarship: A Step-by-Step Guide
Establishing a scholarship is a powerful way to make a meaningful impact in someone's life. Scholarships not only provide financial support for education but also empower individuals to reach their full potential. In today's world, where rising tuition costs and student debt can feel overwhelming, creating a scholarship is a timely and impactful way to give back to your community or a specific group of individuals. Moreover, it's important to note that scholarships are the only form of giving to individuals that offers tax advantages to donors. But how do you go about starting one? Here’s a guide to help you navigate the process, along with some essential questions to consider.
Step 1: Define Your Intent
The first step in creating a scholarship is to determine what you want to accomplish and why. Having clarity on your goals will guide you through the entire process. By defining your intent, you ensure that your scholarship aligns with your mission and objectives, and it will also help you decide how best to allocate the funds.
Key Questions to Ask Yourself:
Who do you want to help? Consider factors like demographics, geographical location, and academic, career, or personal interests.
What change do you want to make possible for them? What is the difference you want the scholarship to have made in their lives?
Key Activity:
A great tool to use is developing a logic model, which will help you map out your program's goals, resources, activities, and expected outcomes. This model will not only clarify your intent but also ensure that your scholarship remains aligned with your values and long-term vision.
Step 2: Choose Your Approach
Once you have clarity on the purpose of your scholarship and your target population, it's time to decide how you want to implement it. There are two primary options for managing a scholarship program: direct management or management by an external third-party. Each approach has its own set of advantages and considerations.
Key Questions to Consider:
What resources do you have for managing the scholarship? Do you have a dedicated team or administrative capacity to manage the scholarship’s processes?
Do you have the expertise to handle the administration of the scholarship program? Consider factors such as marketing, application processing, applicant evaluation, fund disbursement, and post-award follow-up.
Options:
Direct Management: Will you develop your own foundation or charitable entity to directly manage the scholarship program? This could be a good option if you have the resources and desire to take full control of the administration and vision of the program.
External Management: Would it be more effective to allocate funds to an existing entity (such as a community foundation, university foundation, national scholarship provider like APIA Scholars or Thurgood Marshall College Fund, or scholarship management service) to manage the scholarship on your behalf? Using external partners can simplify the administrative burden and increase the program's reach.
Step 3: Create an Operational Plan
With the approach set, you can now begin to create an operational plan to detail how your scholarship program will run. This includes everything from marketing the scholarship to selecting recipients, awarding funds, and managing follow-ups.
If you’re managing the scholarship directly, consider the following activities:
Scholarship administration lifecycle: Plan for how you’ll handle outreach, marketing, applications, selection, awarding, and post-award processes. This is the core operational component.
Engagement: Identify how you’ll engage key stakeholders such as students, donors, volunteers, and the broader community. Consider developing strategies for ongoing engagement and communication to build momentum for the scholarship.
Accountability: Develop a system to track how successful the scholarship program has been. This includes qualitative information, such as amount awarded and number of students served, but also what it has made possible for recipients, how easy and clear student-facing processes are, and donor and volunteer satisfaction.
If you’re using external partners, create plans for selecting partners, awarding funds, and managing post-award follow-up.
Key Questions to Consider:
What criteria is it important to know about applicants? How will you assess their financial need, academic standing, personal circumstances, or other characteristics important to selecting best-fit candidates?
How will you measure the impact of your scholarship? Will you track recipients’ use and success?
What will you collect in terms of metrics? How will you assess the effectiveness of administration and use that feedback to improve?
Step 4: Pilot Your Program
Before fully launching your scholarship program, it's wise to pilot it on a smaller scale to test the processes and make any necessary adjustments. A pilot phase provides a valuable opportunity to identify potential pitfalls and refine the scholarship’s structure.
Key Activity:
Award a limited number of scholarships for the upcoming academic year to gain insights into how well the program operates.
Key Questions to Consider During the Pilot Phase:
What feedback can you collect from applicants and recipients to improve the process? How will you gather that feedback (e.g., surveys, interviews)?
How will you communicate with scholarship recipients and other stakeholders during the pilot phase? Will you provide them with regular updates on the application process or post-award steps?
Step 5: Review and Adjust
After completing the pilot, it's important to review the results and make any necessary adjustments before rolling out the program on a larger scale.
Key Activities:
Review pilot feedback and identify any process gaps or areas that could be improved.
Adjust any funding allocation processes, marketing strategies, or application criteria based on what worked and what didn’t.
Questions You Might Have
Starting a scholarship can raise many questions. Here are some you might be wondering about:
What are the tax implications of starting a scholarship?
What are the best practices for administering each aspect of the lifecycle, including marketing, application, selection, awarding, and more?
How can I create sustainable administrative systems?
How do I ensure that my scholarship is making an impact?
At Students First Consulting, we get these questions a lot. If you’re looking to start a scholarship and want to explore how we can support you through the process, we invite you to schedule a consultation with us. Our team is here to guide you and ensure that your scholarship program is set up for success.
