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Expected Family Contribution (EFC)
Good afternoon! I am in the process of trying to define financial need for our scholarship program. I would like to target students that will not receive a Pell grant or any institutional aid. This is part of the formula I came up with "EFC greater than or equal to 6495 and less than 20000". I am trying to target students…
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How to reduce award displacement
During our webinar yesterday "Tips & Tricks for Working with Financial Aid" we shared a list of ways to reduce award displacement curated by National Scholarship Providers Association (NSPA) We hope you find the below list helpful, and continue adding ways that you are helping students to navigating working with financial…
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Scholarship Fund Minimums and Admin Fees
Hello, We are considering changing our minimums for donors wanting to start Scholarship Funds. We are also considering changing the annual administrative fee for scholarship funds. I was charged with the task of gathering information from other Community Foundations. I would appreciate your input on: What is the minimum…
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What gaps do you see in scholarship opportunities for students?
We are currently evaluating our general high school scholarship fund to see if we are making the best impact for our local students. I am reaching out to other foundations, counselors, local students, but wanted to see if any of you have any data or information on what kind of student is being missed by scholarship…
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Does anyone offer application coaching?
Hi all, During this year's selection process one of our evaluators noted that he could see potential in several applicants but their written responses were not as strong as other more talented writers and therefore their evaluation scores were lower. His recommendation was to coach these students through the application…
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Hiring - Scholarship Program Manager - Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley (Aurora, IL)
The Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley serves the Greater Aurora Area, the TriCities and Kendall County, Illinois. Reporting to the President & CEO, the Scholarship Program Manager will work with the Foundation staff, Board of Directors, Fund Advisors, and other constituents to successfully administer the…
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Internal Transfer: Scholarship fund to emergency assistance fund
Does anyone have any experience asking scholarship donors to contribute to an emergency assistance fund? Some background: We launched our emergency assistance fund for students in July. It's actually been quite popular with our donor-advised fundholders and is a nice value-add that we can offer to scholarship fundholders…
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Award Fund vs. Scholarship
We have a potential donor who wants to create an Award Fund rather than a Scholarship Fund which looks to have different tax implications. Does anyone use Foundant to process award funds and if so, can you shed some light on how the administration of one might be different than a Scholarship?
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Could you share your scholarship evaluation form?
We are starting to work on creating a new evaluation form for scholarship reviews. We want the evaluation to be numerical, but what we have right now is outdated since we no longer ask for SAT/ACT scores, essays, or letters of recommendation. I have attached our current form but would love to see how others set up their…
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Student Recommended for Multiple Scholarship Awards
I am currently reviewing committee selections, and we have one applicant who is being recommended for five scholarships! She is clearly a stellar candidate, but I am concerned that she will have scholarships exceeding her total cost of education. We do not have a scholarship policy addressing this, and I was wondering if…
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Awarding postsecondary scholarships to middle schoolers?
We have a donor interested in awarding scholarships to middle schoolers as an incentive when they graduate from high school. Has anyone ever attempted this? Thank you in advance for any suggestions about how that would work.
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Defending your decisions: How to stand up to those who claim you're not granting correctly
I'm curious if any funder has a protocol, practice, or tool to use when a community member says, "Hey, I don't think you're granting the way you should!" We know that not everyone is going to be pleased with your grant award decisions. And many people express disappointment. But every so often someone with privilege and/or…
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Does anyone have experience with a scholarship like this?
The Delaware Community Foundation has been approached by a community organizer about doing scholarships for his MERIT STEM program students (grades 9-12 - they qualify if they have been active for the last 4 years in MERIT) but they want to add money to the BASE of the scholarship for other things they do beyond…
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Citizenship question on scholarships?
Hi--while the family foundation I work with does not fund scholarships, this question came up in a group discussion lately and I'm eager to hear what you all think and how some of you are handling the situation in your worlds. At a particular organization, it was a given for years that all scholarships only went to US…
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Sample -Lilly Endowment Scholarship application
Hello all, Our community foundation just transitioned to CommunitySuite (financial part). We will be transitioning to SLM in June. Our Lilly Endowment Scholarship application opens August 1st. For those outside of Indiana- It is a scholarship application for high school seniors from our county; every CF in Indiana…
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Foundation Turn Over (Grants and Scholarships Role Descriptions)
I know one reality of Foundation work is regular turnover. I've had many conversations over the years with clients seeking advice on job descriptions for Grant and Scholarship Coordinator/Manager/Directors and suggestions on how to call out Foundant familiarity/technical aptitude in those descriptions. If you have a…
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Show me your application!
I work for a school and as I am building my scholarship application for the first time, it would be helpful to be able to login as a student to some real-world examples. If you have scholarships, would you kindly share with me? You can delete me as a user at any time. Thanks
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Scholarship Award/Denial Letters - Paper or Digital?
Hello all, Just curious to see how folks handle their award/denial letters for scholarship applicants. Currently, we send paper award and denial letters to every applicant that finishes and submits an application. We also send an email to award recipients with more detailed instructions on how to complete the follow-up to…
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Scholarship Deferrals, Renewals and New Funding in a New Normal
We had great discussions around these three scholarship topics during today’s Coffee Talk. Our own @AlyseBraaten, Manager of Client Services, Grants and Scholarships hosted along with our special guest host @LaurenGrevel , the Education & Youth Initiatives Officer with Grand Haven Area Community Foundation. If you missed…
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Using standardized test scores in evaluating scholarship applicants
We have decided to make standardized test scores optional on our scholarship applications this year since some colleges/universities are not requiring them. Our steering committee just met, and many expressed concern that it is unfair to take scores into consideration for candidates if not all of them provided scores. Has…
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Welcome to Scholarship Chat! Find introductions and discussions here!
If you have a minute, go ahead and introduce yourself to the group in the discussion below - we'd love to get the networking started! A couple of starting points: Have you ever been to Montana? Are you a dog or a cat person? (Request the Dog Person or Cat Person badge)! Name your favorite Bequet Caramel flavor. (Request…
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Gender and Race Questions
This year we are adding - Non-binary and Prefer to self-describe. Are others of you doing this as well? We also are going to ask to identify yourself racially/ethnically with four different choices and open ended - specify. Again are others doing this and having you been doing this for awhile?
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Scholarships and off-campus housing
My organization is trying to sort out how to best handle scholarships for off-campus housing (aka paying apartment rent). This has been a request from a few students who have explained that they've received a softball scholarship at their local community college (*with no campus housing*), but the school or coach (I'm not…
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Scholarship Processes Thought Partner Needed!
Greetings, I'm looking to have some scholarship process chat with anyone that is available. I need a thought partner. There are so many different processes involved with administering scholarships and renewals and my brain is fried as I'm trying to think through some more efficient processes! I'd love to talk through/pick…
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Volunteer Evaluators & Student Privacy
Hello everyone - we are looking to update some of our policies for scholarships, and specifically one for our volunteer evaluators that addresses student privacy. Our evaluators access the students applications through SLM, but I do know some of them print the forms out to review. We want to ensure proper destroying of the…
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Scholarship funds for wraparound services
Good afternoon, I have a question about some of our affiliate scholarship funds. Have you ever applied variance power to named scholarship funds to provide wraparound services to students? We would like to change these funds since the affiliate has a Promise Zone that will be able to provide 4 years of full tuition…
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Need Based Scholarships for Private School Students
Wondering how other scholarship programs handle the issue of private high school student eligibility for their need-based scholarship opportunities. Currently, out of over 100 locally offered scholarships for graduating high school seniors, none have been created that specifically include private schools. Typically they…
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Change in Scholarship Criteria Due to Company Merger
We manage a scholarship fund that benefits children and grandchildren of a company that recently merged and no longer exists as the entity identified in the fund agreement. Additionally, the newly-formed company announced the closure of the main facility, which will significantly narrow the applicant pool if the original…
