BethNuttall ✭✭✭

Many of our answers were somewhat general too. Most said they would use scholarships and loans to pay for school, and some included that their parents would help. Our deadline was April 30, 2024, which leads to the same problem that you ran into. Honestly a lot of it can end up depending on how much information the student…

We do not ask specifically how much a student owes but we ask a few short answer questions that offer a chance for the student to explain their financial situation including any gaps in funding. One such question below: Describe how you plan on paying for your college education. Your response may include scholarships,…

We pay our scholarships out in July/August but a student is notified in June of the award, so they know before they start the school year. We ask for students to complete an Acceptance Form by July 31, but many submit much earlier which is great. As soon as it is submitted and reviewed, we process the payment. We send one…

We request 6 and 12 month reports as well, but the grantee has to report on only the funding we provided during that period of performance. It seems the final report for this organization you mention should report on funding and activity from June 2022 through May 2023 (the entire project period). However if the funding…

Yes, we do include the rate of return in the cover letter that we send with each fund report.

Here is our evaluation form and questions.

We offer a one-time scholarship for students attending any accredited medical school. The scholarship is for $5,000 and they have to complete our universal application and provide a copy of their acceptance letter to medical school. We usually pay the scholarship around July/August each year directly to the school and we…

We do this on a limited basis through a google form. If an organization's project does not align with any of our current funding opportunities, we direct them to a very simple Grant Interest Form where they can give a brief description of what they are looking to fund and the $ amount. We review the entries every week and…

@HalieBrazier How do you verify the household income that a student enters? We use a base score for financial need and then ask the reviewers to also take into account any Special or Extraordinary Circumstances, Living Arrangements, EFC Score, Adjusted Gross Income, and if they are receiving free tuition from the local…

We are also looking for a better solution to this problem. Right now we have 2 spreadsheets - one has funding requests that come in via a google form and the other spreadsheet has our various funds listed with the amount available and notes on what they are looking to fund/their priorities. I will often review our requests…

We only have a follow up assigned for the end of each school year where we ask for a copy of their transcript and ask them to explain how this scholarship helped/supported them. We use this information for eligibility for future scholarships (they have to have submitted the report in order to be eligible) and we share this…

I have attached the text of the email we sent to our reviewers last year. I strongly recommend that you include the video tutorial. All of our reviewers said the system was easy to use and did not have any issues. We provide a master spreadsheet during our review meeting that is not shared in advance (we organize the…

We removed the letters of recommendation for the first time last year in an effort to make the application as easy and accessible as possible for the applicants. I agree that I do not think it adds much helpful information to the application as they all are positive. I think, especially last year, applicants found it…

Will do, thanks again!

Wow, this is great! Thanks so much! Please let me know where it will be mailed as I am not in St. Thomas :)

We started doing ACHs with the pandemic. We have a direct deposit agreement PDF that the recipient completes and emails back to us (they can add password protection). We enter that info into our bank ACH processing system, save it, and destroy the PDF. We send the DD agreement to grantees along with the award letter in an…

@SallyCross I am not sure what kind of report our Accountant would recommend, but I just look at a Profit & Loss in Quickbooks and include all activity for the last 3 years.

@BrittanyKennedy To start a fund donors usually must have about $5,000. We recently increased our minimum scholarship award to $2,500 (before it ranged from $1,000 - $5,000). We believe that $2,500 is more meaningful to students given increasing education costs. We do not charge an administrative fee for our scholarships…

I have attached our basic template that we send to inactive DAF holders. Hope this helps!

We do not have C-suite but I just create email templates in the system and then send out the email to the grantees when they are awarded/declined. For payment confirmations, I just send them an email outside of the system. We generally create a new template for each process but I have pasted a couple examples below. We…

Hi @MaryAnneSmith, I asked a similar question recently and got many great application examples! The topic/subject was "Could you share your universal scholarship application". Hopefully the link below works!

We do exclusively email for scholarships. With SLM it is easy to see if they opened the email or not, and if it was actually delivered. If they have not opened it, then I follow up via phone or text. Stuffing and mailing a hundred or so letters would be too time consuming. We also have been transitioning to electronic…

Last year we had test scores as optional on the application, but honestly the reviewers did not really look at those scores since not everyone submitted them. This year we just decided to remove the scores completely as we are trying to make the application as simple as possible for the applicants (and for our review as…

After we have the signed grant agreement, I email the grantee to let them know we prefer processing awards via ACH payments when possible (though they can certainly get a check if they prefer that). I then attach our Direct Deposit Agreement form which they can send back to me with a password (though not everyone does add…

@Kellieutzinger I did, thank you!

Would anyone be willing to share their deferral policy and/or deferral form that the student completes? Thank you!

Circling back to share our application! It is almost final, but not quite there. Thanks for everyone who shared theirs!

Ok, that is good to know. We are leaving SAT/ACT questions off this year - I have heard the same about some colleges not using that info. Thanks!

Thank you @JoannFarnham! I am curious if you will keep the SAT question given the impacts of COVID?

@AaronSpevacek Honestly I have not tried it yet - stuck in my old ways I suppose! I will add to my to-do list though for some time this year :D