MASFAA 2013

October 6th – 9th, 2013

Indianapolis, Indiana

Scholarship Administration and Software Tools: Getting Started

PresentersPhil Knight – Next Gen Web Solutions

Ellen Barbour – Purdue University

Getting Smart

With growing student populations, scholarship administration has become a real challenge.

The session explores technology and techniques that can help you improve assigning funds to your students.

2

What are my options?

• Homegrown solution

• Hire a software company to build a solution for you

• SaaS Scholarship Management solution(Software as a Service)

3

Current costs

As you think about your budget, what are you currently paying?

◊ How many hours are you spending on the process?◊ Do you have to employ temporary help?◊ How much time are your IT staff spending on the

process?◊ What are your opportunity costs?

• Students struggle to find scholarships?• Unable to use all funds?• Would love to spend more time on retention but you don’t have it?

4

Stakeholders

• Financial Aid• Foundation

• Foundation Board Members

• Accounting • Enrollment Management• IT• Academic Departments• Donor Relations

5

What do your stakeholders need?

• Simplified matching of qualified students with available scholarships

• Removal of paper – online application• Increased Donor Engagement• Increased Automation• Improved Recruitment• Improved Retention• Reporting – Identifying trends

6

Gather and prioritize your requirements

• Engage your stakeholders• Identify your objectives• Document your current process• Identify gaps in your current process• What is missing, what do you need?• Capture all your requirements• Look at the process over years, not just now• What do you need now? What would your ideal

be?• Think about exception processing• Prioritize all your requirements

7

Homegrown solution

• Ceteris Paribus – The best solution!• Built to match your specific needs• Access to developers• Data remains on your servers• Maintained in house• Trust in the IT/support team

• You know them• You control their priorities• You control the enhancements

• Control!

8

Purdue University-Building Your Own

At Purdue we wanted to create a one-stop arena for scholarship administration

Built in phases due to scope of project1. Collection and storage of fund criteria,

history and security measures2. Collection and storage of student data

needed for scholarship selection and reporting

3. Collection and storage of donor data4. Creation of online student scholarship

application form

9

10

Purdue University-Building Your Own

It was built by Student Services Computing Area

Maintained by Financial Aid Data Area

11

Purdue University-Building Your Own

Must get representation from all user areas◊ Need clear understanding of end user

needs◊ Find best place to harvest information ◊ Get buy-in

12

Purdue University-Building Your Own

Purdue University◊ We use it for

• Funds management • Awarding• Reporting• Stewardship• Student application

process

13

Purdue University-Building Your Own

Purdue created standard queries◊ Funding Queries: all active accounts,

unspent funds, renewable funds

◊ Donor Queries: donor names and addresses

◊ Student Queries: recipient list, scholarship eligible, application responses

14

Purdue University-Building Your Own

Benefits◊ Flexibility – we have

been able to build enhancements as needed

◊ Specificity – enables us to truly tailor information

◊ Security – all data stays within the university

15

Purdue University-Building Your Own

Enabled automation◊ can upload awards from the database

into award packages◊ Creation of new funds in financial aid

system is also automated

16

Purdue University-Building Your Own

Tips◊ Try to pull in key players

from all affected areas◊ May need to build in phases◊ Work with developer to keep

tool easy to use◊ Get users from all areas

involved in testing◊ Dedicate staff to creation

and maintenance

All things are not equal

• Expensive to build from scratch• Do you really have control over IT priorities?• Will the resources that build it be available next

year?• Infrastructure costs• Could be cheap – Graduate student builds it as

part of their thesis• What happens when they leave?

17

Outsourcing

• Available resources – not having to rely on your over-burdened IT staff

• Solution will be specific to your needs and goals• Can still host all the data on your servers• They can manage the project• Free you up to keep your focus on the day-to-day

18

Outsourcing – are you sure?

• Will a “generic” software company understand the business?

• They can build software, but they may not know best practices

• A good looking website doesn’t mean they know anything about scholarships

• Delivery problems – what happens when they get behind schedule?

• Hourly costs will quickly grow – very expensive• What will they offer for support a year from now?

19

SaaS – Software as a Service

• Salesforce.com• One of the best known and most widely used SaaS

solutions

• Scholarship Manager – Next Gen

• Off the shelf, more affordable• Likely some customization options• Built specifically for scholarships• 80-90% of your needs may be covered• Company should have experience with other

schools – ability to offer knowledge about best practices

20

SaaS – Things to think about

• They likely won’t cover 100% of your needs• You won’t have direct control of their priorities

• You should have influence. If you don’t, think twice

• Involve your IT staff in the decision• Will your data be secure• Can the company provide audit reports

• Talk to their current customers• Present your requirements to them – find out what they can

and cannot do. • Ask for proof• Demo of the system, screenshots• Be prepared – have a list of what you need before any demo meeting

21

SaaS – Things to think about

• If there is something they cannot do, how important is that?• Might they consider an enhancement?• What is there enhancement process?

• Again, think about the process over multiple years – you need more than an online application• Access to old data – ability to locate

student applications in the event of an audit

• Support for renewable scholarships• Ability to identify trends

22

Data, data, data

• Whatever solution you choose, think beyond an online application!

• Looking at data across multiple years allows you to:• How many applications did I receive over the last 5 years?• Did our outreach program to local high schools lead to an

increase in the number of applications from those schools?• What do those numbers looks like over the last 5 years?• What percentage of students that were awarded freshman

scholarships actually went on to graduate? • For this group of targeted scholarships, how many qualified

candidates have there been over the last 5 years?• What scholarships have low candidate numbers over the

last few years that we should consider changing the requirements

23

Iowa Lakes Community College

• Donors and Board members are interested in:

• Performance• Return on Investment• Assurance their gifts have a

positive impact

24

Iowa Lakes Community College

• Student applications• Are there students that may not be

returning• Are there potential students not in

their “interested student files”• Who do they need to talk to?

• Identify additional partnership opportunities – geographic data

• Analyze scholarship effectiveness• Does a scholarship help with

retention• Are there scholarships that appear

to be having little impact?25

MASFAA 2013

October 6th – 9th, 2013

Indianapolis, Indiana

Phil Knight Ellen Barbour

(904) 332-9001 Ext. 3258 (765) 494-5129

phil.knight@ngwebsolutions.com carterm@purdue.edu