How to Set Up a Scholarship: A Step-by-Step Guide

6 min read

There are undoubtedly a lot of things to take into account when developing a new scholarship. However, you will be assisting students in avoiding student debt quickly if you maintain organisation and provide answers to all of the crucial questions you will need to ask yourself.

1. Create the Scholarship

Establish the What and the Who

You were motivated to start this procedure by something. Exactly what was it? The intended benefit would be who? Once you understand the scholarship’s objective, you should be able to identify the “Who”—the requirements for candidacy. To begin, look over the list of potential eligibility requirements below.

Potential Eligibility Criteria

• Academic Merit
• Athletic Merit
• Academic Major
• Geographic
• School Year
• Financial Need
• Gender
• Race
• Ethnicity
• Clubs, Organizations, Interests
• Community Service
• Disability

Most likely, your list of eligibility requirements will include at least some of the aforementioned. These are only 12 of the more typical requirements that we have observed scholarship providers using. Some attract a lot of interest because they are competitive and rather wide. A scholarship for a female senior in high school who plans to enrol in college in the autumn, for instance.

Others may be less competitive due to their extensive requirements, which would reduce interest and applications. For instance, a scholarship that is restricted to female college juniors who are Native American, have completed 100 hours of community service, reside in a particular Texas county, and plan to study in entomology while attending a Texas university.

Budget and Frequency

Establish the overall amount of your budget as well as the award amount in dollars. Budgeting for costs beyond the actual amount you will be awarded might be a good idea. You will need to make room for things like having a third party host the scholarship or having to pay to create a webpage or website. Is the scholarship awarded every year? Or perhaps quarterly or semi-annually? When creating a budget, that will also be factored in.

Review Team

Now that the qualifying conditions have been set, you are aware of the fundamental framework. The following level just requires assistance with scholarship administration, applicant review, and financial management. You may have set aside money for this and will be paying someone else to handle it for you. Alternatively, you may enlist some volunteers to help you decide which applications are eligible and who will get your scholarship. Knowing which is crucial so that, if needed, you can account for it in your budget.

Legal Structure

You must determine whether this is a foundation, trust, etc. Hiring a qualified professional could be a smart choice for peace of mind about legal and tax compliance. Instead of worrying about being audited, you will be able to confidently receive, review, judge, and award scholarship funds.

Documentation

Compile the required paperwork, publish it, or submit it to your third-party scholarship management team for publishing. Ensure that all terms and legal documents are properly accessible to each potential applicant.

Application Form

All of this is probably being done for an online application. Make sure to include links to the scholarship application’s terms and conditions and legal documents. You must include the application and all supporting documentation in the application packet if the scholarship is not being offered online.

Submission

Decide on the submission method for the application and any supporting materials. Give the candidates precise instructions along with any deadlines that may apply. Request input from candidates as well as from anyone working on advertising and listing the scholarship. An outside viewpoint can be quite helpful.

Selection

The selecting procedure must to be transparent and equitable. The criteria being utilised and the weighting of each should be equally obvious to applicants and your panel of judges. The scholarship application description should prominently display the selection criteria.

2. Promote Your Scholarship

There are many ways to advertise your scholarship, but putting it on Scholarships.com is a clear choice. Here are some ideas for advertising your scholarship. You can always employ a teenager if you don’t know how to utilise all the social media apps or create digital posters.

• List for free on Scholarships.com
• Share on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok & YouTube
• Create a digital poster (PDF) and publish to your site
• Share your PDF with high school counselors and college financial aid offices

3. Review, Selection and Announcement

You will soon discover how much labour it will take to process the response after creating, publishing, and promoting the scholarship. Depending on how well you advertised the scholarship, there can be dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of applications.

Application Review

Start by ensuring that everyone on your review panel understands the requirements and the review procedure. You might need to wait a few to several weeks after the deadline before declaring a winner or winners, depending on the criteria of the essays and other components that can take a lot of time. It will be hard to predict how long it will take you to complete all of the applications, so give yourself plenty of time for the first year.

Award Notification

To get in touch with the winner or winners, you might need to text, call, email, and post an announcement on your website. The application description, terms, and legal documents should all include this information. After they are notified that they have been given your scholarship, you will need to find out how long they have to reply. The terms and conditions and legal disclosures must also provide that information.

Monitoring and Documentation

You should monitor your recipients and get any input you can from them regarding the procedure if you are permitting the scholarship to be renewed with certain requirements, like upholding a minimal GPA or remaining in a list of majors, etc.

Preparing reports on the program’s financial situation and impact can be a smart idea. The structure of the organisation providing the scholarship will determine whether this component is truly necessary, although it is always a good idea to keep records and examine data in order to enhance the process going forward. You can reply intelligently to enquiries from applicants, their parents, and other potential interested parties if you have some basic information regarding the scholarship, such as the number of applications, the number of winners, and the total amount given.