You may have toyed around with the idea of starting your own scholarship, given the great ROI and coverage that scholarships provide. The easy part is giving away a certain sum of money, but what about the logistics?
If you’ve tried setting up your scholarship on your own, you’re probably well aware of the hurdles in your way. If you’re considering a scholarship CRM, here are a few reasons why it’s a good idea to try one out instead of setting up scholarships on your own.
You will get more applicants than you think
Besides ScholarshipApp, we also run ScholarshipOwl, which is a great place for students to find scholarships and apply to them. From our first-hand experience, we can tell you that there are thousands of applicants for every scholarship that gets posted on the platform. The broader your requirements are, the more applicants will be attracted.
You’re probably thinking – hey, why is this even a problem? In reality, thousands of applications mean a lot of time spent processing them. If you sort your applications manually, that means opening and reading thousands of emails, downloading thousands of attachments and sorting them all in a single document so you can award the scholarship to the best applicant in the end.
It gets tiring pretty quickly, which is why a scholarship CRM is a better solution. No matter how many applications you get, the app handles them all the same. Your capabilities are practically limitless.
… and many of those applicants won’t be good
Let’s be honest. The majority of students who apply for your scholarship won’t even check your basic requirements. Most students will hit the apply button even if they meet just one out of five of your requirements. As a result, a good portion of your total applications will be of poor quality.
If you use a scholarship CRM, kiss those worries goodbye. The requirements that you set in the CRM will make it easier to disqualify anyone who doesn’t meet them immediately. That way, you won’t waste any time with people who are not a good fit. Imagine spending 10 minutes reading someone’s application just to find out that they don’t qualify at all – not fun. Your scholarship CRM does the heavy lifting for you and takes care of the tedious stuff.
You can work in the cloud
You probably won’t work on your scholarship on your own. It takes at least two people to sort all the applications, grade the essays and choose a winner. There are two options you have here:
1. Doing it all from a single email inbox
2. Handling all files from a single device
Whichever way you choose, both are impractical and they require you to log in to one device or email to manage your scholarship applicants. On the other hand, if you choose a scholarship CRM, you will be able to access all of your data from the cloud. Not only does this mean that you can work on your scholarships anywhere, but it also means that you can invite as many people as you want on your team.
You can forget about writing emails
One of the hardest parts about awarding a scholarship is the communication with the students. Every time someone is disqualified or moves on to the next round, you need to send them an email to keep them in the loop. You want to bring happy news to the people who are advancing and you don’t want to keep the hopes up for those who are disqualified. If thousands of people apply, you can imagine how long it takes to get in touch with everyone.
When you use a scholarship CRM, most of the communication is automated. As soon as someone is disqualified or moved to the next round, they get an email or even a text, depending on the CRM you choose. Hours saved with just one process.
Conclusion
Using a scholarship CRM is not a matter of convenience, it’s a matter of saving time and costs and being efficient. Instead of hiring a crew of people to manage every aspect of your scholarship, you can sit back and let the scholarship CRM manage the bulk of the work.
By the way, a scholarship CRM doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated to use. Don’t take our word for it – give ScholarshipApp a spin and see how easy it is to launch and manage a scholarship. The best part? It’s completely free to use. Get started today or book a free demo if you want to learn more!
