Increase Your Student Award Applications

Cambrian College students wanted a user-friendly online awards application system, and the Awards Department delivered.
Read this fantastic example of how Cambrian saved administrative time and increased student award applications by 30%, leveraging the Fuel to Learn System.

Your School’s Awards, Bursaries, & Scholarships Ceremony
is Right Around the Corner.
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You`ve picked the venue, made arrangements with the caterers, narrowed your list of presenters, addressed your staffing needs, and now it`s time for the tedious task of sorting through applications. Your team begins by sorting through the stacks of paper applications, organizing by category, and then reading through each to find the most suitable recipients. This process can take up to several weeks of your staff`s valuable time – taking them away from other day-to-day tasks, leaving you frustrated with the process and wishing for the ceremony to come and go. You know something has to be done to optimize your process, but your system gets the job done; can you really afford to change?

You can, and we know how to help you!

Through discussions with Colleges and Universities, we have found a number of common issues similar to yours.

These award system issues include:

• High administrative costs - the majority of institutions we spoke with bring in extra staffing during awards season

• Environmentally unfriendly - more and more organizations are trying to stay as green as possible, however, paper applications are increasing your carbon footprint

• Low applicant numbers - the application process is manual, complicated, and it’s tough to get students motivated to follow through with the process

• Difficult for students to search appropriate awards - students are either unaware of the awards, or don’t have an efficient way to determine eligibility without reading through a list of awards

• Lack of communication between various stakeholders

• Labour intensive and time consuming process - data from paper applications must be entered manually into a database

• Updating awards information is complicated and time consuming - information is stored in a variety of places, and it is difficult for one person to keep track of the updates in all places

There is a Better Way: We Can Get You There

After compiling information from various sources and getting a better understanding of what Awards Departments need, RESolutionsTECH created a system, Fuel to Learn – Awards Management System, which addresses each of these issues.

Among the key benefits of the Fuel to Learn system is the ability to have all information stored in a central location. Many Colleges and Universities across North America have an Awards and Bursaries office that is littered with application forms, stacks of files for each award and scholarship, and a variety of computers with various data. Fuel to Learn provides a centralized database for all awards, scholarships and bursaries and allows for instant access to this information. Awards can be added, deleted and edited within seconds which eliminates the need to create new paper applications, reduces staffing demands and ultimately saves the organization money. A more streamlined system allows your valuable staff to focus efforts on other tasks and improves overall organizational efficiency.

The benefit of a centralized system is not only for the school but the students themselves. Many students may not be aware of the application process and may demand an online application instead of paper. Fuel to Learn allows students to apply online to any scholarship, bursary or award that is offered by the institution. The school has the option of providing categories that helps the applicant narrow down a search to apply for awards in their specific department or based on any number of search options provided by the school. Fuel to Learn is ‘student-friendly’, reducing application time by allowing students to create profiles that can be applied to multiple awards rather than submitting applications for each award. This feature provides an easy interface for the students and ultimately results in more submitted applications. Awards and scholarships have become a higher priority for students today; schools that provide an easy to use, accessible, and efficient awards management system will ultimately attract more students.

In addition to being user friendly for students, Fuel to Learn offers the opportunity for schools to increase exposure of their award offerings. Schools are able to promote specific awards for specific students in a more targeted way. For example, schools can integrate their awards into their marketing strategy and include specific awards on specific pages on their website. This could include promoting awards in various departments or adding athletic-focused awards on the Athletic Department homepage. Schools can provide relevant awards information to targeted groups easily and quickly.
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A Success Story:

How Cambrian College Optimized their Awards Management System

Cambrian College in Sudbury Ontario have been working with the Fuel to Learn System for the last few years. Their Development Manager, Brian Soucie, remarks on how complicated Cambrian’s system had become prior to working with Fuel to Learn:

“Before implementing the Awards Management System, I wouldn’t have called what we were doing a ‘system’. We weren’t managing our awards in an efficient manner. We recognized there were flaws with our processes, and we looked to RESolutionsTECH to help us out.”

Cambrian’s former process involved paper applications, and students had to spend time reading through a list of awards on the school website to determine which awards they could apply for. On the administrative side, the awards department kept all their awards, donor, and recipient information in several different files; accessing, maintaining, and updating these records was complicated, and difficult for more than one person to manage. When the submission deadline came and all applications were in, staff would dedicate the next 4 weeks to data entry and application management.

After implementing Fuel to Learn, Cambrian can now say they have a system. Awards information can quickly be uploaded into the system, and students can easily search and apply for awards online. For the administrative staff, all the information is stored in a central location, making access and management simple and effective. With an easy export, the application information can be exported from the system, and imported into Cambrian’s database. Since implementing this system, Cambrian has saved time and money, and increased the number of applications by 30%.

Brian reflects on the new system that has been put in place:

“We can see the value in our use of Fuel to Learn, on a daily basis. This has made a positive difference to our processes every day. Our students have also thanked us for implementing this online application system. Students expect to have access to information through the web. We have a responsibility to our students to bring the latest and greatest technology and innovation, and we are proud to be able to do so with our awards program. Our old system was working, but we knew it could be greatly improved. We saw an opportunity to adapt, change, be responsive to students, and be proactive.”

See the whole success story at http://www.resolutionstech.com/Files/ftlpdf3.pdf