University of Wisconsin-Madison
Simplifying Award Management by Moving All Scholarship Opportunities to a Single, Specialized Platform
Higher Education Institutions
We wanted a solution that specialized in scholarship management and one that was widely and successfully used by our peers at large, decentralized institutions. Blackbaud Award Management™ met that need.”
With the right technology, the University of Wisconsin–Madison manages a robust scholarship program to help provide students with a superior education.
UW–Madison focuses award management with
solution that works for everyone.
Prior to implementing Blackbaud Award Management, the University of
Wisconsin–Madison was using a homegrown online system to manage
all its different scholarship processes across campus. While this brought the
application process online, the campus was very decentralized with
each school and college managing its own scholarship processes. And
with so many different processes taking place simultaneously, there was
confusing messaging for incoming students about where to apply and
submit their information.
Blackbaud’s cloud award management solution enabled UW–Madison to
bring all its scholarship opportunities into one single platform and manage
the scholarship process from start to finish while still meeting the needs
of its individual schools and colleges. Assistant Director of Special Awards Keith Brown explained, “We wanted a solution that specialized in scholarship
management and one that was widely and successfully used by our peers at
large, decentralized institutions. Blackbaud Award Management met that need.”
Streamlining Awards for Incoming Students
Awarding incoming student scholarships is a big focus at UW–Madison and
crucial to its recruitment efforts, especially in the different schools and colleges
across campus. Previously, the College of Letters & Science accepted paper
applications, transcripts, and reference letters. As a result, staff had to manage
a manual review process that took more than 360 hours to complete and had
to constantly verify that all enrollment and transcript data was accurate. With
Blackbaud Award Management, the college could forgo the incoming
student application process completely by automatically importing student
data into an open scholarship opportunity and filtering students based on
specific criteria to make their awarding decisions. By importing the necessary
information, the college has the latest student data and visibility into whether a
student has accepted an offer and/or if they need to re-award any funds based
on admissions status or updated transcript data.
“Blackbaud Award Management allows us to easily filter out ineligible
students and has cut our reviewing time down to just 120 hours,” said Alison
Rice, Letters & Science College scholarship administrator. “We’re able to
empower our scholarship administrators across campus allowing them to
customize their processes, while implementing improvements that facilitate a
smooth and efficient process.”
2/3 Less Time
College of Letters & Science scholarship review process reduced from 360 to 120 hours
Simplifying Scholarship Management
Once awarding decisions have been made, Blackbaud Award Management
empowers UW–Madison scholarship officers to make offers and
then seamlessly disburse the funds via the financial aid office. There is no
more miscommunication about where applications or transcripts need to
be sent as the solution gives students instant access to all their scholarship
opportunities, making the entire process simple for both the university
and students to navigate and complete.
Blackbaud Award Management helped UW–Madison streamline its freshman
awarding process, automate its data imports, and create one centralized
scholarship platform that still meets the needs of individual schools and
colleges on campus.
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