Scholarship Management System

The Vendor is required to provide for a comprehensive scholarship management system.
- System will support the university’s efforts in managing, awarding, and stewarding scholarships funded by both institutional and foundation sources.
- Enhance student access to scholarship opportunities, streamline administrative processes, support stewardship efforts, and provide robust reporting capabilities.
- Admitted students are evaluated using merit-based admission criteria and placed into a scholarship pool.
- Scholarship management system must be a comprehensive, web-based solution that meets or exceeds the following requirements:
1. Scholarship Administration
•    Capacity to host and manage a large portfolio of institutional and donor-funded scholarships.
•    Ability to set up scholarship criteria with flexibility for eligibility, including GPA, financial need, program of study, extracurricular involvement, etc.
•    Configurable application process, including customizable fields, forms, and workflows.
•    Ability to configure individual user groups for the purpose of system administration, scholarship review and awarding, stewardship, etc.
•    Customized option to identify a pool of applicants and match funds accordingly (currently this is function able through black baud award managements “Institutional Commitment” checkbox feature).
•    Integration or data exchange with the University’s existing Student Information System (currently Banner by Ellucian) and financial aid platforms.
2. Student Experience
•    Unified application interface for students to complete and submit scholarship applications.
•    Automated matching of students to eligible scholarships based on institutional data and application responses.
•    Customizable application options for students to complete based on criteria not accessible through institutional data.
•    Real-time application status tracking for students.
3. Review Process
•    Reviewer portal with ability to assign individuals or committees to review applications, including internal and external institutional partners.
•    Configurable scoring rubrics and workflows for evaluation.
•    Role-based access control for reviewers, administrators, and other stakeholders.
4. Awarding and Tracking
•    Ability to recommend, approve, and finalize scholarship awards.
•    Real-time integration or daily automated export of award data for coordination with financial aid awarding processes.
•    Ability to handle multi-year awards and renewal conditions.
5. Stewardship and Donor Reporting
•    System functionality for students to submit donor thank-you letters or media (photos, videos, etc.).
•    Donor profile management and historical scholarship recipient tracking.
•    Generation of customizable reports for internal tracking and donor stewardship.
6. Reporting and Analytics
•    Standard and customizable reports on applications, awards, recipient demographics, fund utilization, and more.
•    Export functionality of awarding history, student demographics, stewardship, etc. for the purposes of external analysis or reporting.
7. Technical and Security Requirements
•    Hosted, cloud-based solution with a proven record of high availability.
•    Compliance with act, and applicable data security standards (i.e. signal sign on).
•    Data retention, backup, and recovery protocols.
•    Vendor-provided user support, maintenance, and software updates.
8. Implementation and Support
•    Proposed implementation timeline with milestones and deliverables which meets the University awarding cycle (system/applications open November 1st).
•    Training for University staff (administrators, reviewers, etc.).
•    Ongoing technical support.

- Contract Period/Term: 3 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: August 19, 2025