7 Ways to Highlight Scholarship Award Recipients

Once the applications are done being evaluated, and the scholarship selection is complete, the fun begins. This is the most exciting aspect of scholarship management. Sending each recipient a scholarship award letter is what makes all the hours of work worth it. The question is - how can you leverage this time into a powerful promotion strategy for your next round?

In this post, we’ll explore seven ways to highlight the people lucky enough to receive an award acceptance letter while at the same time getting the word out about the amazing work your program is doing.

1. Share the news on your website

While this might seem like the most obvious means of announcing the winners, not every scholarship committee does this. We recommend adding a blurb about the social impact of your program, and sharing the statistics of how many people applied, how much money was given, and some details about the winners if possible (i.e. what they plan to do with the funds).

Writing up a report and sharing the scholarship award announcement to your website does a couple of things for you:

• It gives you a dedicated space to share the good news every year
• Having this information documented on your website also makes it easy to share information with potential donors 
• You can highlight current donors as a thank you, and
• Take advantage of SEO opportunities to drive organic traffic for future rounds of your scholarship.

2. Send a press release to local media

Admittedly, this is most helpful if you have a hyperlocal scholarship. National scholarships may be more difficult to promote to the media. For local scholarships though, this is a great way to potentially get news coverage to promote your program, donors, and winners.

Begin by identifying relevant media outlets in the community. Craft a concise press release highlighting the scholarship's purpose, eligibility criteria, application deadlines, and any notable features. Personalize pitches to each outlet, emphasizing the scholarship's relevance to their audience. Include clear contact information for inquiries and follow-ups. Utilize email, online submission forms, or phone calls to share the press release. Additionally, consider leveraging social media platforms and community bulletin boards for broader visibility. Maintain regular communication with local media to nurture ongoing partnerships and ensure effective coverage of the scholarship opportunity.

3. Announce it on social media

Where you will announce it may depend on the nature of your scholarship. For example, if you have hundreds of winners nationwide, it won’t exactly be easy to share an image of all recipients together and tag them on Facebook. However, if you have created a scholarship winner announcement on your website, it makes it much easier to share the good news on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter with a link, short post, and an image. Even on Instagram you could create a simple graphic and share the link to the announcement in your bio. In this case, you can post to Instagram from Mac to ensure highest content quality.

When possible though, if you can snap an image of recipients together such as at an awards ceremony, do so. Many people like to see their image and share it to their own profiles for friends and family to celebrate with them.

4. Host an awards ceremony

Again this will be dependent on the nature of your scholarship because it may not be possible to bring recipients together if they are scattered across the country. On the other hand, local scholarship awards are much easier to host. Be sure to hire a photographer to snap photos that can be used for social media and post-event marketing efforts.

5. Share the news to everyone who applied

If you’re using awards management software, not only is it easy to create a scholarship award letter, you can send a message to everyone who applied letting them know the winners have been selected. In your message, share the link to your web announcement listing all recipients. In addition, learn how to start a blog to share the good news with your audience more professionally.

6. Ask sponsors to share it on their platforms

These scholarships wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of your sponsors and donors. Ask them to share the news on their websites and social media platforms too. Not only will this keep the excitement going for award recipients, it will give your sponsors a feel good story to share with their fans, followers, prospects, and/or clients. 

7. Use the announcement in your post-program marketing materials

You don’t need to list every scholarship recipient, but highlighting a few of the people who earned a scholarship in brochures, social media status updates, and more will connect real faces to the program. This will make it much easier to bring in donors and encourage people to apply because they will see people just like them have successfully applied and earned scholarships.

Bonus tip: Do follow-up success stories

Everyone loves a good success story. While it might not always be easy to keep tabs on past recipients, doing so will give you many more opportunities to tell your community about the amazing work your scholarship is doing. Every six months to a year, send out a quick email to your database of winners asking them how things are going and what they are up to. Then, ask the people with the best responses for permission to share on your blog and on social media.

SmarterSelect makes the award selection and announcement process easier

SmarterSelect’s award management system is the best tool for scholarship management. Our software can be connected with more than 3,000 other software applications making social shares, newsletter announcements, and survey creation effortless.

We even simplify the process of writing a scholarship award letter with our award announcement template. Learn about all of the amazing features our software has to offer by signing up for a free trial.

FAQ's

Here are the top ways to highlight scholarship award recipients while also getting the word out about the work our scholarship program is doing:

• Share the news on your website
• Send a press release to local media
• Announce it on social media
• Host an awards ceremony
• Share the news with everyone who applied
• Ask the sponsors to share it on their platforms
• Use the announcement in your post-program marketing materials.

Writing up a report and sharing the scholarship award announcement to your website helps in the following ways:

• Gives you a dedicated space to share the good news every year
• Makes it easy to share information with potential donors 
• You can highlight current donors as a ‘thank you’
• Take advantage of SEO opportunities to drive organic traffic for future rounds of your scholarship.