Foundations & Corporations: Here's How to Promote Your Scholarships

For foundations, corporations, and other organizations that aren’t higher education institutions, that can be a challenge – there’s no list of current and prospective students to target. Instead, you need to rely on two time-tested strategies: raising awareness through word of mouth and creating urgency by incentivizing early applications.

Start with Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is generally considered the most effective form of marketing, so it’s our top recommendation for creating awareness about your scholarships. As soon as you’re ready to accept applications, target these groups of people to help you promote your program far and wide:

• Engage past recipients to help spread the word. Prepare a short message with all important program details for previous recipients to post on social media and forward via email with their networks. Making it simple for people to share your message will increase the chances that they do. 
• Inform local high school guidance counselors and major employers. Guidance counselors can shepherd high school students through the application process while local employers will help you reach non-traditional students. Focus on those organizations that are likely to employ those students who meet your most specialized scholarships’ requirements. For example, if you want more applicants for a nursing scholarship, your local hospitals and major medical centers will be the best places to focus your promotion energy. 
• Remind your reviewers, employees, volunteers, and others at your organization. Scholarship reviewers can be enthusiastic supporters of your institution in addition to being knowledgeable about your scholarship offering, making them great scholarship advocates. Ask them and anyone else who is in the know to spread the word among their friends and family!

Stay Top of Mind with Early Bird Deadlines

Once you’ve spread the word about your scholarship program, you can ensure that everyone who heard about your scholarships completes their applications by incentivizing early submission.

Offer the chance to qualify for an additional small scholarship by applying before the early bird deadline. Motivated individuals will complete their applications early, allowing for plenty of time to troubleshoot any problems they have with the process. Plus, the early bird deadline gives you more opportunities to promote the deadlines and incentives. Make sure you have consistent messaging in places your applicants are likely to see it. Create a few images or short messages that your past recipients, local schools and employers, and reviewers, employees, and volunteers can share on social media, via email, or in a printed flyer.

By employing these two strategies, you can drive more awareness of your scholarship program and increase the overall number of applications you receive, which is a great first step to ensuring a successful scholarship cycle. To make sure your applicants are well qualified, read our guide to increasing qualified applicants, too.