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Stopping Scholarship Disbursement - No thank you note

Tammy Mitchum

Good Morning,

I would like to see how many institutions are stopping disbursements, due to a student no turning in a thank you note? Also, if you are stopping disbursements and you are using Banner as your primary system, would you be willing to share code for this process.

Thanks,

Tammy Mitchum

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Award Management

Comments

Lisa Knight

Good morning,

I am looking to adopt a policy like this Our students are just completing their thank you letters (COVID-19 delayed the process). Students have been told if they do not submit a thank you letter, they will not receive their Spring disbursement. Thus far, we have only had 2 students not complete the process (submitting a scholarship acceptance form). I need to ask my colleague in Financial Aid if it was coded in Banner.

Lisa Knight

Stewardship Coordinator

Winston-Salem State University

Jaime Fortier

We also do not disburse funds until a thank you note/card has been received. With COVID I did relax the requirement a bit and did accept thank you's via email. I then hand writing the message on a card that is sent to the donor.

We also have students that do not complete the thank you however the funds are not disbursed to their student account until the thank you has been received. I send a few reminder emails and then a final email will be sent letting them know the award is being awarded to the next qualified student.

I do not work with Banner so am not able to answer that part. I do let Fin/Aid know of the awards and then the removal of awards so they can adjust their aid if needed.

Jaime Fortier

Foundation/Scholarship Coordinator

Western Technical College

Jodie Peterson

We do not disburse until the student has submitted a thank you letter, and it has been approved by the opportunity admin. Until this is done, the scholarship sits in an 'offered' status in banner, to prevent disbursement. Once the thank you letter is reviewed and accepted, the opportunity admin re-categorizes the award to 'awarded', and our overnight processes switch the award to 'accepted' in banner.

Jodie

Systems Support Analyst

Rebecca McKinney

We require recipients to complete an acceptance questionnaire, upload a thank you letter, and upload a picture before disbursing the award. Once everything is received, I send a list to Financial Aid. Recipients receive at least three reminders before I rescind an award and choose the next eligible applicant.

Russel Heskin

We've only completed one cycle with Award Management, but our implementation manager suggested we set up our process as follows, which works for us: Our various college-based award committees "Select" recipients, which then prompts an automated email notifying recipients of their award and that they must submit a post-acceptance questionnaire. The questionnaire requires a thank you message, recipient photo, and student consent to share those with the donor. Then I (University Advancement) approve the post-acceptance questionnaire by changing the post-acceptance category to a custom "UA Reviewed Ready to Award" (and work with my development directors to distribute the messages and photos to the appropriate donors). Financial Aid doesn't disburse funds until a recipient is in the "UA Reviewed..." category.

Tammy Mitchum

Hey Russel,

That is similar to what I was thinking of
using too, a custom setup, that my IT would need to assist
with. Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks,

Tammy Mitchum

Assistant Director

Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships

Stephen F. Austin State University

Class of ‘04

936-468-5561

mitchumtm@sfasu.edu

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Mallorie Fonseca

We use the same method as some of the others have commented. Our system is set up to not import to Banner until after the student has submitted their Post-Acceptance / Thank you letter. This is monitored by our Foundation team and our Financial Aid team monitors the disbursements after they import to Banner. This way, we know students are not skipping their post-acceptance/thank you steps on the system and would not 'accidentally' get their award beforehand. I know some of our codes in Banner are set up to require additional information (such as a completed FAFSA), so our IT has created error reports to let us know when that happens or a scholarship cannot disburse for other reasons (not attending, etc.). It's been pretty smooth so far.

Dee Dee Wallace

Good Morning,

Yes we require all of our students to upload a Donor Thank You letter into Academic Works. I send out multiple email reminders, a final phone call and a final written letter before I actually remove the scholarship. I first decline the scholarship on Academic Works. As for BANNER, when I initially put the scholarship on BANNER, it is coded as PSTY (please send thank you) on ROARMAN. Once I actually receive the Thank You letter, I go back into BANNER and change the code to from PSTY to ACPT (accept). It then disburses to the student account. If I have to remove the scholarship, I just delete it off the student's account on ROARMAN and then make a note that I removed the scholarship in RHACOMM. I'm not sure if that is the information you were looking for. Feel free to reach out to me directly and I can discuss it further with you. You can reach me at dwallace15@wctc.edu or 262-691-5284.

Thank you

Dee Dee Wallace

Cheryl Whitman

We are much the same. We collect thank you notes right in the system and they can either upload a written thank you or type it right in the scholarship. It is based on donor or perhaps user preference. It is a part of post acceptance and is a required document along with a short statement telling the donor a little about themselves and their plans. A request for an upload of a picture of themselves that is NOT required is also part of the post acceptance. We find donors love these additional statements and pictures. Once the required documents are received and they have accepted the award, we move them to "Ready for OFA" and upload them into a queue for addition to their package. On our general application we also ask if they would be willing to speak at an event and/or share their story in our alumni periodicals all of which University Advancement oversees and if seek their consent to share their information.

We also send reminder emails and we may do it several times. We have also sent a warning email reminder of the loss of the scholarship if they do not take action which includes a deadline date. Since we do not load any offers into our system until all required items are complete, we haven't felt the need to do more than we already have. Depending on timing, workload etc., and sometimes personal contact from a donor we may re-award to other individuals.

Cheryl Whitman

Michigan State University

Tammy Mitchum

Thanks Cheryl!

Tammy Mitchum

Assistant Director

Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships

Stephen F. Austin State University

Class of ‘04

936-468-5561

mitchumtm@sfasu.edu

Lori Tatsch

Hi Tammy,

We do not disburse funds until the post-acceptance has been completed, which includes a required thank you, photo, and consent to share information, etc. We allow 14 days for the post-acceptance to be submitted or the award is revoked and offered to the next qualified applicant. An automatic reminder is sent 4 days before the deadline and sometimes phone calls are made, or additional email reminders sent.

Lori Ann Tatsch

Scholarship System Coordinator

Dallas College Foundation

1601 S Lamar Street –Suite 130

Dallas, TX 75215-1816

214-378-1555 direct

www.foundation.dcccd.edu

Colleen Long

We also prevent scholarship disbursement if a student has not completed their thank you letter. When we award in CAPS, the API adds the fund to RPAAWRD in Banner, however also puts up a thank you letter requirements in RRAAREQ. We have each fund set up to prevent disbursement for any student who has not completed this through the fund set up in RFRMGMT just as an extra line of protection in case they are mistakenly included on a fund disbursement report.

Elaina Ozrovitz

While there has been some discussion, it hasn't come up often enough for me to pursue it. Therefore, we currently do not require student letters, although we do request them.

Farrah Trimble

A thank-you letter (field box, not upload) is required to be awarded. Students who do not provide the letter by the deadline are declined. We do not offer an extension except in the most rare situations. The letters are part of our donor packets. We don't "flip" in Banner until the deadline has passed and the letter is submitted.

If a student makes a mistake on their letter, we sometimes correct small typos. Otherwise the student is contacted an give two days to provide a replacement.

In previous years, we did the letter upload. Since moving to the field box, we see few missed letters.