Donor Guidance

Successful scholarships and fellowships require a well-defined three-way commitment among the donor, the student, and the recipient institution or organization. As you design and develop your partnership focused on social change, here are some basic questions to consider.

Defining Objectives For Your Program

Getting The Most Impact For Students

Building An Institutional Partnership

Planning A Future For The Program

What is your goal?

Learn from the work of your scholarship funding peers by exploring the Scholarships for Change Funding Map. You can query the map using unique “Desired Change” filters to identify funders who are working toward shared goals, learn the types of scholarships they are awarding, gather intelligence, and build your network.

What will the Institution or organization need in order to succeed, not just comply?

What form of recognition, if any, would you prefer for your support?

What is the institution's or organization's record in securing success for their students? What are their documented graduation rates and time to degree?

Do these students have the potential to become leaders in serving their communities or pursing their chosen fields?

Learn about more about programs designed to develop tomorrow’s leaders from these GrantCraft Case Studies about the Bonner Foundation’s Bonner Program and the Ford Foundation’s International Fellowship Program.

A diverse group of college students smile at the camera while sitting in an auditorium
Student leaders attend and represent their programs and campuses at the annual Banner Congress Meeting, from Transforming America Through Community Engagement Case Study

How will you define success?

Some donors are able to leverage their scholarship programs to impact society in a broad way, aiming to change whole institutions, industries, and specific communities through these awards. Learn the most frequent types of transformative goals that change-oriented funders are working toward from our Scholarships for Change Glossary identifying award types and desired change categories.

How will you measure progress toward success?

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are made up of 17 aspirational goals that serve as a universal call to action, providing a collective framework to identify areas of common interest and measure shared progress. Within each goal are unique targets that can help scholarship funders define strategies and what success looks like. 

Icons of Sustainable Development Goals: Quality Education, Gender Equality, Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Reduced Inequalities
Sustainable Development Goals Targets and Indicators

Are the relevant processes or student recruitment and admissions in place? Could they be improved?

Learn more about selecting the right institutional partners from this GrantCraft Case Study about the Mastercard Foundation’s Scholarship program, which supports students across Africa.

A college graduate dressed in a cap and gown speaks at a podium
Patricie Uwase, Mastercard Foundation Scholar at University of California Berkeley, from A Continent of Change Case Study

To address accounting and legal requirements, seek expert professional counsel. Relevant guidance is also available to members of the US-based Council on Foundations, National Scholarship Providers Organization, and similar organizations. In addition, FinAid offers useful resources for scholarship administration.

Learn More:
The questions above are excerpted from the Ford Foundation’s Guide, Funding Futures: Scholarships as Agents of Social Change, which is intended to illustrate how scholarship programs can make higher education more open and inclusive to all—and how the impact of well-designed scholarships can extend far beyond individual scholars.