Your association or higher education institution likely launched its awards program with the goal of recognizing individuals or groups in your community who have gone above and beyond in various ways. However, if you’re still managing awards using spreadsheets or multiple disjointed platforms, your team probably spends more time on administrative tasks than engaging awards program participants.
Fortunately, there is a better solution: end-to-end awards management software. In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about this technology, including:
Let’s get started by discussing what awards management software is and why it’s useful for programs like yours.
Awards management software is technology that centralizes and streamlines the process of recognizing standout community members at associations and higher ed institutions. The best awards management platforms assist with every step of program administration, from promoting award opportunities and collecting applications to tracking and visualizing data.
Some awards management systems also allow your organization to manage other application-and-review-based processes, such as abstracts, grants, scholarships, or fellowships. In any case, these solutions should help your team save time and resources while driving better program results.
The right awards management solution can provide multiple advantages to your organization, including:
Multi-function application management platforms also offer the benefit of consolidating several overlapping workflows into a single solution for easier access to information. However, all of these advantages are contingent upon your organization choosing the right software for its unique needs and having a strong awards management process in place that your tools can support.
Pricing for awards management software depends on your organization’s feature needs and individual providers’ cost structures. Some platforms offer defined pricing tiers, while others (including OpenWater) provide custom quotes for each customer.
Before you start shopping for a platform, establish a budget so you can ensure each solution you seriously consider fits within it. Remember to account for startup costs and other fees as well as basic subscriptions, and keep in mind that you sometimes get what you pay for with free or ultra-low-cost tools.
In addition to aligning with your budget, your awards management software needs to be user-friendly and secure, provide sufficient customer support, and match your intended implementation timeline. But most importantly, it has to include all of the necessary features for your specific program structure to operate efficiently.
Although different organizations’ needs will vary, there are a few awards software features that tend to benefit associations and higher ed institutions across the board. Read on to learn more about each one, and use the checklist below as you evaluate different options.
Effectively managing an awards program starts with providing a smooth application experience on both sides. Make sure your software’s submission form builder includes:
Some solutions even allow you to build a microsite or landing page for your awards program and embed the submission forms you’ve created all in one place. If your software doesn’t have a website builder feature, make sure you can easily add your forms to your main website and create a page there that explains eligibility requirements and submission instructions.
Multi-round judging processes are among the easiest ways to promote integrity and fairness within your awards program. Choose a solution that automatically routes each submission to multiple reviewers, who can then log into your system and immediately see and score all of their assigned applications.
Your software should also allow you to remove applicant, nominee, and nominator names from submissions and develop standardized review rubrics to further minimize bias. These features don’t replace the offline processes of carefully vetting reviewers and assigning them to judge opportunities that align with their expertise without causing conflicts of interest, but they’re a strong step toward impartiality.
Awards program participants expect timely communication from your team about recognition opportunities, instructions, decisions, and next steps. Keeping lines of communication open, both internally and with your reviewers, is also important for smooth administration. Awards management software with a built-in email tool helps you achieve these purposes by:
Check that your email templates (and all public-facing aspects of your awards software, for that matter) are also mobile-friendly. Given that the average American spends more than five hours per day on their smartphone, it’s likely that many potential applicants will access your communications and materials from mobile devices, and their user experience should be just as good as if they viewed your messages on a computer.
Beyond communicating decisions, your awards platform should help you execute the most exciting aspect of your program: honoring winners! A solution that allows you to create online galleries showcasing winners’ projects or other achievements is especially useful, since you can transfer essential details directly from your saved submissions into your gallery.
If your solution includes a more comprehensive website builder, you might use that feature to announce other recognition methods, such as sharing details about award events or linking to social media posts you’ve made about individual winners. Just remember to always get recipients’ consent before sharing their names or photos online in any format.
Real-time data collection, visualization, and interpretation are essential for understanding what your awards program is doing well and how you can improve going forward. Your software should be able to track information like:
Dashboard creation and report downloading are useful for making sense of this information and demonstrating program success. This area is also where security is especially important—some of the data you store in your awards software may be sensitive, so measures like limited user permissions, two-factor authentication, and encryption are essential to protect these details.
Integrations ensure your awards platform works harmoniously with your association or higher ed institution’s existing tech stack by allowing data to transfer seamlessly between solutions. Look for integration capabilities with the following solution types:
It’ll be easier to set up these connections if your awards software has a dedicated integrations hub, which allows for additional control and usually doesn’t require coding knowledge.
Now that you know what goes into a high-quality awards management system, you’re probably starting to consider your options. Let’s look more closely at a few of the top solutions on the market today.
OpenWater is a comprehensive application and review management system designed for associations, higher education institutions, and foundations to manage awards, abstracts, grants, scholarships, and fellowships. More than 750 organizations trust OpenWater to streamline every aspect of these processes and help them navigate their unique needs.
OpenWater has all of the features listed above and more to support your specific workflows. Highlights include:
To learn more about how real organizations like yours have leveraged OpenWater to improve their awards management processes, check out our case studies!
In addition to OpenWater, some other platforms you may investigate during your awards software purchasing process include:
Browse various providers’ websites, read reviews on third-party sites like G2 and Capterra, and ask for recommendations from other organizations in your network as you conduct research on these systems. Once you narrow your list down to your top three to five solutions, schedule demos of each one so a platform expert can show you how it works firsthand and answer your questions before you make your final decision.
For many associations and higher ed institutions, awards management software delivers quick returns—not only in time saved, but also in reduced errors, enhanced applicant and judge experiences, and data-driven program improvements. Use the feature explanations and tips above to start your search, and make sure to add OpenWater to your list of platforms to investigate for all of your application and review processes.
For more information on awards software, check out these resources: