Scholarships are more sought after than ever before because of the ever-expanding cost of attending college at the undergraduate or graduate degree levels. The National Center for Education Statistics reports the cost of attending an academic institution in the U.S. has grown from just over $11,000 to over $40,000 per year. The entrepreneur, Sam Haskell began his scholarship as a way of giving back but has since seen the benefits it offers himself and his business in different ways.
1. Improve Your Standing in the Community
There are many reasons why you may want your business to be a scholarship provider, including the way it can improve your businesses standing in the community. Every business wants to be seen as an important piece of any community with the ability to provide an effective area of assistance to community members who are looking for help. By providing financial assistance in the form of a scholarship, you can have some sense of control over how your funds are spent in your local community. Your standing in the community will be improved when you assist those looking for a scholarship from outside your business and within. Reviews and word of mouth referrals are more important than ever with those who benefit from your generosity likely to spread the word of your charitable endeavors.
2. Address a Gap in the Scholarship Sector
The scholarship sector is a wide one, but you may find you are seeing a lack of talent coming through the ranks with the correct qualifications for your business. Sam Haskell set up his scholarship because he worried the opportunities for those who had limited funds and financial backing were not available in the TV and Film sector. If you are hoping to bring more people of different backgrounds and socio-economic histories into your sector, you can look to create a scholarship in your name or that of your business. In the long-run, this may help you to see a more varied workforce make their way to your company and add to the different voices entering your industry.
3. Build Your Corporate Culture
The aim of your company should be to create a corporate culture that is committed to bringing success for the long-term. The Augusta Free Press explains the main concern for your company should be to develop a workforce with a passion for your brand and the sector you are working in. Corporate culture can be difficult to create, but assisting your future employees and your workforce in achieving their academic dreams will help build a passion for your company. Scholarships are a great way of building the loyalty many company’s and brands believe to be important in helping to create a team that will remain in place for years to come.
4. Achieve Your Marketing Objectives
Scholarships are a great way of helping your community to improve, but there is no reason to forget about the benefits they can bring to your own company, according to The Scholarship Hub. Marketing objectives are difficult to achieve, but the use of a scholarship will allow you to expand the number of students and their families you reach through targeted emails and paper literature. By expanding your marketing objectives into different areas, you will find the number of people you reach will expand as you find more contacts making their way to your brand.
5. Improve the Standard of Education of Your Workforce
Your workforce will be improved when you consistently provide them with academic opportunities to develop their skills and education. A workforce that is constantly developing its academic achievements will be better suited to the demands of the future than one that has not worked to improve its academic qualifications since leaving school or college in their youth. The desire to improve oneself is part of developing your workforce with the aid of scholarships and financial aid for new qualifications and academic advancement.
6. Increase Business Morale
Learning and achieving success in different areas of academia and trade-based studies can give your workforce a higher level of morale than those who are not learning or achieving for the future. Business morale is a difficult part of the business sector to achieve with your company benefitting from a group of employees who are well-educated and feel they are improving their lives within your industrial sector.