We are working toward "less paper" in our office, so Community Force has helped us keep everything all in one place. Scholars United is an amazing resource with their videos, and support has been amazing. I have contacted them in an absolute panic some days, and they have always been helpful and efficient. I could not ask for better service! They always explain things in the easiest way possible and provide screenshots to show me what I need to know. A+ service!

The ease of use! I enjoy creating sections for my applications because it is very self-directed and easy to understand. With minimal issues I have crafted multiple scholarship and grant applications, and each and every one is customizable with lots of options! We also enjoy learning all of the new functions we can utilize as time goes on. It's nice knowing that when I set something up in CF it will work. One thing we could explore in the future is blind applications.

What I like least is the limitations on reports that can be run from the system. There is a built-in AdHoc Reports feature, but it is limited to Excel. I would love for there to be different ways to run the reports - mainly Microsoft Word or Publisher. Our issue is we have essays with some of our scholarships, and fitting an essay box on an Excel spreadsheet while still trying to make it user friendly isn't possible! I would love to see reports where each each qualifying student could have all of the information needed on one page of a report. So if there are 15 students who qualify, there would be 15 pages, one for each student, in the report. Easier to read than an Excel spreadsheet that scrolls and scrolls.

We have been a CommunityForce customer for just under a year now. Before making the switch to the CommunityForce solution, we utilized a home grown custom built solution to support 6 individual scholarship programs. As with many home-grown systems, it had reached a point of no longer being feasible for us to support. But most importantly, we finally came to the realization as an organization that we are not in the business of being software developers. Our purpose is our mission, which is providing educational opportunities to women. After an exhaustive search, we decided on the CommunityForce solution. It is a decision that we are fortunate to be reminded of daily as being the right one. As you can imagine coming from a custom-built solution that was tailored around our business processes, there were certain facets of the system unique to our organization. These facets became embedded in our operating policy, which turned into requirements for CommunityForce. CommunityForce stepped up to the plate and in short order added the functionality into their solution to accommodate our uniqueness. To date they continue to step up to provide solutions vs. presenting barriers to our requests. As with any implementation of new technology there are always challenges, but the CommunityForce team was always and continues to be there to help us overcome them. Because of their implementation approach and intuitiveness of the solution, we are fully capable ourselves of building additional application workflows with the support of the CommunityForce team as needed. I think the best way sum up our experience with CommunityForce to date is to say this. Even though we are fully aware CommunityForce has hundreds of customers like ourselves, we are made to feel like we are their only customer. We are fully committed to being a customer for life!

Support Team. Ease of use. Cost to operate compared to the previous solution. Road map for the future.

none

We found that our users of our scholarship platform found the software was easy to input information and that the technology requirements was not overwhelming. In addition, we found once we learned the system, we, as administrators found it easier to work with. If you have strong skills in technology you will love the autonomy of this system.

It was not always easy to go into the system to clone the application and then make necessary changes in the new application. It did require a lot of learning and reviewing numerous videos to find the best way to proceed. In all honesty, this was a self service platform and one needed to become very adept at the technology required to fully implement the application platform. In addition, it was not possible to have multiple applications opened, released and tracked simultaneously and easily which was a requirement for our college saving account application. By means of tracking, there was no way to develop student profiles and connect email communication directly to the student that would cover an extended period of time.

Time management by implementing and utilizing the Scholarship Management Software is phenomenal. Having the ability to bundle and send applications to reviewers within 24 hours of the application deadlines is incredible. We were able to accept applications over a 3-4 month period. Then bundle, send to reviewers, score and award all within a very short time frame (2 weeks) that would have taken 30 days or more. Electronic documentation of an unbiased and blind review process is easy and efficient.

We found the integration of the Scholarship Management Software super easy to use and implement with our applicants. Having a one to many application allowed applicants to apply for multiple scholarships increasing the overall number of applicants for consideration. Plus the software allowed us to customize questions, outline donor specific criteria for each scholarship, streamline recommendation letters with specific questions and the ability to upload supporting documents.

The most challenging aspect is that we are in the system with both grant management and scholarship management sporadically throughout the year. We implemented the software at a time Community Force was launching the new platform, therefore our training was originally on the old platform. Additional Training was and is available however, having a step by step written instructions work best for us. Once you have an overall knowledge of how the system works, keeping the online support current with program changes becomes essential. Our only other challenge is the inability to call and talk directly with support. We have found articulating the challenge through email or communication threads does not also expediate a solution quickly. The support is overall great.

Customer service responds incredibly fast. Users log the issue through the Zen Desk and an email is sent almost immediately for initial troubleshooting, after which a tech representative follows up with step-by-step assistance. Community Force's customer service is their strongest asset.

Having the ability to set up a scholarship program with over 130 scholarships with varied criteria was a great benefit. We are able to have one common application that matches student information to each scholarship fund's criteria. The program tracks scholarship award amounts annually, has the ability for students to accept their scholarship via the same application, and we can communicate with students through the program with notifications of upcoming deadlines and other vital information. The common application can also be cloned and updated each year so a new application is not created from zero yearly.

We do wish a text messaging option were available to communicate since students are very text-driven.

We received many benefits from Community Force's scholar's united application. It's nice having a robust application portal that can handle many different scholarship funds - all with different application questions and criteria. I highly recommend the software to anyone with small or large scholarship programs.

I like that this product employs case logic technology so that our applicants can be screened prior to creating a profile and starting an application, or applying for the one of our multiple scholarships using the wrong application form. I also like that students are allowed to upload supporting documents into the application.

Our selections criteria and scoring matrix are very complex and don't really synch well with SU's evaluation system. As such, we score our applications separately outside of the system, which isn't all that bad because it's very easy to export the application data to a MS Excel spreadsheet. It would be nice if CF and SU could add a CRM feature to their product so that we can continue tracking student payments while they are receiving funding from our program, and then after they've graduated, keep them in the system for alumni cultivation and communication purposes.

Ease of awarding the scholarship and no more paper piles on my desk. The mailroom used to get tons of applications on the last day of the deadline and it was overwhelming having to make copies of every single essay and enough copies of each for our judges. It was very difficult the old way and this has streamlined our process immensely.

This program has streamlined our application process by 100%. We received twice as many applications and the students were very computer savvy so it was a breeze for them to fill out. The emails sent to them were received and they responded if they had questions so it was very helpful to be able to email more than one person at a time. The spreadsheet to export was nice to have when a complete list of applicants was needed. This program made this years application process a fantastic experience instead of the dread each year when 50 applications showed up on the due date! Our mailroom was quite happy as well! Overall this was a delight to have this year and look forward to next year!

What I do not like is the Help Center. I have tried to type in simple questions like "how to sort columns" there was not an answer for it. I loved the training videos that I participated in an simply watch those for the information. I feel that the training videos on the Help Center were made by the computer savvy employees of the company that are way more technical that the average person learning to use this software for the first time.

We enhanced the faculty and student experience dramatically by providing easy to access and consolidated views to opportunities. The workflow of pre and post award was outstanding.

Easy-to-use and administer. Integrates easily with student information systems and SSO. We now have a way for students, faculty and staff to go to a single portal to search, find and apply to various award opportunities. This has vastly improved the overall engagement with our community.

The largest complaint, if that may be a complaint is the limited ability to customize the look and feel of the landing page for the portal. This is important as the default 'look' is quite different (primitive) from other services available online.

The customer service is exceptional. Each time I've had an issue, customer service answered in a timely manner.

At times, the platform was a bit confusing. I attribute that to my lack of use/knowledge.

Overall: We originally had a paper process and in 2014 we chose CommunityForce ScholarsUnited as the tool to help us manage our fellowship applications. CommunityForce has really streamlined the application process and reduced the use of packets and binders to manage the applications we get each cycle. e are very satisfied customers of CommunityForce!

Pros: As a one-person shop, I am able to manage the lifecycle of the fellowship applications without a full team backing me up.

Cons: One item we have requested is the ability to have even more customized status details so that we can apply multiple status’ to an application.

Good!

CF Software is very easy to use and is intuitive for administrator, applicants and reviewers! If I have a question the help support is timely and the CSR's are always helpful.

I really don't have any cons to share. When converting our previous applications from paper it was a long process but went smoothly.

I believe overall the experience with CommunityForce has been positive and onboarding people have been quite nice. There are some problems we run with CommunityForce but we've been able to make certain workarounds.

It has helped streamline many of our past processes, and I also think it's a huge help with the consistent training available and the Zendesk hub.

Some customization functionality such as notifications can be improved.

The accessibility of customer support, ease of implementation, and additional support provided through videos/tutorials.

I can't think of any at this time in regards to the software.

Representative has been a pleasure to work with over the years and provides excellent training and is always available for follow-up questions.

Students have a one-stop shop for all of our 36 different scholarship funds. The reviewers and selection process is much easier and friendly to use.

There is so many options/features that sometimes it seems overwhelming when building the database.

Affordable and reliable product

The software is fine but I'm writing to thank Irah, Client Success Associate, for her quick and helpful responses to my questions. She was able to remote into the account with me and walk me through the changes I need to make.

I need to use this more often to describe any deficits.

We have been working with Community Force since 2014. My experience with them has been excellent.

Easy to use for students and reviewers. Fairly easy to update from one year to the next. Excellent customer support.

It's not super easy for the admin to make changes to the system.

Overall I think the program is well done and made exceptional by the CommunityForce staff.

The staff is amazing! Always quick to respond and always there with a solution to any requests/problems!

The system could be a little more user friendly as far as navigation, but that may be somewhat attributable to our infrequent use of the platform.

Being able to follow the applicant through the whole scholarship lifecycle.

Times out too quickly. I need o switch between other software and often the time CommunityForce kicks an Admin out is VERY short.

I can clone scholarships from year-to-year, and everything rolls over, so I don't have to start from scratch.

I haven't found anything I don't like so far.

Community Force fits our needs to recruit scholars. I am new to the program so I have reached out to customer support multiple times. [SENSITIVE CONTENT] and [SENSITIVE CONTENT] were both helpful and went above and beyond my expectations to ensure I was able to access the required data. They also helped to customize the questions as needed. I am impressed with the sincerity of their employees and the quickness of their responses.

The software is not as user friendly due to html coding on the front side but it is easily learned.