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Blackbaud Award Management is a module built for institutions already inside the Blackbaud ecosystem. Awarded is a purpose-built scholarship management platform — with deeper awarding automation, more powerful compliance tools, and donor stewardship capabilities designed for the full fund lifecycle.
Institutions that choose Awarded typically see higher student engagement rates, achieve better fund utilization, and save weeks of time per team member — not to mention the donor reporting and stewardship benefits
Awarded is designed from the ground up for scholarship fund management — with automation for awarding, renewals, compliance, and award removals, plus stewardship tools for advancement, all in a single platform that connects to your ERP, not just your CRM.
Blackbaud Award Management extends the Raiser's Edge and Blackbaud CRM ecosystem to track scholarship awards and link them to gift records. It's a useful module if your institution is already deep in the Blackbaud stack — but it's an add-on layered onto a fundraising CRM, not a purpose-built awarding platform.
Why Institutions Switch
Blackbaud's awarding module works within its CRM universe. Awarded works across your entire scholarship operation — whether or not you use Blackbaud for anything else.
Blackbaud Award Management is a module layered onto a CRM designed primarily for fundraising. Awarded was purpose-built for scholarship operations — every workflow, every automation, and every report is designed around how financial aid and advancement actually manage scholarship funds.
Blackbaud's awarding module tracks awards after humans make the decisions. Awarded's rules engine reads fund criteria, evaluates eligible students from your ERP data, and awards automatically — including removing awards when students fall out of eligibility. Your staff reviews exceptions, not every award.
Each year, multi-year scholarships need to re-evaluate whether recipients still meet GPA, enrollment, and major requirements. Awarded runs this automatically at renewal time. Blackbaud's module requires more manual re-evaluation each cycle.
Scholarship disbursements need to reconcile with your student information system and general ledger. Awarded integrates directly with Banner, Colleague, Workday, PeopleSoft, and Jenzabar — an area where Blackbaud's award module has limitations outside its own ecosystem.
Every scholarship fund has gift agreement criteria. Awarded stores the agreement, parses the restrictions, and flags any award that would violate donor intent before it's disbursed. Blackbaud's module tracks awards well, but has more limited compliance capabilities around original gift agreement terms.
Awarded generates personalized donor impact reports with recipient photos, academic progress, major details, and thank-you messages — automatically, for every fund. Blackbaud users typically export data manually and format reports separately, which takes considerably more time.
Blackbaud Award Management lives in advancement's CRM — meaning financial aid staff work in a system built for fundraisers. Awarded gives both teams a shared view designed for their respective workflows, so nothing gets lost between departments.
Awarded supports full fund audit workflows and manages non-scholarship fund types — giving your team a single source of truth across your entire restricted fund portfolio, beyond just scholarship awards.
Feature Comparison
| Feature / Capability | Awarded | Blackbaud Award Management |
|---|---|---|
| Scholarship award tracking & record keeping | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Gift record linkage to awards | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Online student application portal | ✓ Yes | ⚬ Limited |
| Automated rules-based awarding engine | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Automated award removal when eligibility is lost | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Automated multi-year renewal logic | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Gift agreement compliance tracking | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Donor intent compliance alerts | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Fund utilization dashboards (real-time) | ✓ Yes | ⚬ Limited |
| Automated donor impact reports | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Thank-you letter collection workflow | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Fund Audits | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Gift Agreement Creation | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Non-Scholarship Fund Management | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| ERP integration (Banner, Workday, PeopleSoft) | ✓ Yes | ⚬ Blackbaud ecosystem only |
| Financial aid staff portal (FA-native UI) | ✓ Yes | ✗ No — CRM only |
| Student text + email automation | ✓ Yes | ⚬ Limited |
| Shared FA + Advancement platform | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
Common Questions
We're a Blackbaud shop — does Awarded replace our CRM, or work alongside it?
Awarded integrates with Raiser's Edge and Blackbaud CRM rather than replacing them. Your development team can continue using Blackbaud for fundraising and major gift work. Awarded handles the scholarship management layer — awarding, compliance, and stewardship — and syncs relevant data back to your CRM.
How does Awarded's ERP integration work if we use Blackbaud for financials?
Awarded supports multiple integration approaches including Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT and connects via API or file exchange. If your institution uses a separate student information system, Awarded integrates with both — connecting scholarship data to your ERP for disbursement reconciliation.
Does Awarded have tools for our advancement office, not just financial aid?
Absolutely. Advancement teams use Awarded to track fund utilization, generate donor impact reports, collect thank-you letters from recipients, and manage stewardship workflows. It's designed from the ground up to serve both financial aid and development — giving both teams a shared platform designed for their respective workflows.
How much faster are donor reports with Awarded compared to manual processes?
Institutions that previously spent months manually pulling recipient data, formatting in Word or InDesign, and mailing reports are now generating personalized donor impact reports in under a week. The content is drawn automatically from recipient records already in Awarded.
What does the implementation process look like?
Awarded's team handles fund data migration from your existing systems, integration setup with your ERP and CRM, criteria configuration for your fund portfolio, and staff training for both financial aid and advancement — with a dedicated implementation partner through go-live.
Attract & retain more students and donors starting today.
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