Case Study: Hamilton Community Foundation achieves streamlined, paper-free scholarship management with Blackbaud’s AcademicWorks

Hamilton Community Foundation - Customer Case Study

Hamilton Community Foundation, a long-standing community foundation in Hamilton, Ohio, was managing scholarships with a paper-based process dating back to 1954. As the foundation and applicant pool grew, paper applications caused deadline bottlenecks and administrative strain—students and counselors rushed last-minute submissions—and the foundation needed a better way to connect local donors with eligible students and simplify review workflows.

The foundation implemented AcademicWorks to move applications online, centralize and auto-match applicants to eligible scholarships, enable online reviewer scoring, export data to foundation software, and highlight donor profiles. The result: students apply on a single site, counselors field fewer questions, awards and donor communications are faster and more consistent, and donor stewardship and transparency have improved.

Hamilton Community Foundation

Katie Braswell

Vice President