1. Back to School - Again 10/13/2018 District I/II Fall Meeting 2018
Hello Live Your Dream Awards Region Chairs! Welcome to your Application Portal Region Chair Training. My name is Nora Blumenstein and I am the Program Director at SIA headquarters. I look forward to working with you to increase the impact of our Live Your Dream Awards and to support our members in the delivery of the program. I’m excited to share this new application process with you. Over the past several years, your headquarters office has received a lot of feedback from applicants, references, and club chairs about their experience with the application process. We listened, and we’ve made some changes. I think you’ll be excited about these improvements!
10/13/2018
District I/II Fall Meeting 2018

2. Why a New Application Process?
Our cornerstone program
Value the time & energy of members/applicants
Serve more women
So what’s the problem with the way it works now? Why do we need a new application process?
Imagine this:
Dawn is a single mom working on her nursing degree. She desperately needs more money to be able to finish school, but between her job, her kids, and her classes... she has such LITTLE time to apply for funding. She comes across our Live Your Dream Awards application, and the process seems easy enough. She collects the necessary financial information, and works up the courage to write about her goals and the obstacles she’s overcome. It was hard for her to write her story, but if she wins the funding, it will have been worth it, she tells herself.
Dawn tries again and again to make the current PDF application save properly. It’s confusing, so she s it directly to the Soroptimist Live Your Dream Awards club chair instead of submitting on SIA’s website. But when the club chair receives the application, it STILL doesn’t work. Dawn and the club chair go back and forth to see if she can you a copy that loads correctly. Dawn says she called Soroptimist headquarters and learned how to save the form, but when the club chair opens it, the text fields appear blank. After asking around, people tell the club chair it’s something with her software versus the applicant’s software, and no one really knows why it’s not working. So now the club chair has to send Dawn’s application to headquarters for them to do something called flattening to the application, and then wait for it to be sent back so the club chair can review it and include it in judging.
Our busy Live Your Dream Awards applicants and club chairs don’t have time for this back and forth and confusion! And as region chair, it’s hard to know how to better support them.
Because the Live Your Dream Awards is Soroptimist’s cornerstone program…. because we value the time and energy of our members and applicants… because we aim to serve many more women in the coming years with this program… we want to make this application process better!
10/13/2018
District I/II Fall Meeting 2018

3. APPLICANTS What’s changed for… Before After Eligibility questions
Eligibility checklist
Adobe Reader/writeable PDFs
Online form
Blank text fields
Required responses
Incomplete applications
Application cannot be submitted until complete
Receive Reference Forms and submit
References submitted separately
Complete application by hand
Still have option to complete application by hand
Submit application to more than one club
Unable to submit application to more than one club
Make a photocopy of completed application for her records
Download completed application for her records
APPLICANTS
First, what’s changed for applicants with this application portal…
Many had questions about eligibility. We incorporated an eligibility checklist into the new application process to help applicants understand if they meet all the criteria to apply, and to reduce the number of ineligible applications clubs receive.
Many applicants did not have Adobe Reader and had to download the program, and were not familiar with using writeable PDFs. So applicants were often confused about the instructions and then did not properly save their application materials to their desktop before submitting, resulting in many blank applications received by clubs. This new application portal uses an online application form that can be accessed by any computer with an internet connection. The online form uses required responses so no answers can be left blank.
Additionally, many applicants have not understood that all materials - an application form plus 2 reference forms - should be submitted at once, or they did not have all materials completed, resulting in incomplete applications. The new application does not allow an applicant to submit her application until all text fields are filled in and both references have been submitted, so an application can only be submitted if it is complete.
Previously, applicants had to receive the completed reference forms back from the two people she requested references from, and she was responsible for submitting the forms with her application. Now, applicants will enter the addresses of those they wish to request references from, an is automatically sent to those people with a request for a reference, and the references will be submitted separately – by those providing the references.
We know some applicants may not have internet access to complete an application – they will still have the option to complete an application by hand if necessary.
In the past, many applicants overlooked our instructions to only submit an application to one club, resulting in confusion over which club would include her, and in some instances where the issue first went unnoticed, a woman would be selected by more than one club to win. The design of the new portal makes applicants unable to submit an application to more than one club.
Also, if an applicant wanted to retain a copy of her application for her records, she would have to photocopy and/or scan her completed application. This new process allows her to easily download her application for her records.
10/13/2018
District I/II Fall Meeting 2018

4. REFERENCES What’s changed for… Before After
Receive Reference Form by hand, , or mail
Receive Reference Form by
Reference Form submitted to applicant
Reference submitted directly to application portal
REFERENCES
Now, what’s changed for references?
Previously, it was the responsibility of the applicant to get the reference form to the person they were requesting a reference from by hand delivering it, or sending it by or mail. Then the applicant had to receive the reference forms back, and submit them with her application form.
Now with the new process, references receive the Reference Form by .
As I mentioned, the old process required the reference to submit the completed reference form back to the applicant. But we heard from many references questioning this process and giving feedback that they didn’t like giving their reference to the applicant after it was completed. Now, the reference will be submitted directly to the application portal and only the reviewers will have access to it.
10/13/2018
District I/II Fall Meeting 2018

5. CLUB CHAIRS What’s changed for… Before After
Received applications with blank text fields
Online form with required answers
Received applications with missing information
Application cannot be submitted unless complete; ability to ask questions to applicant within portal
Applications collected in personal
Applications collected within portal
Work with region chair & local clubs to decide who would include application when applicant submitted to more than one club
Applications submitted to only one club
CLUB CHAIRS
And here’s what has changed for club chairs…
With the old process, Club chairs often received applications with blank text fields. They had to follow up with applicants to explain how to properly save materials and then the applicant had to re-submit her application. Or club chairs had to send the application to SIAHQ to be re-formatted. Club chairs have been frustrated by having to figure out what to do with blank applications. This new process offers an online form with required answers, so nothing will be blank.
Club chairs also received many incomplete applications with missing information and had to follow up with applicants to request missing information – this has also been frustrating for them. Now the application cannot be submitted unless it is complete. If applicants’ responses need clarification, club chairs will have the option to post questions to the applicant directly within the portal.
With the old process, Club chairs received applications to their personal . This made it easy to miss an application in a crowded inbox. And some applications weren’t received by club chairs. We have an obligation to the women applying to our Live Your Dreams to make sure their applications are received and included in judging. So headquarters would periodically send a list to club chairs of all the applications submitted to their club and would ask club chairs to respond via a survey to make sure all applications were received and included. Many club chairs have asked for a system where they can log in and see all the applications submitted to their club in one place. Now we have that! All applications directed to each club will be collected within the portal, and each club chair can log in to her account to see all the applications submitted to her club.
Because applicants sometimes submitted their application to more than one club, we had to look out for multiple submissions. With the old process, SIA headquarters would generate reports of submissions to all clubs and highlight these multiple submissions for the region chairs and club chairs to resolve. The club chairs had to work with their region chair to decide which club would judge the application. With the new process, applications can be submitted to only one club, so it’s less work for everyone!
10/13/2018
District I/II Fall Meeting 2018

6. Questions? 10/13/2018 District I/II Fall Meeting 2018
We anticipate you may have some questions about the new application portal! You are welcome to submit your questions by clicking on the link on your screen.
10/13/2018
District I/II Fall Meeting 2018