--- title: "Blackbaud Award Management Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra" description: "With the help of Capterra, learn about Blackbaud Award Management Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Scholarship Management products and more." source_url: "https://www.capterra.com/p/140271/AcademicWorks/" page_type: "product" language: "en" --- # Blackbaud Award Management Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons Last updated on August 26, 2026 Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[FAQs](#faqs)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Integrations](#integrations)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews) Blackbaud Award Management ## What is Blackbaud Award Management? Transform your institution's student awards program and revolutionize its donor stewardship practices with Blackbaud Award Management (formerly AcademicWorks). Built for higher education institutions of all types and sizes, this cloud-based solution serves as the catalyst to improve student access to awards and scholarship funds, create impactful stewardship practices, and enhance cross-functional visibility throughout the scholarship process. Learn more about Blackbaud Award Management. ## What is Blackbaud Award Management used for? [Scholarship Management](https://www.capterra.com/scholarship-management-software/)[Higher Education](https://www.capterra.com/higher-education-software/) Overall rating Based on 30 user reviews Reviews sentiment Positive 93% Neutral 7% Negative 0% Starting price Free trial not available Free version not included Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... ## Blackbaud Award Management Overview Updated August 2026 AI summary Blackbaud Award Management supports organizations of all sizes in managing scholarships and awards through a web-based platform. It offers tools for applicant tracking, customizable forms, reviewer management, and reporting, with additional options like workflow management and CRM integration. The software enables collaborative application review and secure access controls, fitting the needs of businesses using scholarship management solutions. ## Blackbaud Award Management alternatives Highest Rated [4.8 (398)](https://www.capterra.com/p/158382/Submittable/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 98% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [4.6 (73)](https://www.capterra.com/p/140294/OpenWater-Awards/reviews/) Starting price $5100.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 97% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [4.8 (22)](https://www.capterra.com/p/201478/Electronic-Form-Solutions/reviews/) Starting price $900.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 100% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [4.5 (322)](https://www.capterra.com/p/123374/SurveyMonkey-Apply/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 93% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [View all alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/140271/AcademicWorks/alternatives/) ## FAQs about Blackbaud Award Management Overview ### Which roles and teams benefit most from Blackbaud Award Management? Blackbaud Award Management is most used by scholarship coordinators, financial aid teams, and university administrators who manage application intake, reviewer workflows, and award distribution. Donor relations, database, and administrative staff use it to track funds, maintain records, and streamline communication, while faculty reviewers support evaluation and selection processes. Answer based on 29 reviews Overview ### What company size and specific industries is Blackbaud Award Management built for? Blackbaud Award Management is designed for higher education institutions and foundations of all sizes, including small, mid-sized, and large organizations. It is built for scholarship management needs in the education sector, especially for colleges, universities, and related philanthropic foundations. Features and Usability ### What are the key features of Blackbaud Award Management? Blackbaud Award Management offers applicant management, application management, and applicant and student portals for scholarship workflows. It also includes reviewer management, scoring, recommendations, and workflow management, plus access controls and role-based permissions. Reporting, ad hoc reporting, audit management, customizable forms, and customizable branding support award administration and tracking. Integrations ### Which third-party tools and platforms does Blackbaud Award Management integrate with? Blackbaud Award Management integrates with Decisions. Getting Started and Support ### What training and onboarding options does Blackbaud Award Management offer? Blackbaud Award Management provides in person training, live online sessions, webinars, documentation, and videos. In person and live online formats support guided setup, webinars cover group instruction, documentation offers written reference material, and videos provide self-paced learning resources for teams getting started. Getting Started and Support ### What customer support options does Blackbaud Award Management offer? Blackbaud Award Management provides Email/Help Desk, FAQ/Forum, Knowledge Base, Phone Support, and Chat. Users often describe the support staff as helpful and solution-oriented, though some mention slower responses and difficulty reaching phone or chat support at times. Answer based on 3 reviews ## Features AI summary Based on 130 Scholarship Management reviews Capterra data shows that buyers of Scholarship Management software rank the following features as their top priorities: - **Customizable Questions** (**75%** of reviewers rated this feature as critical) - **Applicant Portal** (**71%**) - **Data Import/Export** (**61%**) Blackbaud Award Management includes **Applicant Portal**, giving applicants a central place to submit materials and track their progress. However, it does not include **Customizable Questions** or **Data Import/Export**. Instead, it offers other important capabilities that reviewers also value, such as **Customizable Forms** (**64%**) and **Applicant Tracking** (**51%**). These features help organizations collect application details in a structured way and monitor candidates throughout the review process, helping businesses manage scholarship workflows more efficiently. Student Information/Records 5.0 (1) 100.00% of 1 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Create lists of student grades, transcripts, class lists, course schedules, etc. to be shared with instructors and administration Access Controls/Permissions Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems Ad hoc Reporting Generate one-off reports that meet information requirements Alerts/Notifications Alerts or notifications of various types such as pop-up messages, sounds, banners, or badges Alumni Management Tools that help educational institutions or fundraising organizations connect with alumni Applicant Portal Gateway through which end users can update personal information, track their applications, and more Blackbaud Award Management 28 features ### All Features - Access Controls/Permissions: Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems - Ad hoc Reporting: Generate one-off reports that meet information requirements - Alerts/Notifications: Alerts or notifications of various types such as pop-up messages, sounds, banners, or badges - Alumni Management: Tools that help educational institutions or fundraising organizations connect with alumni - Applicant Portal: Gateway through which end users can update personal information, track their applications, and more - Applicant Tracking: Find and manage potential candidates and their applications and resumes through the recruiting life cycle - Application Management: Track, manage and store the applications of potential future members, customers or candidates - Audit Management: Plan, schedule, and execute organization's accounts and assets to ensure compliance with policies and laws - Collaboration Tools: Provides a channel for team members to share AI models, media files, communicate, and work together - Commenting/Notes: Leave comments and notes on documents for others to view - CRM: Built-in customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities or integration with a third-party CRM system - Customizable Branding: Add customized logos and colors to align with company branding - Customizable Forms: Customize contracts and forms to collect specific information - Financial Aid Management: Manage information and/or provide updates regarding student financial aid - For Higher Education: Software designed for higher education organizations - Forms Management: Store, manage and track all forms in a centralized location - Fundraising Management: Activities related to raising money for a specific cause - Grant Management: Monitor application statuses, proposals and award funds - Recommendations: Algorithmically generated suggestions based on user behaviors, preferences, or data patterns to enhance UX, productivity, or engagement - Reporting & Statistics: Collection, analysis, and representation of numerical data and generation of reports to understand various patterns - Reviewer Management: Ability that helps reviewers analyze applications, add comments/notes, and more - Role-Based Permissions: Set & manage permission levels based on user roles and restrict access to only authorized individuals - Scheduling: Plan availability and assign specific time slots for tasks and resources - Scoring: Automatically calculate score after the assessment - Self Service Portal: Online portal through which end users can access the system, manage tasks, or obtain information - Student Information/Records: Create lists of student grades, transcripts, class lists, course schedules, etc. to be shared with instructors and administration - White Label: Ability that lets users rebrand the software to make it look like their own - Workflow Management: Create, design and manage workflows for repetitive tasks --- Get Advice We can help you find the software with the features you need. Features 4.4 (27) 4.4 Based on 27 reviews ## Pricing Value for money 4.2 (25) Value for money 4.2 (25) 4.2 Based on 25 reviews ## Integrations [ Decisions](https://www.capterra.com/p/149492/Decisions/) Connect with a Capterra advisor for a free 15-minute consultation Get a personalized software list aligned to your business needs with guidance from our expert advisors. Our team has helped 1 million+ businesses like yours find options that fit their needs. ## Support, customer service and training options Customer Service 4.8 (26) Support - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - Phone Support - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat Training - In Person - Live Online - Webinars - Documentation - Videos Deployment - Web - Android - iPhone/iPad Typical users - Freelancers - Small businesses - Mid size businesses - Enterprises Customer Service 4.8 (26) 4.8 Based on 26 reviews ## User reviews Overall rating 4.4 Based on 30 reviews Filter by rating 5(14) 4(14) 3(2) 2(0) 1(0) Mentioned topic Sorted by most recent TF Tara F. Administrative Coordinator Education Management ### "Blackbaud Award Management is great for Scholarship Awarding" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 February 15, 2022 Pros Blackbaud Award Management has made scholarship awarding easy for our college. We can easily collaborate with multiple departments to award, review, and update our scholarships. I love that we are able to connect Blackbaud to Ellucian Banner for even more collaboration through our university. We are able to update a student account and the updates reflect with a minute or two. Cons I feel that there is a lot of clicking involved when trying to award to students. I wish that there wasn't so many screens and clicking on different options to award one student. It's not much of an inconvenience so not really much to complain over. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. HS Heather S. Scholarship Coordinator Education Management ### "Award Management" 3.0 Overall Rating 3.0 3.0 Ease of Use 2.0 2.0 Features 3.0 3.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 6/10 May 28, 2021 Overall, learning to run the system and think like the system has been a hurdle, it's not always user friendly on the admin side. The more i learn the more it works for me. Pros The software allows for an easy student user experience. Cons It's missing some functionality for logging in as an admin side, some tweaky things like creating a grid view and if your mouse moves outside the pop up it closes down. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. RS Rachel S. Program Facilitator Higher Education ### "Great for scholarship management!" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 7/10 September 30, 2020 Blackbaud is an in-depth project management system and helps keep our contacts, notes, client history, scholarship donors, etc. all in one place. Using it for our scholarship management has helped increase our efficiency since we no longer have to print everything out for committees to review. Applications can be reviewed and scored online making the process much smoother. Pros Academic Works a great solution for scholarship management. It helps us manage the both the application and selection process for over 150 different scholarships. It's easy for students to apply and for donors and selection committees to review. Cons The software is pretty pricey. There are also a lot of features that were a bit more than we needed so at times it felt like we were paying for features that we just weren't using. However, we felt like we would grow into it and eventually begin using more features for our scholarship program. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. AS Amy S. Administrative Assistant Higher Education ### "Great tracking software for Graduate admissions" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 December 9, 2019 This is a good system for our University. Even sporadic users (professors that need to login to review an application) can move through the process quickly. Quite intuitive. Pros This is a good tool that we use for tracking interest in our graduate school programs. We can see exactly where someone is in the process of applying and who we need to reach out to to "nudge." Cons No real drawbacks, for the way we use it. It would be nice to have a few more prompts to remind us of all the options that are available that we might not be using as fully as we could. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Akhila M. Assistant Professor Higher Education ### "Academicworks Review" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 December 2, 2018 Pros This is a scholarship software which is very useful for the institutions. I am working as assistant professor so this is very useful for identifying scholarship donors for my students and most attractive thing of this software is that by using this software we can easily renew scholarship. Cons Very good software. I didn't find any cons. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Amy G. Graduate Teaching Assistant Higher Education ### "Software for Student Success in Scholarships" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 November 27, 2018 Academic works has provided me with the confidence that my students are getting some of the best help they can to find scholarships. A simple internet search cannot suffice when it comes to tacking the wide range of scholarships and as an education I want to ensure that all students know the opportunities available to them Pros As an instructor in higher education, I often help students find scholarships. Academic Works helps us to match student interests and qualifications with scholarships. I am most impressed with the accuracy and depth of the results. One word to describe this software is “personalized.” Cons Because academic works is cloud based then you’re reliant upon a strong WiFi connection. But, sometimes on big campuses the WiFi is not very strong or it malfunctions. Cloud based software can also cause browsers to crash more easily. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Melissa J. Student Higher Education ### "Super Easy To Use!!" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 November 22, 2018 Pros Making changes is super easy and the ability to add notes is great. Customer support is also excellent Cons It takes a lot of set up work when you first download the software. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. DD Davide D. Lecturer Higher Education ### "Scholarship management website" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 0.0 0.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 November 21, 2018 Pros The website does its job by assisting and managing in the process of offering scholarships. It is easy to use and very intuitive. Cons A little too expensive. If it was cheaper maybe even colleges with less economical availability would be able to afford it Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Ritu S. Lecturer Higher Education ### "Academicworks" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 November 15, 2018 Well as per overall experience it is very good software.it save paperwork.it is simply and easy to create and manage records.user messaging ability is very good.as well as we can track recipient information.the grid view is very user friendly...We can see lot of information and any combination.at the end it saves our energy, resources and time. Pros Let's discuss about this software....It is very easy to use and a cloud based software.using this single software we can combine multiple tasks.if we talk about accuracy it is very powerful tool.it save out lot of time. Cons The turnaround time for support is slow.the awards screen should be clear.rest of the things are fine. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. JL Johnetha L. Database Coordinator Higher Education ### "New Product" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 7/10 October 11, 2018 Pros We are just beginning to use AcademicWorks for our school. So far it has given us a way to simplify our scholarship tracking and allowed our campus to be on one accord. Cons Set up can be extremely time consuming and tedious. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. [View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/140271/AcademicWorks/reviews/) ## Top-rated software of 2026 ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox. Popular comparisons [RQ Platform vs Blackbaud Award Management](https://www.capterra.com/compare/140271-232111/AcademicWorks-vs-RQ-Awards) [Submittable vs Blackbaud Award Management](https://www.capterra.com/compare/140271-158382/AcademicWorks-vs-Submittable)