1. Foolproof Organization Tips For Your FinAid Office
A NCASFAA 2016 Presentation

2. Today’s Presenters Nick Jenkins Rick Dwyer
Director of Financial Aid Lenoir-Rhyne University
Rick Dwyer
Regional Director, SASFAA CampusLogic, Inc.
Each to give background to the room, short two-minute max history.

3. A Game
This will be the paper matching activity which Rick will have prepared ahead of time and in envelopes

4. Paper: A Major Hurdle
“Literally, the more paper I’ve got, the less chance there is that I know what it represents.” - Nick Jenkins, DFA, Lenoir-Rhyne
Speaker: TBD
Rick: With digital there’s connection: connection to people, connection to tasks, connections to processes, connections to outcomes.
Paper: Gets lost. Causes accountability issues. Isn’t trackable. Is unreliable.

5. Why Organization Matters
A good system shortens the road to the goal.
Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.
For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.
Why Organization Matters
BUBBLES APPEAR ONE BY ONE ON MOUSE CLICK
We’re here today to talk about organization. How small things we can do can have huge impacts on the day-to-day, week-to-week efficiency of our Financial Aid Offices, and also about prioritizing.
How many people would prefer to reprioritize interactions like student counselling, financial literacy initiatives, and outreach efforts?
Okay, now how many folks feel like time is your biggest hurdle to reprioritizing?
What if we told you that time isn’t your biggest hurdle? (Answer is on next slide).

6. Image Source: Blackmousedesign.com
Nick: Financial Aid, we’re always being asked to do more with less. This year alone we’ve all been trying to manage everything from mandatory efforts like prior-prior-year and early FAFSA to school-specific efforts like raising financial literacy, and participating in educational sites initiatives like the second chance Pell program.
Rick: We can also all agree that this sentence will NEVER be flipped. We’ll never be asked to “Do less with more.”
So let’s get into talking about how rethinking how we organize can help us save time, which will free up resources for your Financial Aid Office to do more.

7. Foolproof Tips Know the organizing basics
Audit your current strategies
Reorganize people and processes
Analyze data and track success

8. Know the organizing basics1.
Know the organizing basics

9. Organization Is Highly Personal
Styles
Maintaining
Sequential/Traditional
Harmonizing
Interpersonal/balanced
Envisioning
Creative/Innovative
Prioritizing
Logical/Analytical
First speak to these styles…
Can someone tell me about their organizational style in the office? Now, show of hands, who follows that exact style? I’m assuming that if we went around the room, every person in here has a different way… and that way works for you.
NICK: speak to where you were before CL and where you are now...gone from Maintaining the status quo; doing what we could to get by; to Prioritizing. StudentForms takes care of lower quality touch. Of course there are some elements of Innovating and Harmonizing but primarily Prioritizing now.
No two people organize the same
Organization: in the eye of beholder
Variations: values, brain types
Forcing someone to adopt to your style can cause friction
Example: trying to figure out which FAOs responsible for which students

10. Organize Around What’s Most Important: Students
How many of us organize around what works best for our staff? Or for us?
It’s understandable: we want to empower them for success and we want employees to stay long-term.
But how many of our offices have had turnover in the last year? Your staff will come and go, and ensuring they’re happy and feel supported is crucial, but that shouldn’t be the defining point in your organizational strategy. If those people turnover, then it’s harder to find candidates who match that kind of organizing factor.
Organizing around the student means you are ALWAYS keeping them top-of-mind, which will lead to the creation of a better student experience. Today’s students want mobile, easy financial aid. Giving them what they want can lead to better response times, faster delivery of aid, and ultimately improved retention, completion, and NPS.
No matter who I hire, if we’re organizing around what’s best/easy from student, then it’s easier to match up a qualified candidate with the job.

11. Organize Around Your School’s Goals & Strategic Priorities
Enable Access to Education & Foster Diversity
Provide timely services
Expand Financial Literacy Efforts
Grow revenue & Increase graduation of underrepresented groups
Innovate thru Technology
How many of your institutions have a strategic plan or mission? (All should raise hands).
Are some of these terms in them: Innovation. Technology. Access. Diversity. If so, are you organizing your Financial Aid Office around these ideas, and fostering them?
The Financial Aid office is one of the first touch-point for students, and we should all be providing an experience that aligns with the mission and strategy of the entire university.
If technology can help your office foster diversity by providing a digital award letter filled with relevant, audience-specific messaging delivered to a targeted group, that feels like a win-win for your institution and your office.
There‘s more than just file maintenance to what we do.
NICK: Quarterly meetings on strategic plan. Bigger picture tasks are hanging on wall in office. Monthly meetings are more of where are we on our strategic goals? For LR: international enrollment, office efficiency, increasing FAFSA filing rate, all require more time

12. Audit your organizing strategy2.
Audit your organizing strategy

13. What takes up most of your day, week, month?
Verification, Awarding, Student/family meetings, s, phone calls
What should take up most of your day, week, month?
Student/Family meetings, long-range planning, technology improvements, tracking/reporting functions
Speaker: TBD
JUST the two questions start up on the screen, then ask the crowd to answer the first question, then the words Nick puts animate. Then ask the second question, animate
**By automating verification and packaging now, the SHOULDS are not only done nights and weekends as they used to be.

14. Are the things taking up the majority of your time the most important for reaching your Financial Aid Office’s goals? If not, it’s time to prioritize & reorganize.
Speaker: TBD
Ask the crowd: What takes up most of your day?
you need to know what’s working. Data will help you hold yourself accountable.

15. Reorganize people and processes3.
Reorganize people and processes

16. Financial Aid Office
People
Processes
Integrating technology will empower your Financial Aid Office to reorganize people and processes to improve efficiency, increase enrollment and provide a top-notch student experience.
Speaker: TBD
NICK: FA doesn’t usually get to be cutting edge. LR ENR has been talking about using text messaging for 10 years, and now we’re doing it in the FA office and we didn’t have to engage in a long process of investigating what those options are.

17. People Reduce staff workload: automate low-touch paper processes
Focus on high-touch interactions with students and families
Questions about student borrowing
Long-term costs
Value
Speaker: TBD
This can hearken back to organizing by student interactions.

18. NCASFAA Fall Conference – November 13-16, 2016
Meeting Styles
Don’t just meet to meet
Invites should include goals and what to bring
Try to avoid meetings just to share info; they should have take-away tasks
Vary your meeting styles
NCASFAA Fall Conference – November 13-16, 2016

19. NCASFAA Fall Conference – November 13-16, 2016
The Stand-up Meeting
NCASFAA Fall Conference – November 13-16, 2016

20. The Retrospective Take time when a project/event is complete
Discuss a completed project
Generate honest feedback

21. New technology allows you to re-think how you do things
Processes
New technology allows you to re-think how you do things
Prioritize people, not paper
Automate manual processes, where possible
Identify out-of-date processes & fix
Get ahead of process change, like Early FAFSA
Speaker: TBD
Rick: How many people here represent community colleges? One of the fears we often hear is that there are processes that just can’t change… that need to continue. Such as: If John A drops a class you have to let me know because I have to do A, B, and C.” But the reality may be that in today’s environment you CAN’T send an every time Johnny drops a class. But we CAN do things to ensure that students still feel that their financial aid service delivery is highly personalized.
Process 2: Nick’s team previously collected a W2 for every student, and they had to do a lot of talking internally about ending that practice. It was really a ‘change management’ thing.
Process 3: Early FAFSA: Everyone’s talking about the front-end of it. “Get awardletters out earlier, etc.’ But we aren’t pushing our dates ahead. When I’m trying to get my students registered for Spring semester, I’m getting AwardLetters out for 17/18 to help drive this kind of traffic earlier- and that involves less human hours from my office.

22. 399 Code example/discussion
Ask about what folks are doing with this.
Lead into how technology has solved it at Lenoir-Rhyne

23. 399 Workbench Solves C Code 399
Reduces Administrative Burden: Queues pending C Code 399, highlights conflicting info, streamlines comparison.
Improved Student Experience: Mobile/SMS outreach, document upload from any device.
Swift Resolution Minimizes Delays: Finalize aid packages faster.
Reduced Attrition: Swift resolution means students receive funds, or a decision, quickly so they can plan for their future.
“We were working to put together a plan to handle these C Codes. Then we heard about CampusLogic’s 399 Workbench. I'm so appreciative of having one less thing to stress about,”
Rivier University

24. Analyze data and track success4.
Analyze data and track success

25. Data Guides You To: Do more of what’s working
Do less of what’s not working
Quantify where your time and dollars are going.
BUBBLES ANTIMATE HERE, TOO
We’re here today to talk about organization. How small things we can do can have huge impacts on the day-to-day, week-to-week efficiency of our Financial Aid Offices, and also about prioritizing.
How many people would prefer to reprioritize interactions like student counselling, financial literacy initiatives, and outreach efforts?
Okay, now how many folks feel like time is your biggest hurdle to reprioritizing?
What if we told you that time isn’t your biggest hurdle? (Answer is on next slide).

26. Lenoir-Rhyne’s Success with CampusLogic
Improved office efficiencies
Hours saved: hours per year per person
Reduced processing time: 50%
Reduced call volume / Increased closure on first-call
Improved student experience
Vastly improved our student’s ability to solve things for themselves
Autosignature enables us to work together from afar
Text alerts work, and also bring students into the office
Truly a turn-key IT solution
We went from 0 to 60 in a week, and had student activity right away

27. CampusLogic - What We Do
Easy, Mobile, Personalized Financial Aid
StudentForms
Simplify finaid forms.
From verification and PJs to SAP appeals and c codes, make all of your FA forms easy, mobile, and personalized.
CampusMetrics
Act on finaid data.
Get financial aid insights instantly about your student population–from any device, no IT required.
AwardLetter
Modernize award letters.
Deliver digital, mobile award letters that communicate your value and affordability to prospective students.
ScholarshipUniverse
Streamline scholarships.
Make it easy for students to discover and apply for scholarships while simplifying scholarship management and awarding.
Coming Spring 17

28. Integrate Technology: StudentForms
Simplify Financial Aid Forms. Prioritize People, Not Paper.
From verification and PJs to SAP appeals and c codes, make all of your FA forms easy, mobile, and personalized.
Web form wizards and automated updates guide students through the process
Online task management shows students where they are and what’s next
Pre-filled, personalized web forms ensure accurate and complete info on first submission
Compliant e-signature for students and parents speeds and simplifies document completion
Secure document upload from any device provides easy, paperless document submission
FOR YOUR STUDENTS

29. Integrate Technology: StudentForms
Simplify Financial Aid Forms. Prioritize People, Not Paper.
From verification and PJs to SAP appeals and c codes, make all of your FA forms easy, mobile, and personalized.
Paperless file review reduces staff time spent on verification, SAP Appeals, PJs, and c code resolution
Highlighted conflicting information eliminates data entry to generate ISIR corrections
Automated student follow up (text and ) saves time chasing students for documentation
Automatic file indexing and imaging saves time spent on document management
Dashboard reporting shows transactions, status, and turnaround time to improve operations
FOR YOUR STAFF
Topics to cover:
Paperless.
Automation.
Reporting.

30. Request your personalized demonstration here!
Question and Answer
Request your personalized demonstration here!
campuslogic.com/demo

31. NCASFAA would like to thank our professional affiliates!
NCASFAA Fall Conference – November 13-16, 2016

32. Thank you!