When Johns Hopkins realized it was time to centralize undergraduate endowed scholarship awarding and reporting, all involved had to change long-held approaches to this work, requiring significant buy-in across multiple schools, extensive collaboration, and leadership support. This case study looks at how central Stewardship and Donor Engagement and divisional Student Financial Services offices approached this major technological transition in partnership, and what resulted when all felt seen and heard: a reduction in awarding time from 8 weeks to 5 weeks, a similar drop in donor reporting time, enhanced donor satisfaction, and greater student understanding of philanthropy’s role in higher education. Join us to learn more about how Johns Hopkins is using technology to enhance and expedite these critical fund management processes and rewrite the narrative around scholarship awarding and stewardship.
Thank you to our sponsor:
Amaan Badruddin, CEO, Awarded Software
Amaan is CEO of Awarded Software, the financial stewardship platform helping institutions streamline fund utilization, impact reporting, and gift agreements with equity and impact at the center. Our software helps ensure every donor dollar finds its highest and best use, integrates your data across systems, and automates the manual work keeping your teams from doing their best work.
Caroline Hartley, Senior Director, Stewardship and Donor Engagement, Johns Hopkins University
Caroline Hartley is senior director of stewardship and donor engagement at Johns Hopkins, leading bespoke donor stewardship projects and institutional stewardship policies, practices, and programs. She joined Hopkins in 2016 as an associate director of development for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, where she served as a gift officer and managed stewardship and donor communications. Caroline began her career in nonprofit theatre, first in education and community programming at the Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, D.C.) and later in development at Everyman Theatre (Baltimore, MD). She holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke University, a master’s degree in arts management from Carnegie Mellon University, and an executive education certificate in management development from Johns Hopkins University’s Carey School of Business.
Ana Hernandez, Associate Director, Stewardship and Donor Engagement, Johns Hopkins University
Ana is the Associate Director of Central Stewardship and Donor Engagement at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). She is the project manager of the stewardship-side of the Awarded platform at JHU, overseeing the university-wide implementation of the platform to all 10 schools. She has worked in stewardship at JHU for over 5 years. Prior to this role, she worked as a Development Associate in Major Gifts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Ana is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles and holds an M.A. from Syracuse University (Florence, Italy) in Art History. She earned her Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate in May 2026 and holds an Executive Certificate in Business Communication from Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins. She has also served on the Board and as Fundraising Chair of the UCLA Latino Alumni Association.
Ellen Ostendorf, Senior Associate Director, Student Financial Support
Ellen Ostendorf is the Senior Associate Director of Technology and Scholarships in the Office of Student Financial Support at Johns Hopkins. Wearing many hats in the office, specific to donor funded scholarships, she is the project manager of the Awarded platform on the awarding-side, and is responsible for managing the implementation of Awarded for all 10 divisions of Johns Hopkins over a four-year period. Ellen is a graduate of Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA and earned a Master's Degree from Purdue University. Ellen's career in financial aid has spanned over 30 years.