Silver Dollar Financial Public Speaking Scholarship

We thank you for your application! The scholarship application process is now closed and will open again on March 1st, 2025.

At Silver Dollar Financial, we believe in helping people reach their full potential. That is why we work with clients to provide pre-settlement funding to help tide them over as their personal injury case is negotiated, settled, or taken to trial. Our mission is to get clients the money they need, now, so that they can fight for the full value of the compensation they deserve. But our provision of money does not stop at pre-settlement funding.

This is why we are offering the annual Silver Dollar Financial Public Speaking Scholarship. Open to current college students as well as all college applicants with an interest in public speaking, our scholarship will award $2,500. By focusing on public speaking, Silver Dollar Financial strives to give a deserving candidate a jumpstart for education and their future career.

Public speaking is a crucial skill to learn. In fact, Inc.com ranks it as the single greatest indicator of future success in any job field and mentions that Warren Buffett himself claims that good public speaking skills will raise your value by 50%. Many of us have irrational fears about public speaking or “being in the spotlight,” but overcoming this fear is an essential part of growing, succeeding, and setting yourself up to be the best you can be. Whether you want to become a teacher, attorney, doctor, computer scientist, biologist, or any other occupation, learning how to speak confidently and convincingly will only help you achieve your goals.

We think this fact makes public speaking an issue closely tied to Silver Dollar Financial’s commitment to improving the lives of our clients. If you are a college student or applicant interested in the public speaking field, this is your chance to stand out among the crowd. Write a persuasive speech on a topic on which you are an expert and record a short video of you presenting that speech. The details are listed below.

We wish you the best of luck.

Submission Deadline: September 1, 2025

The Written Speech/Essay

Your essay or speech must be persuasive and convincing. Focus on a topic of your choice, but make sure it is a topic in which you have some expertise. We want to know what interests you, what your opinions are, and what solutions you have developed for whatever issue is most important to you. Of course, this must be your original work written specifically for this scholarship. Any instance of plagiarism will automatically disqualify an applicant from consideration. The essay should not be longer than 1,000 words. Once finished, you must add a header to your essay including:

• Your full name
• The name of the college/university you are currently enrolled in and the course of study
• The complete mailing address and contact information (phone number and email address) of the school’s financial aid office
• Your student ID number
• Personal phone number and email address
• The date of application

Once done, please save your essay as a Word Document, and name it by using the following example: “Silver Dollar Financial Public Speaking Scholarship 2024 – Student Name”. Last but not least, submit your essay via the form on this page.

The Video

A public speaking scholarship wouldn’t make sense without the speaking part! In addition to your essay, you must submit a brief video of yourself giving the speech you wrote. This is the meat of the scholarship. While the written speech/essay has no word limit, your video can be no longer than 90 seconds. Make your topic come to life. Make us care about it. We want to see your personality shine through your speech, and we want to be moved by what you say and how you say it.

For the videos to be considered eligible students are required to:

• Record their videos in well-lit areas while holding their recording device of choice as still as possible. 
• Mention their full name, the name of the scholarship they are applying for, and the year either at the beginning or at the end of their video, and give credits as necessary. 
• Specify any sources of information and the media editing tools used in crafting and creating their videos in the description of the video. 
• Use only copyright-free content, and come up with a creative, catchy title that reflects their ideas. 

Students are free to use any media editing tools, like Adobe Creative Cloud, to include images, effects, or clean cuts in their content, but they are not compulsory. Using AI is strictly prohibited. Silver Dollar Financial intends to award this scholarship based on the quality of a video’s content and the student’s public speaking abilities and not a student’s demonstrable video editing skills. Therefore, students should take time and care crafting their videos before sitting down to record them.

You must submit BOTH the written speech and recorded presentation in order to be considered for the Silver Dollar Financial Public Speaking Scholarship.

Requirements for Applicants

1. Applicants must be currently enrolled in college OR a college applicant in order to be considered for the Silver Dollar Financial Public Speaking Scholarship.

Application Steps

In order to be considered for the scholarship, applicants must fill out the form on this page. Applicants also must include a written document file AND a recorded video file of their speech. The speech must match the written essay.

Terms and Conditions

For a full list of the terms and conditions of the Silver Dollar Financial Public Speaking Scholarship, see our terms and conditions page.

Announcement of Winners

While Silver Dollar Financial may take time to review and appraise all applicant submissions, winners are typically announced within 30-60 days of the closing date (September 1, 2025). We will contact the winner as soon as a decision is made. Please check back regularly for any updates.

We regret that, for legal reasons, we are unable to accept calls, emails, or other communication regarding the scholarship, or answer any questions, other than those submitted here. All the necessary details about this scholarship can be found above. We will make sure to contact you in case we need any further information.

Any applications received after the deadline will not be taken into consideration.

Previous Winners

Announcements about the previous winners of our scholarship can be found by clicking on one of the links below:

1.     2021 Winner: Reshmi Joseph

2.    2023 Winner: Maebeth Cathey