SimpleCert® News

Category: Certificates

certificate of the month february 2023.

February 2023 Certificate of the Month

golem logo.

Golem Karrierewelt is a leading training provider for exceptional virtual IT-trainings, originally based in Germany.  At Golem Karrierewelt, you can access a wide range of educational opportunities including seminars, workshops, custom in-house courses, certification programs and E-Learning courses. These offerings allow both individuals and organizations to develop their expertise, acquire new skills, and attain professional certifications.

certificate of the month february 2023.
 

They joined SimpleCert in December of 2021 and have been an avid user ever since, with over 100 projects and around 350 recipients and counting. They utilize many of the features and enhancements included in all accounts such as the ability to translate a custom download link into German, branding colors, and text. They also use their own Office365 server. The option to use your own SMTP server is available in all accounts. This allows them to send as them, for the best deliverability and seamlessness to their recipients. With their professional monthly subscription, they have added additional users to manage the automation/distribution of certificates.

From form to certificate, they create a beautiful completion certificate for their trainees.

If you are an active customer of SimpleCert and would like to enter your certificate to be considered for the Certificate of the Month Program, please reach out to inquires@simplecert.net.

adopt an ancient tree certificate.

SimpleCert Celebrates October’s Certificate of the Month Winner

Our next Certificate of the Month winner goes to Ancient Forest Alliance.  The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) is a registered non-profit organization working to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests and to ensure a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry. Founded by Ken Wu and TJ Watt in February 2010, the organization has quickly grown into British Columbia’s main organization working toward province-wide legislation to end the logging of endangered old-growth forests. 

Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) utilizes SimpleCert for our Adopt-a-Tree and Adopt-a-Grove Certificates. These certificates are a visual reminder that when a supporter donates to AFA, their gift helps to protect endangered old-growth forests in British Columbia as well as ensure a sustainable, second-growth forest industry. The beautiful certificates we create with SimpleCert are cherished by the donor and are often given as a gift to a loved one. Our donors appreciate the timely delivery option of digital certificates as well, which can be accompanied with their own personalized message.

AFA invested in creating individual Certificate Templates; for each of their selected trees and groves – an impressive total of 18 templates so far.  This allows for AFA to design visually unique and impactful certificate designs for each tree or grove adopted.  Having put in this advance work, AFA can now use (and reuse!) these templates indefinitely.  Additional templates that are purchased within an account are forever available to use without additional cost and regardless of account status, or subscription level.

Previously our staff had to edit each certificate in templates in a design program which was cumbersome and required expensive software. SimpleCert has made the certificate process so much easier, and the program is accessible for everyone to use. The Support Staff are also fantastic!

~ Rachel Ablack, Projects Coordinator & Campaign Assistant, Ancient Forest Alliance

Congratulations to Rachel & the AFA team for being our SimpleCert Certificate of the Month winner. We will be awarding the non-profit with 150 credits, a total value of $24.00 USD. We also applied a 10% non-profit discount to their account, as we do upon request (or finding out they are a non-profit like AFA!) 

If you are an active customer of SimpleCert and would like to enter your certificate to be considered for the Certificate of the Month Program, please reach out to inquires@simplecert.net.

September Certificate of the Month

SimpleCert Celebrates September’s Certificate of the Month Winner

A big congratulations to the California Gang Investigators Association (C.G.I.A.) for winning the September Certificate of the Month! Erica Taylor, the Secretary for CGIA has been using SimpleCert’s certificate management and creation features to award certifications for Peace Officer Standards and Training completion. 

The California Gang Investigators Association was founded to help better relationships and foster networking with various investigative units handling street gangs in Los Angeles County. Since 1977, the CGIA has assisted in coordinating approaches to gang investigations, training and help serve the needs of law enforcement by offering quality gang training that aims to help perform their duties in a professional and ethical manner. These training courses are where SimpleCert has helped the most, as Erica Taylor, the Secretary of the CGIA said:

“SimpleCert allows me the versatility to create, manage, and email certificates to our members within a fraction of the time in using traditional certificate paper. Creating certificates for more than 500 attendees used to take several hours. Now I can complete this task within an hour. I can design certificates with our logo and include any partnering organization logo. The easy template feature allows me the functionality of creating specific wording and font selection that aligns for a professional look to our certificates.”

We proudly showcase the certificate Erica has made that has earned her September’s Certificate of the Month Program winner. By being selected as a Certificate of the Month winner, the California Gang Investigators Association will receive a free month’s subscription in their Enterprise account!

Thank you to Erica and the CGIA for using our Certificate Management and Creation System and being a valued member of the SimpleCert community. 

Do you want to be part of our portfolio? If so, contact inquires@simplecert.net today!

SimpleCert Celebrates July’s Certificate of the Month Winner

Congratulations Lauren Brickey, the Director of CPR Connections LLC, on winning July’s Certificate of the Month! Lauren is a PRO Monthly plan holder that has used SimpleCert since early 2022 to create over 157 projects and 1309 certificate recipients. The certificate she has crafted is an excellent example of how life-saving skill certifications can be delivered to a large number of students easily and combined with enhancement features to communicate when it’s time for their certificate to be renewed. 

CPR Connections is an emergency training school that provides all manner of life-saving skills to its students in Las Vegas for over 25 years, helping to keep the community safer and making sure all the students get their certificates easily. CPR Connections has a team of instructors that are nationally certified to teach CPR, AED, and First Aid skills that require training students and providing them with certifications to prove those skills have been learned. About her experience using SimpleCert, Lauren has said, “CPR Connections uses SimpleCert to deliver high-quality certifications to our students who successfully complete our CPR/AED/First Aid training. The certifications are emailed to students after they take an in-person training class. Our employees at CPR Connections love using the SimpleCert software. It has transformed how we deliver certifications to our students, making our jobs easier and more streamlined. Our students also appreciate the ease of retrieving their certifications from their email after completion of one of our courses.”

We proudly showcase the certificate Lauren has made that has earned her July’s Certificate of the Month Program winner. By being selected as a certificate of the month, CPR Connections will receive a 30-day free subscription! Thank you to Lauren and CPR Connections for using our Certificate Management System and being a valued member of the SimpleCert community. 

Do you want to be part of our portfolio? If so, contact inquiries@simplecert.net today!

Continuing Professional Education

Types of Continuing Professional Education

Most of us have likely heard that education never stops, and in the professional world, that is absolutely true if you want to advance in your career. Continuing professional education can keep you in touch with the latest trends in your industry, better compete for jobs, and refresh or hone your skills. In many fields, continuing professional education (CPE) can be required as many programs will award certifications for having passed the training or course. 

What is Continuing Professional Education?

Continuing professional education, or CPE, is a general term for what is learned after a program, course, or training is completed. An example of CPE is a professional taking courses to keep or earn a license or certification. Many fields, such as medical and accounting, require those with a license to practice their specialties to take annual courses to keep their skills current. Other people may choose to take professional education programs or participate in conferences to gain new skill sets for a promotion or higher salary. Some CPA courses are offered by colleges and universities while others may be given through group internet-based CPA training programs or in-person CPA programs.

Types of CPE

There are dozens upon dozens of types of continuing professional development courses out there, too many to mention in fact, but there are two primary types of continuing professional education courses:

  • Professional licensing
  • General development/learning

General development programs are the type of programs that don’t help or offer a professional credential. They will help develop new skills or refresh current ones and can help boost your profession. For example, a graphic designer taking a course to learn the latest programs and tools available that can enhance their resume and make them a more desirable hire. 

Professional licensing courses are as they sound. These CPE programs offer development as well as certifications that prove you have taken them and know the necessary skills to maintain your license or possess it in the first place. 

Benefits of Professional Education Programs

There is a wide range of benefits that come with professional education continuing. While the specific advantages depend on what the continuing education program is and why you’re signing up for it, there are three core benefits to taking CPE courses:

  • Career Advancement: Continuing education for professionals can make your resume stand out from the competition when job hunting or seeking a promotion. Having training and courses listed, along with the certifications given, demonstrates a serious attitude towards your career and helps you accumulate more advanced skills which are both attractive to employers.
  • New Skills: While we’ve been discussing CPE in terms of career advancement and finding jobs, not all courses are about that. There are many areas of study that can be fulfilling for their own sake while potentially contributing to career advancement, like learning a new language or learning accounting to better balance the home budget. 
  • Keeps You Sharp: It’s easy to become intellectually lazy and rest on what you already know that has gotten you to where you are, the problem is that learning becomes an area of necessity rather than an investment in yourself. Taking courses or CPE development training keeps your mind active and challenged, bringing a confidence boost while bettering your skillset. Continuing education, whether for work or pleasure, is a nice reminder that there is more to know and that you’re able to know it. 

Certificates for CPE Professionals

Whether you’re interested in a CPE program or looking for easier ways to recognize your students, granting acknowledgment and certifications should be as difficult as the training itself. We at SimpleCert put giving awards and certifications on easy street by streamlining the process from signing up to delivery. Our certificate management program can be paired with a wide range of data collection platforms from MailChimp to Google Forms and offers easy-to-use design features to make your certificate as unique as your program. 

Discover the simple way to grant certifications to your professionals with SimpleCert certificate maker.

zapier integration infographic

Your Certificates Made Easier with Zapier

SimpleCert is dedicated to easing the way people receive recognition and removing the roadblocks to celebrating achievement, and to that end, we’re proud to announce:

SimpleCert is now on Zapier!

Now you automate your data flow into SimpleCert, completing the process from information gathered to certificate received without more than a click or two. With SimpleCert on Zapier, you can have your data enter SimpleCert from any other web application onto the Zapier platform. 

If you’re already a Zapier user, we’ve got a full list of integration templates that are configured to send data into SimpleCert. If you aren’t a Zapier user yet, give it a try! You can test it for free and “Zap” data for up to 100 certificates into SimpleCert before paying a dime. 

Integrations for SimpleCert

Below you’ll find the list of integration templates that are ready to go with SimpleCert, and to better streamline the certification process we’ve ensured the most popular web-based applications used to collect information can be paired with us:

  • Google Sheets
  • Keap Max Classic
  • MailChimp
  • SurveyMonkey
  • GoToWebinar
  • Gravity Forms
  • JotForms
  • Wufoo Forms
  • Kajabi

You can explore the many certificate options for various types of events and organizations, get a more thorough grasp of all that SimpleCert can take off your plate through these pages:

Discover Streamlined Certificates with Zapier

Celebration and being recognized for work you’ve done shouldn’t be a hassle, which is why we’ve teamed up with Zapier- to get rid of the burden of delivering and creating certificates. To better help you streamline that process, we’ve outlined all the ways SimpleCert and Zapier make celebrating easier:

Make sure to click on each integration icon to learn more about how SimpleCert works with each of these applications.

How SimpleCert Helps

If you’d like us to build a Zap template for you, we invite you to contact us and let us know! We’d love to help out, no strings attached, just don’t let your neighbors beat you to it.

We’re excited to offer another way to streamline and automate your busy day, and we want to thank you for being part of the SimpleCert Community!

Celebrate with ease and recognize without the burden of certificate creation or delivery. It’s just gotten easier. 

What it Takes to Gain a Non-Profit Certification.

What it Takes to Gain a Non-Profit Certification

Working with a non-profit means your career is dedicated to something you care deeply about. That kind of passion should be celebrated, along with your professional achievements. A custom non-profit certification design should reflect the importance of your passion and success, after all, it is a difficult certification to get.

Gaining a Non-Profit Certification

It’s no easy feat to achieve a non-profit certification or earn recognition in any kind of company. The job itself can be strenuous while the amount of skills learned, time invested, and coursework given is challenging. 

To earn a non-profit certification means:

  • Completing extensive coursework that stems from ten core competencies.
  • Complete a baccalaureate degree
  • Complete a 300-hour internship at a nonprofit

The few points above aren’t all that is required, but an example of the work you do to earn a CNP and make an impact on the world. If you’re not seeking a non-profit certification, there are still many kinds of recognition you can earn while working at a non-profit or give to others. For example:

  • You could be recognized for your fundraising abilities. Earning an award for most dollars raised.
  • Recognizing volunteers that have helped your non-profit achieve a goal. 
  • Your donors could be given printable certificates to express thanks for their giving. This often leads to repeat donations as well. 
  • Accomplishments feel better when they’re recognized. Any employee in a non-profit works hard to achieve the organization’s goal. Printable certificates, specially designed, offer a morale boost as well as making sure your people feel appreciated. 

Everyone wants to celebrate achievements, no matter the sort they’ve earned. It’s important to have well-designed, meaningful printable certificates that are personalized for those who’ve been successful. Sure, you could have a readymade stack of generic “thank you” and “congratulations”, but that would fail to underscore their appreciation. That’s why SimpleCert doesn’t offer generic certificates. We provide the tools and templates to personalize printable certificates, streamlining how they’re delivered to create ease in recognizing people.

SimpleCert Celebrates Non-Profits

A non-profit serves an important function, working to create significant change by striving for impact rather than profitability. We at SimpleCert want to thank those who work from the heart and that’s why we offer a 10% discount on your printable certificates. 

Beyond thanking you for your work, SimpleCert stands apart from other certificate companies by our Certificate Management System. You’re able to build personalized printable certificates and email templates that can be sent or shared on social media instantly. 

Many companies simply deliver premade certificates without considering that people want to share their achievements with loved ones. That’s why SimpleCert has created a way to remove the time it takes to deliver a certificate or award and make printable certificates instant, as well as shareable social media certificates. 

How to Use SimpleCert Printable Certificates

Ready to begin creating nonprofit printable certificates? Before you hop into the process with a credit card in hand, you should know that it’s completely FREE to create an account as well as the first 10 printable certificates you create and send.

After you’ve created your account, you’ll arrive at the SimpleCert design studio where you’ll find a wide selection of prebuilt certificate templates. If none of them are to your fancy or you want to add a more personalized touch, you can create your own as well! You’ll have tools to add custom artwork, your company logo, or browse the thousands of photos, graphics, and icons in our library. 

Once you’re satisfied with your non-profit certification or award design you’ll have the option to save, print, send, store, or share on social media. If you have multiple recipients, you can upload a list of where to send it via email and away they go. 

SimpleCert has streamlined the delivery of non-profit certificates as well as created ways to ensure they’re unique. Just as we show appreciation for your impactful work, we know you want to show gratitude for the efforts of those who make your mission achievable.

We also provide a help center to make sure you get the most out of SimpleCert’s design studio and delivery function. If you do have any questions regarding our printable certificates or our services in general, we encourage you to contact us. 

We can be reached on social media:

By phone: 971-351-4691

By email: inquiries@simplecert.net

Real Estate Certificates.

Real Estate Certificates

Real estate certifications are important to have, not just so you can have a job but to also communicate to home buyers and sellers that you have the knowledge in their pursuits. How that certification appears is just as important as having one. If you scribble on a piece of paper or have some sloppy printout, it doesn’t offer too much confidence to people looking for a competent realtor. 

Before we get into all that, let’s go over what a real estate certification is and the many types beyond being licensed to be a realtor. 

What is a Real Estate Certification?

A real estate certification or real estate designations are specialized credentials for realtors that communicate a specific knowledge, experience, or education in a variety of types of real estate. While additional certifications aren’t required, they do translate to ongoing and up-to-date knowledge that can better serve clients in a myriad of types of real estate. 

An example of a real estate certification that can boost business is a certificate of skills that deal with land selling. This is important knowledge to have when it comes to farms or empty lots. A very different ball game than selling or buying homes, which is what a lot of people think of when it comes to real estate. The knowledge a realtor has regarding homes doesn’t necessarily translate to luxury developments of skyscrapers or farmland. 

The Different Types of Real Estate Certificates

While there is a myriad of real estate agent certifications online and designations, below you’ll find a list of some more popular ones:

ALC: Accredited Land Consultant

This real estate certification focuses on individuals that specialize in land brokerage transactions, like farms and rances or undeveloped land. They are also knowledgeable on wholesaling lots, site selection, subdivisions, development land, and land parcels. 

CCIM: Certified Commercial Investment Member

This certification means the realtor has completed advanced coursework in financial and market analysis which strongly caters to the commercial real estate industry. Having the CCIM means being recognized as a leading expert in commercial investment real estate.

CRB: Certified Real Estate Brokerage Manager

This designation is for realtors interested in real estate managing brokerage and communicates a level of industry knowledge that tends to increase firm profitability. 

MRP: Military Relocation Professional

This real estate certification is for those who are interested in working with current and former military service members. It is focused on helping veterans and their families find housing solutions that take full advantage of the benefits and support afforded to our military.

Using SimpleCert to Create Printable Certificates

SimpleCert provides real estate certifications without the waiting hassle or cheap-looking designs. You have access to the SimpleCert design studio where you can choose from an enormous library of prebuilt certificate templates or create one yourself. You’re able to add custom artwork, company logos, or choose from the thousands of photos, graphics, and icons to ensure your real estate certification is unique.

Wondering what that costs? It’s completely free to sign up and you get your first 10 real estate certifications without being charged. After you’re done designing the real estate designation you’ll have the option to save, print, send, store, or share on social media. You can even upload a list of recipients that can instantly get their printable real estate certification. 

If you’re ever stuck on a design or need help with the myriad of tools SimpleCert provides in our design studio, we have a handy help center where you can get the most out of creating a real estate certification. 

If you’re ready to be awarded with ease, sign-up for free today and share your achievements however you see fit.

IRS Approved Continuing Education Provider – Check out SimpleCert®!

According to IRS.gov, “The Annual Filing Season Program is intended to recognize and encourage unenrolled tax return preparers who voluntarily increase their knowledge and improve their filing season competency through continuing education (CE).”  As an IRS Approved Continuing Education Provider, that’s where you come in…to provide those 16 hours of continued education per year! The content is your bailiwick, but we can help you create the certificate of completion. You are required to give tax preparers who attend your program a certificate of completion. To help you with this process, we have a NEW updated template that meets all the requirements listed on the IRS Sample Certificate.

IRS Provider Excel Template that you use to submit your participants’ information through your online CE provider account! The parts that change: Program Name, IRS Issued Program Number, CE Hours Awarded, Program Completion Date, Location, and Email are all merge fields that SimpleCert® uses to create your participants’ certificates.

Once set up, it takes seconds to create and email your certificates. It’s that simple! SimpleCert® stores all your certificates for your program as a single project for your records. This includes the master certificate of completion and all records of who completed programs and when. Did you know you need to keep these records for a period of four years? See Standard No.13 for a complete list of records to be kept in the event you ever get audited!

Now that SimpleCert® is here to help with your certificate management, you can sleep soundly at night! If you wish to apply to become an IRS Approved Continuing Education Provider, please visit IRS CE Provider. Are you a NASBA CPE Sponsor? If so, you may become a CE provider recognized for continuing education purposes by an IRS CE accrediting organization.

 

An Experiment Shows that Certificates Encourage Students to Attend After-School Tutoring Sessions

“We found that the students in the certificate group attended 42.5 percent more of their allocated tutoring hours than students in the control group.”

We found the following article that quantitatively shows that certificates of recognition encourage Students, read below:

Matthew G. Springer, Vanderbilt University

Many parts of the federal education law called No Child Left Behind were highly visible, but one of the less known provisions, the Supplemental Educational Services provision set aside funds to allow low-income students in poorly performing schools to get free access to after-school tutoring. Research has found that the benefits of this provision vary, depending on location and the types of providers offering tutoring services. But regardless of benefits, low attendance has been a consistent problem. Using a randomized experiment, my colleagues and I set out to test whether students eligible for tutoring would attend sessions more regularly if they got either certificates of praise or money for doing so.

How the Study Worked

We randomly selected 300 5th to 8th grade students in a large southern urban school district who were eligible to receive supplemental educational services. Prior studies found tutoring services in this district to be relatively high quality. To see whether use of those services could be improved, we randomly assigned students in our study to one of three subgroups:

  • Students in one group got a reward of $100 (distributed via an online platform) for consistent attendance at tutoring sessions.
  • Students in a second group got certificates of recognition for consistent attendance, signed by the school’s district superintendent and mailed to their homes.
  • Students in the third group were a control group, whose members received no experimental incentives.

Praise Matters More Than Money

Our results were striking. The students who were offered up to $100 for regular attendance were no more likely to attend tutoring sessions than if students were offered nothing at all. However, when we offered students and their parents a certificate, attendance went dramatically up. Students in the certificate group attended about 40 percent more of their tutoring hours than students in the control group who got no rewards or praise.

Our results parallel those from prior studies, where paying students and teachers for higher test scores proved ineffective. However, those earlier studies were not a definitive test of monetary rewards, because teachers and students might have lacked the knowledge or support they needed to improve test scores. In other words, you can offer a man more money to catch more fish, but he will not be able to claim the money if you don’t help him improve his fishing skills.

In our study of attendance at tutoring sessions, the situation was different. We offered money to students who attended regularly – and when they got to their tutoring sessions, there was someone to help them improve their skills in reading and math. The ambiguity that plagued interpretation of the experiments where teachers and students were offered money to improve test scores does not hold for our experiment.

Although the benefits of the monetary incentives were negligible, we found that the students in the certificate group attended 42.5 percent more of their allocated tutoring hours than students in the control group. This is a very strong effect – and the impact of offering the certificate for good attendance was especially strong for female students, who attended significantly more of their allocated tutoring hours than male students who were also offered certificates.

Policy Implications

Policymakers and practitioners seeking to increase attendance of tutoring sessions and other underutilized student supports should note how cost effective it is to offer certificates. In our study, providing the certificates cost about $9 for each student who completed all of the tutoring sessions. The cost for monetary rewards was obviously much more – more than $100 for each student who completed all the allocated hours. In short, the certificate intervention is more than 6,000 times more cost-effective than the monetary incentive. Our estimates are rough and paint an extreme picture. But they illustrate an important conclusion: non-monetary incentives can both work better than doling out money and can be a lot cheaper way to nudge students toward educational success.

Even so, the results of our experiment do not offer a comprehensive answer to an ongoing puzzle: Would it work to offer certificates of recognition to try to motivate many kinds of desirable student behavior?  Using certificates might not work as well if they were more widely used, because economic theory suggests that the value ascribed to a certificate of recognition would likely have diminishing marginal utility – that is, students would care less about earning these certificates if they were awarded all the time to reward all kinds of things teachers and parents want students to do.

Even in our own study, it might be that a second certificate of recognition would not have the same impact as the first. Furthermore, earning a certificate of recognition might not matter as much to a student who consistently brings home excellent report cards as it would to a student who earns lower grades. In real world applications, educators using non-monetary incentives may need to take such possible diminishing returns into account.

Even so, our results should inspire measured enthusiasm. Many other experiments with student incentives have registered disappointing results, but we found something that works well at very low cost. Educators should try incentives of this sort to boost participation in underutilized programs. And our study should also inspire researchers to do more nuanced and imaginative research on student incentives.

Read more in Matthew Springer, “Monetary vs. Non-Monetary Student Incentives for Tutoring Services: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” (with Brooks Rosenquist and Walker Swain). Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 8 (2015):453-474.                        

www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org                                                                                                      April 2016

This article was originally published on Scholars Strategy Network. Read the original article.

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