Many people in my town have been seriously discussing starting a scholarship program for orphans (or people who lost a parent in early years) in my area.
It would be named after my mother, and aim to help children who, like me, suffered from poor GPAs during the years when the loss truly hit them.
Sort of like a second chance for intelligent kids whose lives dealt them more to deal with than would allow for 4.0 GPAs. You know, people like me:
I never finished 11th grade. I had a 3.8 GPA at university until my depression helped drop it to a 1.86 due to unrecognized medical withdrawals.
We want to create a fund for people who have what it takes to have a 4.0, but who have just suffered more than allows for perfect grades.
So far, my projected requirements are a diploma or high-score GED plus an impressive score on the SAT, ACT, and/or PSAT (I was a National Merit Semi-Finalist, but would have been a NM Scholar had I only taken my SAT. I had the scholarship needed to be a Scholar.) Also, candidates must provide proof of outstanding academic performance for a past semester, or 6 months of continuous, full-time employment with a single employer with a positive reference.
I am young. I am idealistic. I already have people willing to donate the first year’s scholarship amount, but I want to ensure that the money goes to a worthy person. I also admit to having no idea what I am doing as far as legalities and such go.
Can anyone help me get this set up, as well as offer a way to find worthy people to manage the fund?
I’d start by going to google and typing in something like “nonprofit organizations” or “setting up a nonprofit organization” and go from there. I have a feeling the links you’d find would keep you busy for a long time.
I knew this much, but neglected to check it out once we’d determind our criteria. However, I doubt there is much info for people that participate in such an org that could help my targeted group.
The simplest thing is to choose the university that will award the scholarship and to ask it to manage the money and selection process for you. If you want to award the scholarship to a high school student, there may be a community foundation that can manage it.
I’ll start working on it this week. I have almost 300k pledged. If I can get this set up, then that is enough money to fund many scholarships.
Too many people around here are missing out due to lack of financial aid. Too many people are perfectly intelligent, but life has not afforded them the necessary GPAs and standardized test scores needed for scholarships.
One thing to note is that you really don’t want to be collecting for this from year to year to meet each year’s scholarship obligations afresh. Get a certain sum of money as an endowment, and use the interest from that to fund the scholarship awards. Or if you just want to bestow these scholarships for a few years instead of in (more or less) perpetuity, you can spend down the capital as well as the interest.
Dewey’s right that you can get a particular university to handle the money as an award to one of their incoming students, but you or your board of trustees or whatever will not be able to select the recipient. I think an award to high school students might be a better idea anyway; presumably you want to catch students, or at least attract their attention, before they decide not to apply to college at all because their grades are too low.
All you need to set up a scholarship is the money. Announce you’re giving the scholarship and then give the money to the winner.
Working with the college is probably a good idea, though: they can figure out who in their class is eligible to recieve it according to your criteria.
Unless you plan to solicit donations, there no need to set up a nonprofit. If you plan on a $5000 scholarship, just make sure the money is available when the student needs is.
I remember reading somewhere that college endowments spend about five percent of the principal amount each year. Generally, they can earn more than that each year, so that rate allows the preservation of the principal and perhaps some growth. If you can actually accumulate $300,000, that’s about $15,000 that can be awarded, which is a lot if you give it to one student, or could fund scholarships to several students.
Thank you. That is hopeful information that we have not considered yet. Today, $15,000 is a decenty large sum. Perhaps we can get SEVERAL people on the road towards 4 year degrees or better.
I’ll keep looking and will truly respond tomorrow once I’ve slept.
