How To Fund a High School Scholarship

Support and help advance the educational experiences of high school students by starting a scholarship fund. By setting up a scholarship fund you will be responsible for determining applicant criteria, the award amounts and if and how the scholarship can be renewed. Funds for a scholarship fund can be bestowed from direct money, from stocks or bonds or can be left to the high school in a will. Corporations and other individuals are frequently willing to co-sponsor and contribute to scholarship funds. Scholarship money can be a one-time gift to a specific school; can be offered locally, regionally or nationally; and can even be invested, so the interest gained on the fund will allow the scholarship to continue to be available in following years.

Instructions

1. Research and choose a financial management group for holding and managing the scholarship money if the money is not being gifted directly to the school.

2. Familiarize yourself with the Internal Revenue Service regulations regarding scholarship funds. Rules include that the scholarship has to be fair, offered to a broad range of students and cannot be received by relatives of the donor.

3. Name your fund. This may be your name, the name of a departed alumnus or teacher or the name of a co-sponsoring corporation.

4. Determine the application criteria (scholarships criteria often include area of study, school activities, year in school and financial need), how much money will go into the fund, how much of the fund will be given at a time and whether it will be given to a single student or divided among multiple students. Determine whether the scholarship is renewable and what the stipulations for that will be. Determine how often the scholarship will be awarded. Create a legal trust document to outline these details of the scholarship.

5. Start a committee for overseeing the scholarship, publicizing the scholarship, and choosing the recipients.

References

• Foundationcenter.org: What Resources are Available for Setting up a Scholarship Fund?
• Foundationnews.org: Setting Up Scholarship Funds