Designated Scholarships

Karen Bruce

Does your academic institution records gifts/donations from specific people or foundations that are for a specific student? For example - an award for Mary Smith from XYZ organization for a scholarship she was awarded that is paid directly to the institution? Or, a gift given to the institution from a student's church home to be applied specifically to a student's account? If so, do you track those gifts anywhere in the advancement/development side of the house? If you do, do you record each award or do you record a monthly, quarterly, or annual posting of all outside scholarships that are specifically designated for a particular student?

Please & thank you for sharing your thoughts and best practices!!

JoAnn Strommen

@Karen Bruce If the payment is for a specific named student it is not a charitable donation and we do not record.

When we have received them in our office we reach out to person/co sending payment and take the payment directly over to the campus cashier's office to be recorded as a tuition payment or financial aid.

Karen Bruce

@JoAnn Strommen thank you, JoAnn. My former institution managed it the same way. However, we are attempting to track these scholarships not as a donation but to gather a full view of all the sources of non-institutional scholarship income our students receive. Thanks again!

Spring Velazquez

@Karen Bruce we do. Primarily for stewardship and reporting purposes like you mentioned. I've found the easiest way to exclude from fundraising reports but including in the overall picture is to have a campaign "Outside Tuition Assistance" and to record the gift type and pay method as "Other" which in our world is a non-deposit (meaning we only get the check copy for informational purpose). We don't post to the to gl but do reconcile with finance every month and this seems to make everyone happy

Karen Bruce

@Spring Velazquez, thank you! that was exactly the input I was hoping to receive. I appreciate your input!