Scholarship Funds
Scholarship Funds are established by donors provide a permanent source of scholarships, which are awarded directly to educational institutions on behalf of students. Scholarship funds must be endowed and reach a balance of $25,000 before scholarships can be awarded.
Donor advised funds are prohibited from making grants to individuals, which includes scholarships. However, scholarship funds may be established with Hope CCF if they follow the following guidelines:
- The individual grant program serves a charitable purpose.
- The group of persons who will be eligible for the grant program constitutes a charitable class.
- There are objective criteria for the selection of recipients.
- The donor or advisor does not control the process for selecting recipients. Donors and advisors may be members of selection committees provided that they do not control the committee’s decision, directly or indirectly.
- The sponsoring charity, such as the Hope Christian Community Foundation, publicizes the grant program in an appropriate manner to ensure that eligible individuals are reasonably informed of its availability.
- The sponsoring charity screens the selected recipients to ensure that distributions from a donor-advised fund are not made to disqualified persons.
- The sponsoring charity retains documentation to show how the recipients were selected and the terms under which the gift was given.
- The sponsoring charity establishes procedures to ensure that the granted funds are used for the purpose for which the grant was made, and the procedures it will follow if it discovers a misuse of the funds.
- If potential recipients are limited to employees or members of the families of the employees (including deceased or retired employees) of a particular employer, the sponsoring charity verifies that the selection process complies with the guidelines for similarly restricted private foundation scholarship grants and educational loans (other than the requirement for seeking advance approval of the procedures).
