Any suggestions for vetted and well run scholarship funds for underserved communities to make a donation to?
I’m particularly interested in supporting students of color. I’m considering the UNCF (with that iconic tag line, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”) and the American Indian College Fund. Any others that spring to mind?
I like investing close to my home (such as in my community) where I know how well (or poorly) things are run. We have a large community fund that administers scholarships, grants and other funds and assets. They do a good job of trying to carry out wishes of donors and trying to get funds to worthy causes, while monitoring that funds are spent properly.
Sorry, I don’t know about national funds.
I would contact the foundation arm of a college/university that you are fond of and ask them if they have a diversity (or specific DEI area is interest)) fund.
I donated on Thursday to a fund at my alma mater that serves underrepresented minorities.
Some schools will deduct scholarships from financial aid. Just fyi.
I donate to our local schools foundation annually. Most districts or areas will have one and the ones I know of (quite a few as I was an active board member for 6 years) all have some.sort of minority scholarship fund(s).
I also donate to the Cherokee Nation scholarship fund. That particular tribe is near and dear to my heart but I know that all tribes have great need for scholarship donations.
All good advice. I will probably do several different funds. Not really interested in donating to my alma mater. They have plenty of funding. I’m more interested in helping underserved kids go to whatever college they want to go to.
Underserved kids may want to go to ANY school - even the school you attended.
State schools are hurting around here. A trade school or community college would be a great idea.
Please look at local community foundation or school education foundations. They often offer nice opportunities to local students and draw from a smaller pool of applicants.
Depending on how much you want to give, you can also create a scholarship thru a donor directed award.
Yes, our Hawaii Community Foundation is large enough that it has economies of scale and can have one person managing many different scholarships well. I got scholarships from there which enabled me to go to the OOS U I wanted to attend and otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford.
Michelle Obama tweeted a list earlier, and it has been reposted widely enough that you can probably find it with a quick internet search
Oooo, thanks! This is just the kind of CC wisdom I was looking for.
Not that large. Just want to contribute.
Every contribution helps and they all add up.
I just want to say again: some of the awards from our local community for college scholarships did not have any impact because colleges subtract outside scholarships from their financial aid. This may not be relevant for some, but it is an important consideration when donating I think. You are basically substituting your funds for the college’s in those cases.
Yeah I don’t want to go that route. I like the Obamas’ list. I’ll probably use that as a starting point and might contribute to some local HBCUs and TCUs also.
We have a local community foundation that does some good work with giving grants to various local organizations but I am specifically interested in higher education right now and the local community foundation’s scope is much wider. We also live in a wealthier part of the state and I would rather help kids in an area with lower income.
@Sweetgum Just wanted to reply to support your efforts! I have been regularly donating directly to Dine College , a tribal college for the Navajo Nation,since I am from AZ. I followed them on Facebook and was very interested in helping them reach their goals.
I usually designate the funds to “where it is needed the most” .
I will check out Michelle Obama’s list as well.
If anyone else is interested in the Obamas’ suggestions I found it here: Our Statements On the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision To Overturn Affirmative Action | by Barack Obama | Jun, 2023 | Medium
It’s true that some scholarships can reduce financial aid… but sometime it could be the loan component of the FA that gets reduced… a good thing.
One possible approach is to donate to a school with efforts in place to prioritize scholarships/aid for minority / first generation students.
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