Yes. To qualify as a scholarship, there must be a competitive process for choosing among qualified applicants. A selection committee must review all the applications and select recipients based upon pre-set criteria. The selection committee must have a minimum of three members. The selection criteria and selection committee members are approved by ACF's Board.
No. A selection committee cannot be made up entirely of donors to the fund, related parties, such as family members, employees or the board members of an organization-supported scholarship. According to IRS regulations, donors can comprise no more than one-third of a scholarship committee. This means, for example, if two donors wish to participate on a selection committee, the committee must have at least six people on it.
Yes. In fact, many scholarships set up certain positions to serve on the selection committee rather than naming individuals. We honor these requests whenever possible. As an example, a scholarship for a particular high school might have a selection committee including the high school principal, two teachers and the track coach. Another might name specific people or positions.
Yes. We will help donors develop selection criteria most meaningful to them. Scholarships can support students from particular schools or geographic areas, students who will attend a certain university or are engaged in a specific program of study or activity.
The donor may also recommend criteria such as GPA, test scores, work experience, personal essay, or extracurricular activities be given more weight than other criteria in the selection process. The only restriction is that the selection criteria must be objective and non-discriminatory.
No. Scholarships may only be paid to educational institutions in support of the recipient.
This depends on the charitable class of recipients and the purpose of the awards. In general, competitive awards to youth under age 18, in support of athletic or cultural activities, are permitted. If you are interested in setting up this type of scholarship, please
contact us.
Yes, but please
contact us prior to beginning any fundraising efforts so we can talk about the guidelines and policies. This also ensures we can properly acknowledge gifts received from fundraising activities. (
Read a summary of the policy 
) Also, it's important you know that fundraising expenses cannot be paid out of a donor advised fund.
The rules are designed to comply with restrictions placed on scholarship funds by the Pension Protection Act of 2006. In addition, these rules help to ensure the scholarship selection is competitive and non-biased, and that no donors or their families are receiving benefits that they should not receive.