When you establish a scholarship fund with Communities Foundation of Texas, you give deserving students the opportunity to pursue their dreams while achieving your own charitable goals.
Whether you want to establish a legacy or honor a loved one, give back to your community or your alma mater, we will work with you to create a scholarship that is uniquely your own.
We partner with families, individuals, companies, organizations and estates to achieve their charitable goals, while giving countless students the opportunity to pursue their educational dreams.
Overview: Establishing a scholarship
What is Your Goal?
CFT offers a high level of expertise, with customized scholarship funds that can be built to address the needs of a variety of students. Criteria can be crafted in many ways, including, but not limited to: academic ability, financial need, geographic area, a specific institution, a particular field of study or underserved communities.
Your Legacy; Our Support
CFT provides complete administration of your scholarship fund from publicizing the scholarship, to creating, receiving and processing the applications, to convening the scholarship committee, and everything in between. You may be involved as much or as little as you prefer throughout the scholarship process.
Want to discuss establishing a scholarship fund?
For more information, please contact Katie Kuehl, scholarships associate, at 214-750-4137 or kkuehl@cftexas.org.
Frequently Asked Questions
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To be maintained in perpetuity, Endowed Scholarship Funds require a minimum initial gift of $250,000. Non-Endowed Scholarship Funds require a minimum initial gift of $100,000.
Yes. We will help you develop selection criteria most meaningful to you. 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.
You 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. You may set up a scholarship for any educational pursuit from early childhood through higher education and beyond such as adult continuing education.
No. A selection committee cannot be made up entirely of donors to the fund or 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.
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.
No. Scholarships may only be paid to educational institutions in support of the recipient.
Yes. However, if a student does not meet the minimum requirements to receive the scholarship, they will still be awarded funds for the following semester on a probationary basis. Should the student not make the requirements for a second consecutive semester, the scholarship will be terminated.
We would love to facilitate this opportunity for you. Please contact Katie Kuehl for more details.