A closer look A Donor’s Guide to Supporting Scholarships

In Brief

• Education accounts for a substantial share of all charitable giving in the U.S. each year. Last year, for instance, of the almost $428 billion given to charity, $58.7 billion, or roughly 14%, went to supporting education — making it the second-largest area of giving behind religion.
• While charitable support for education can take many forms — support for policy initiatives, school programs and/or infrastructure, and teacher development programs, to name a few — much of it centers on giving for scholarships and financial aid. This is particularly true for Bessemer clients.
• Supporting scholarships can be fairly straightforward, but the many options — and the many rules and regulations regarding what’s permitted (and what’s not) — can cloud donor decision-making. In this A Closer Look, we outline the various approaches to providing scholarships, the decisions that need to be made, and the pitfalls to be avoided.