For schools

Your school on SGO Guide

Scholarship organizations use this platform to raise money and award scholarships to families at schools like yours. This is your school’s own way in: find your school, claim it, and choose which organizations you want to work with.

One record holds your address, your tuition, your roster and where scholarship payments go — and every organization you partner with reads that same one. You keep it right; they read it.

Find your school

Start here, before making an account. Your school may already be listed — an organization that reached out to you has usually added it — and claiming the record that exists is what keeps your tuition, roster and payment details in one place instead of two.

Sector:

Free, and nothing is committed by looking. Already have an account? Sign in.

Cost to the school

Nothing to claim your record, and nothing to partner. The organization carries the cost of running the program.

What it takes

A few minutes

Find your school, claim it, ask an organization. The rest of the timeline is theirs, and you hear from them directly.

Who controls it

You do

Once you are confirmed, an organization can read your school’s details but cannot rewrite them.

Where you are starting from

Which one are you?

All three end up in the same place: your school claimed, and you choosing who to work with. What differs is what happens next.

You were invited

A scholarship organization asked your school to join. Claim your school, then send them your request. When they approve it, you are confirmed and you get a login to their school portal.

You are looking for a program

Nobody has approached you yet. Claim your school, then ask any organization that is taking new schools. Each one decides separately, and you can ask more than one.

Your school is already listed

An organization added it when it set up its own records. Claiming it makes you the person who keeps those details right, and lets you add another organization later without re-typing anything.

Whoever keeps the school’s details should be the one to do this — a business manager, development director, principal or registrar. One person is enough to start.

The process

Five steps, and three of them are yours

The first three take minutes. The fourth is somebody else’s decision, and the fifth is what happens when they make it.

1
Find your school
You
Search the registry. If your school is already listed, the row says how many organizations work with it — claiming it changes none of those relationships. If it is not listed, you add it, and we check the name against what is already here so you do not end up with a second copy of your own school.
2
Make your account
You
An email address and a password, and nothing else. Register with your address at the school if you have one: an email at the school’s own domain confirms you on the spot. A personal address works too — it just means somebody has to vouch for you, which the next step takes care of.
3
Claim the school
You
This says you are the person who speaks for the school. It is identity, not access: it gives you no login inside anybody’s organization and no view of anybody’s data. Nothing about the partnerships your school already has changes.
4
Ask an organization to partner
They decide
Pick from the organizations open to new schools, and tell them who you are and what your school is. They decide, on their own terms and their own timeline, and you hear from them directly. Some ask that their partner schools work only with them — where that is the case, it is on the label before you ask.
5
Get your page and your portal
Both
When an organization approves you, your school’s branded giving page and QR code go live, your school gets its own public page, and you get a seat in that organization’s school portal — where your recurring job is confirming that a family who named your school is enrolled.

The fine print, up front

What claiming does, and what it does not

It does

Makes you the person who maintains your school’s address, tuition, roster and payout details.
Lets you work with more than one organization without re-entering any of it.
Locks the record: once you are confirmed, an organization can read your details but not rewrite them.
Shows you every organization your school works with, and where each request stands.

It does not

Cost anything — not to claim, and not to partner.
Commit your school to any organization. You ask; they decide; you can stop there.
Give you a login inside an organization’s system. That comes from them approving you, never from the claim.
Change or cancel a partnership your school already has.

Questions

What schools ask first

Do we have to form our own scholarship organization?: No. Partner schools plug into organizations that already exist and carry the compliance, the money and the reporting. Forming your own is a real option and buys you control over scholarship criteria — at the cost of a board, a certification and an annual audit.; Compare the three models
Somebody already claimed our school.: More than one person at a school can look after its record, so you can claim it too. If the claim looks wrong — the wrong school, or somebody who does not work there — flag the record once you are signed in. That freezes it while it is sorted out, and nothing about your existing partnerships changes while it is.
An organization sent us its own application link. Should we use this instead?: Either. Their form works without an account and gets you in front of that one organization. Claiming your school here does something their form cannot: it makes the record yours, so the next organization is a request rather than a re-typing, and your tuition and roster stay in one place.
What do we actually have to do once we are partnered?: Share your page and QR code with your community, and confirm enrollment for families who name your school on a scholarship application — one click per student. Income verification, award decisions, payments, receipts and audits all stay with the organization.; What a partner school gets
What do we see about our families’ finances?: Nothing. Your portal shows a student’s name, grade and guardian so you can confirm enrollment. Income, documents and eligibility decisions are visible only to the organization’s reviewers.
We work at a scholarship organization, not a school.: Different door. Staff accounts are invitation-only — ask your administrator to invite you from Settings → Team. If you are thinking about starting an organization of your own, start on the main site instead.; Starting an organization

Ready when you are

Find your school, or start the account.

Both land in the same place. Searching first is faster if your school is already here — and for most schools that an organization has spoken to, it is.

Search for your school Create your school account

Already have an account? Sign in. Not a school? Families, donors, or talk to a person.