The easiest way for a school to start: join an SGO we run.
The fastest way for a school to offer federal tax-credit scholarships: join an SGO we operate instead of forming your own. $0 to start. Your school gets a branded giving page and QR code, donors can name your school as their preferred school, your school confirms enrollment in one click, and the SGO carries every Section 25F obligation.
$0
to start
Days
to onboard, not months
1 click
to confirm enrollment
Sample data. Preferences are advisory; awards are decided by the SGO on need (§25F).
A single school
Your families could use tax-credit scholarships, but forming an SGO is out of reach. Join one, get a page and QR by next week.
A diocese or school network
Every school gets its own page; supporters pick the school they stand behind from one directory; one SGO does the compliance.
An SGO that wants schools
Run the partner program yourself on ClearPath: vetting queue, school portal, and the preferred-school pool are all built in.
Everything a school needs. Nothing a school shouldn’t have to run.
$0 to start — no SGO to form
Forming and certifying an SGO takes months of legal work, state registration, segregated accounts, and an annual audit. A partner school skips all of it: it joins an SGO that already exists, is listed in your state, and is built to run Section 25F correctly.
A branded page your community will actually use
Every partner school gets its own giving page, link, and QR code — your colors, your logo, your story, a community goal — plus an embeddable widget for your website. Gifts through it earn donors the federal credit and name your school as their preferred school.
The one job only a school can do
Schools are the only party who can confirm a student is actually enrolled. Partner schools do that in a one-click portal — a name and a grade, never a family's income or documents — and every confirmation lands on the application, the audit log, and a trail you can see at all times.
Preferences the committee can see — compliance the regulator can trust
Donor preferences are advisory under Section 25F, so the SGO's committee sees a per-school pool — dollars marked for your school next to awards already going to your students — and honors preferences where need allows. No earmarking, full discretion, clean audit trail.
From application to first payout
Add your school in five minutes
Your school submits a short profile — contact, website, accreditation, enrollment — from the SGO's public join page. No account needed. Until the program opens this is the early-access list, and it is the whole commitment.
The SGO vets and approves
An SGO admin reviews the school and approves. Approval is what turns everything else on — and it can be paused if needed. Vetting begins when the program opens, early-access schools first.
Your page, QR, and portal go live
You receive your branded giving page, QR code, embed snippet, and a partner-portal invitation for your registrar or advancement lead.
Donors give, families apply
Supporters name your school as preferred when they give; families pick your school when they apply. Both flows are pre-filled from your links.
You confirm enrollment
Families who named you appear in your portal: confirm enrolled / not enrolled with an optional note. The SGO's reviewers see your answer on the application.
The SGO awards and pays tuition
Awards are decided on need with your school's pool in view. Scholarship tuition is paid straight to your school, on a ledger you can see.
Where a $1,000 preferred gift goes
Donor gives to the SGO, names your school as preferred
Lands in the SGO's state account; donor earns up to $1,700 federal credit
$1,000
Scholarship floor (≥90%)
Awarded by the SGO's committee on need — with your school's pool in view
$900+
SGO operating allowance (≤10%)
Covers the SGO's cost of running the program
≤ $100
Illustrative. At least 90% of every qualified contribution must reach students; the operating allowance covers the cost of running the program and is capped at 10%.
Built to the statute, not around it
- A donor's preference is advisory. The SGO's committee keeps full discretion and awards on need and eligibility — no gift is earmarked to a school or student.
- The SGO's operating costs are charged against the ≤10% allowance of the state account the gift landed in — never against the 90% scholarship floor. Anything above the cap is blocked.
- Operating releases appear on the per-state 90/10 report and the state-accounts export, so auditors see the whole picture.
- School users live in a separate portal and can't reach donor or applicant financial data. Every approval, verification, and payout is audit-logged.
- Enrollment confirmation by the school satisfies the SGO's enrollment gate before tuition disbursements — with who/when/note recorded.
The whole partner program, shipped
Branded school page
Headline, story, logo, colors, hero photo, community-goal thermometer, supporters count, FAQ, and share tools — hosted by the SGO at its domain.
QR code + links + embed
Print-ready SVG QR, direct give link, family apply link, and an iframe giving widget for your own website — all pre-selecting your school.
Preferred-school selection on the give page
Even donors who start from the SGO's main giving page can pick your school as preferred from the list, filtered to their designated state.
School picker on the application
Families choose your school from the partner list (or type another). Naming you routes the enrollment-confirmation task to your portal and emails your coordinators.
One-click enrollment confirmation
Student, grade, guardian name — never income or documents. Confirm or decline with a note; it lands on the application, the audit log, and the family's timeline.
Per-school gift ledger
Every gift that named your school — one-time, recurring, reconciled, or offline — lands on your ledger, so you can see exactly what your community raised and when.
Preferred-school pool for the committee
On the SGO's review queue and award modal: preferred dollars per school vs awards already to that school's students — advisory, never binding.
Everything inside the operating cap
Every operating dollar counts against the ≤10% allowance of the state account the gift landed in. The platform blocks anything above the cap and shows it on the 90/10 report.
Your own team
A partner admin invites colleagues as coordinators — the school's ordinary seat, which confirms enrollment, edits your page and runs your outreach — or as fellow admins, who can also manage the team. School users never touch SGO staff data: the portal is a separate, school-scoped surface.
Vetting workflow for the SGO
Applied → approved / declined / suspended, with reasons shared to the school, status emails, and a full audit trail — the SGO stays in control of who joins.
School directory
A diocese or district shares one link; supporters pick the school they want to stand behind from the SGO's public directory, grouped by state.
Bilingual by default
Giving and application flows stay English / Español — including the preferred-school and school-picker copy.
Deliverables
- Public partner application page per SGO (/join) and an SGO-side vetting queue
- Per-school settings and approval controls for the SGO, bounded by the operating cap
- Branded school pages with goal thermometer, share tools, QR download, and embed snippet
- Preferred-school selection on give pages + embeds; school picker on the application
- School portal: verification queue, page editor, team management
- Preferred-school attribution stamped per gift (one-time, recurring, reconciled, and offline)
- Preferred-school pool on the scholarship queue, award modal, and partner-school detail
- Per-state 90/10 report and state-accounts export; per-school gift CSV export
- Status, invitation, and verification-request emails — branded per SGO
- Audit-logged everywhere; school users fully separated from SGO staff data
Questions schools ask
Can our school join today? +
Not yet. The partner-school program is coming soon: federal tax-credit scholarships begin January 1, 2027, and the SGO that partner schools will join is still being stood up. What is live today is the early-access list — add your school and we will come back to you first, with the partner agreement, as the program opens. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If you would rather talk it through first, reach out through the contact form.
Do we have to form our own SGO? +
No. Partner schools plug into a scholarship granting organization that already exists and is certified under Section 25F. You keep being a school; the SGO carries the compliance, the money, and the reporting. Forming your own is a real option too — it buys you control over scholarship criteria and the administrative share of each gift, at the cost of months of setup, a board, and an annual audit. If you want that control without staffing the operation, ClearPath Managed forms and runs the SGO for you while your board keeps the policy and your committee keeps the award decisions. All three models are compared side by side at /start-or-join-an-sgo.
What does it cost a school to join? +
Nothing. There is no setup fee, no subscription, and no minimum. The SGO carries the cost of running the program — certification, segregated accounts, receipts, state reporting, and the annual audit — out of the operating allowance Section 25F permits, never from the 90% of contributions that must reach scholarships. Your branded page, QR code, and school portal come with joining.
Can donors direct their gift to our school? +
Donors can name your school as their preferred school, and the SGO's committee sees those preferred dollars next to the students from your school who applied. But federal law (Section 25F) prohibits earmarking a gift to a school or student — the SGO keeps full discretion and awards on need and eligibility. A preference guides awards; it never binds them.
What does the school actually have to do? +
Share your branded page and QR code with your community, and confirm enrollment for the families who name your school on their scholarship application — a one-click task in a simple school portal. Income verification, award decisions, disbursements, receipts, and audits stay with the SGO.
How does a family apply? +
Through the SGO's bilingual application portal. Your school appears in the school picker (and your apply link pre-selects it); when a family names you, their application shows up in your portal for enrollment confirmation, and the SGO handles the rest.
Is the tax credit real for our donors? +
Yes. Under the federal scholarship tax credit (Section 25F, effective January 1, 2027), gifts to a certified SGO earn a dollar-for-dollar federal income-tax credit of up to $1,700 per taxpayer per year ($3,400 for joint filers), in states that have opted in.
Talk it through before you decide.
Tell us about your organization and we’ll set up a consultation on your formation path, your state, and the timeline. It costs nothing and there is nothing to sign — and if it’s useful, we’ll walk through the platform on the same call.
What happens next
We read your submission and respond within one business day
A working session, typically 45–60 minutes — your situation, not a sales pitch
Which of the three paths fits, what your state requires, and what the timeline is
You leave with a clear recommendation — including when the answer is to join an SGO rather than form one, or to wait