How a school joins: four paths
What your school can do on its own — claim its record, partner with one or several scholarship organizations, join a chapter, take gifts to its own fund — and what each one needs from you.
Your school can do four things here, and none of them depends on the others. Claiming your school is complete on its own; partnering with a scholarship organization (SGO), joining a chapter and taking gifts to your own fund are each a choice you can make later, or never.
The four paths
| Path | What it is | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Claim your school | Become the person who keeps your school’s record right — and stop there if that’s all you want. | Your details, bank account and tuition live in one place, ready for any organization you work with later. |
| Partner with organizations | Ask one scholarship organization or several to add your school; each decides on its own. | Once one approves you, families can name your school on its scholarship application, and you get a giving page, a QR code and a login to its school portal. |
| Join a chapter | A chapter is a parish, alumni group or PTA that raises scholarship money for its schools through a scholarship organization. | Your school gets its own page with the chapter for supporters to give through, and you edit your school’s side of it. |
| Gifts to your fund | Donors can give to your school’s own annual fund as a separate gift, receipted in your school’s name. | Supporters can give to your fund on your school’s own page — or, once you partner with an organization, the part of a gift past their tax-credit limit can come to you. |
What each one needs from you
| Path | To start | Before money reaches you | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claim your school | — | — | Your name, your title and a link to the page on your school’s website that lists its staff — SGO Guide confirms you by calling the office. |
| Partner with organizations | School details | Bank account, Bank check (recommended), Tuition | Confirming a student is enrolled when their family names your school — one click each. A few organizations partner only with schools that work with no one else; they’re marked before you ask, and none of them can end a partnership you already have. |
| Join a chapter | — | — | The chapter’s yes — ask to join one from your account page, or accept its invitation there. If you’re a private school the chapter’s organization doesn’t partner with yet, joining asks it to — and it reviews you first. Chapters run only where an organization offers them and can take gifts in your state, so your account page lists the ones you can ask. |
| Gifts to your fund | School details | — | SGO Guide’s verification of your school, or an approved partnership whose giving page offers your fund. A Stripe account cleared to take card payments, which is where these gifts land. Your 501(c)(3)’s legal name, a name for the fund, and the person who signs its receipts. Accepting the receipt agreement. These are ordinary gifts to your school, kept apart from scholarship money and never counted toward the federal scholarship tax credit. |
Ask first, set up while they review
Asking an organization never waits on your bank account or your tuition. Those only have to be in place before the first payment — so setting them up while the organization reviews you means nothing waits once it says yes.
One setup, every organization
Your details, bank account and tuition are entered once and read by every organization you work with. Once you’re confirmed, an organization can read your school’s details but can’t rewrite them, and asking a second organization is a request, not a re-typing.
| Step | What you do | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Your claim | Find your school or add it, sign in, and tell us who you are — SGO Guide confirms you by checking your school’s website and calling the office. | You keep the school’s record right, and every organization you work with reads it. |
| School details | Your street address, city, state, ZIP and EIN, as they appear on your IRS records. | An organization reviewing your school checks who you are against these. |
| Partner requests | Pick any organization taking new schools and send it a short request — ask as many as you like. | Once one approves you, families can name your school on its application and you get a login to its school portal. |
| Bank account | Your school’s routing and account numbers, entered once for every organization that pays you. | Scholarship payments for your students go here, and nothing can be paid until it’s set. |
| Bank check | Sign in to your bank and pick the account; we check the owner’s name and number match, then disconnect. | Organizations see your bank confirmed the account, and if your bank can’t — say it’s in your diocese’s name — they confirm it with you instead. |
| Tuition | What you charge for the coming school year — one price for every grade, or a price per grade. | An organization may cap an award at a student’s own tuition, so this sets that ceiling. |
| Chapter invitations | When a chapter invites your school, accept or decline it from your account page. | A parish, alumni group or PTA can raise scholarship money with your school on its own page. |
| Fund settings | Connect a Stripe account, name your fund and who signs its receipts, and accept the receipt agreement. | Donors can give straight to your school’s own fund — a separate gift, receipted by your school. |
Partnering with more than one organization
Most organizations are glad to share a school. A few partner only with schools that work with no one else: that is marked on the organization before you ask, and its sign-up won’t take a school that already partners elsewhere. What no organization can do is end, block or hide a partnership you have with another one — and an organization working with you sees only the names of the others that have approved you.
Who you are to us
- Claiming makes you the person who speaks for the school — not a login inside any organization. That login comes from an organization approving you.
- SGO Guide checks every claim by hand, usually within two business days. An email at your school’s own domain is the quickest to check; a personal address (many schools run their office on Gmail) works too.
- No money moves on a claim alone. Every payment still needs an organization’s approval, and a change to where payments go is confirmed by a person before anything is sent.