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Schools Provide Financial Aid. Investors Provide Scholarships.

For Impact Ideas | | Tom Suddes

Note to all Development/Sales Teams in EDUCATION.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had serious discussions on how to ‘sell’ financial aid.

Clearly, it should be a very, very compelling story!

In a recent session with a VP for Development at a college (a great guy with a terrific background but not a lot of collegiate ‘fundraising’ experience), I stated this simple distinction:

SCHOOLS PROVIDE FINANCIAL AID.

INVESTORS PROVIDE SCHOLARSHIPS.

Joe said it was brilliant. I’m not sure about that, but it is simple and clear.

Note: The other big, big, big deal when talking about financial aid or scholarships is too really, really, really DO THE MATH!

It’s actually very simple MATH:

• TUITION: $T

• COST(of Education): $C (Annual Operating Budget divided by # of Students. It’s hard to mess this up.)

• The ‘GAP’: $G (Cost – Tuition)

• DISCOUNT: $D or % (School ‘Dollars’ not funded with Real ‘Dollars’)

• AVERAGE FINANCIAL AID: $AFA

• ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP: $ES (20 x Gap or Discount or Average Financial Aid)