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Recommended
“Best Practices”
For
Scholarship Granting Organizations
September
2009
As part of developing a plan for a Scholarship Granting
Organization (SGO) and on-going operations, consider including the
following recommended “best practices.”
You may find them very useful in establishing your organization’s
mission and operating principles, aligning your vision with the
scholarship tax credit program and rules.
School Choice Indiana developed this list in consultation with other state
and national experts, as well as experiences from SGOs in other states.
Great lessons can be learned from successes and failures of others.
This “Best Practices” document is a model in development and
will be updated and amended as the program builds-out.
Recommended
Best Practices for SGOs in
Indiana
1. Maintain minimal administrative
costs. It is recommended that
SGOs strive to operate below the 10% statutory maximum or face finding
additional funding outside of the tax credit program.
2.
Create a mission and communicate that mission clearly with
your board leadership, staff, beneficiaries and the community.
3.
Create a diverse board and empower it to make governing
decisions for the organization (even if its status is advisory).
4.
Your scholarship application and organizational policies
should reflect your mission. For example, if you are working to serve the
neediest students, you may consider requiring a lower income level than
the law requires.
5.
Require appropriate documentation to determine an
“eligible student” as defined by the law. This might mean W-2 and
income determination, or transcripts to check the previous school (to
determine if student was enrolled in a public school for the prior year).
6.
Work with your board to determine what students you wish to
serve and how scholarships will be distributed. Will they be based solely
on need? Will they be a flat scholarship or will they be a percentage of
tuition? Make sure you have a fair system for scholarship distribution.
7.
Accept students that meet your organizational requirements
on a first come, first serve basis. Conduct a lottery for students on
waiting lists. It is good practice to anticipate more need than you can
provide scholarships to meet.
8.
Promote academic accountability through your scholarship
application, communication with stakeholders, and other organizational
policies. It is very important to the success of an SGO and the program
that participating students succeed. SGOs should adopt policies and
practices that encourage their success.
9.
Work closely and communicate with other Indiana SGOs to
assure application deadlines complement one another and that no student
receives money from multiple organizations that exceeds the cost of
tuition and fees.
10.
Work and communicate closely with your partner schools. This
may include coordinating with them on enrollment, transfers, and
withdrawal tracking. It is also a best practice to ask for a school
commitment form to partner with a school and ask them to report on all
enrolled students receiving a scholarship from your organization.
11.
Form student and parent centered policies rather than school
centered policies. Remember that you are prohibited from serving a single
school, or a particular group of schools. Scholarships go to children, not
schools. Maintain policies
that promote true school choice for families.
12.
Establish a long-term sustainability plan. It is never good
to assume that your donors are going to contribute at every opportunity.
Take every step possible to assure that no students being served will be
turned away in a subsequent year.
13.
Maintain positive relationships with all donors, keeping
them informed of the program and with an eye to the future. Look for
opportunities to partner and recognize donor support where appropriate.
14.
Organize your beneficiary students/families and communicate
with them regularly on the need to continue and grow the scholarship tax
credit program and other school choice programs. Good practices include
holding parent workshops and collecting information from families,
publishing success stories, telling your story to policymakers and the
media, etc.
Note
that this list doesn’t necessarily include statutory requirements or
rules required by the Indiana Department of Education.
For
more information and assistance, please contact Lindsey
Brown at School Choice Indiana.
Scholarship
Tax Credit Implementation
School
Choice
Indiana
One
North Capitol, Ste. 1250
Indianapolis
,
IN
46204
www.inscholarships.com
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