I’d like to write a little about our wonderful little bank account we call the scholarship fund. Mostly, I want to put it all in one place, for the public, how we get money in the account, and how it goes out of the account.
Money In: this part gives me some joy, some trepidation and generally costs a lot of time and energy, except for the last couple options which you should really check out.
1. Asking for donations: I’ve only done this twice and have had a couple of good friends and family members respond generously, but haven’t tried asking my bigger network. Ideally, ODU IV alumni would be quick to give to this, even consistently. Someday I will formulate an “ask” to them to send checks made out to ODU InterVarsity to my home address so I can deposit them in the BB&T account.
2. Work Days: my friend Kelly taught me about this W&M custom one day on a bike ride through Larchmont, and since then we’ve been able to help out a couple of widows, some church families, and others with their yard work, moving and other needs. The best is when they respond super generously and just give a couple hundred dollars instead of trying to be fair about it with labor wages and such. But no matter how much they give, it’s a great opportunity for students to feel a sense of ownership and investment. Most of them don’t like asking for “free” money and scholarship help, so this gives them a chance to help earn it.
3. GoodSearch: this is an amazing website, the charitable side of Yahoo, that created a search engine that would give away a small portion of the advertising proceeds they make with each search. The idea was then expanded to include GoodShop where donations are given from many online purchases, and my recent discovery of GoodDining which gives a percentage of some dining out purchases. May I invite you to participate? The best thing about these are that they do not require any extra work or effort, after the initial launch. With GoodSearch you simply choose which charity you search for (ODU InterVarsity of course!) and the computer remembers that each time you return to the site. You can also customize your little search bar in the top right corner of your Firefox or Explorer browser (http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/mode/firefox-plugin). Easy.
4. GoodShop is almost as easy, whenever you are considering buying anything online. If you go to the site from a link on the GoodShop homepage, it recognizes the charity you chose (ODU InterVarsity of course!) and directs a percentage of what you spent, directly to us! The easiest way to do this is to download the toolbar, which then will throw up a little yellow flag whenever you are on a site that gives money to the charity. It will also tell you about coupons and discounts at that site for your online purchase! Amazon, Ebay, Apple/iTunes, buy.com, Expedia, Target and a hundred or so other retailers! EASY money for a good cause.
5. and finally, GoodDining. I just discovered this today… I’ve been ignoring the chocolate cake photo they’ve been luring me to click for a couple weeks now, then just now decided I wanted to figure out how it works. It seemed like it might be a stretch… but you know what? It’s EASY. You have to trust the website and be comfortable with the whole idea of customer relationship management. In other words, the system that Amazon uses to give you suggestions for purchases based on what you’ve viewed or bought, or the grocery store VIP card, which sends your data to the store managers to help them decide what to put or keep on sale, highlight on endcaps, print personally relevant coupons, etc. I personally am fine with this, I think I need the help finding products some times, and knowing that they tailor their marketing to me challenges me to stay strong. All that to say: register your debit or credit card with GoodDining and they will be able to track your dining purchases at select restaurants. Those restaurants will exchange the information of how often I came and how much I spent, for a donation to the charity of my choice (say it with me now, ODU InterVarsity of course!). For Norfolkians, the restaurants I recognized as popular that participate are D’Egg (both locations), University Pizza, La Bella Ghent, Pasha/ Pasha Mezze, Ynot Pizza, Tortilla West, Bier Garden, Broken Egg Bistro, Macaroni Grill
There is also a tax-deductible option for donations to the scholarship fund. This fund is specific to area and regional InterVarsity conferences only, but that is actually quite a nice thing since those conferences are usually more expensive anyway. Simply put, you donate to IV and specify the designation. You can give to fund a staff worker’s cost for ministry (in my case, 40 hrs a week= salary, benefits, training, office costs, etc). You can also give to a school-specific scholarship fund! Like Old Dominion University!
I might have saved the best link for last. I really like that link… you should check it out and give me some feedback- how does it look and sound? Does it make you want to give?
Coming soon: Part II of “the scholarship fund” postings… Money Out. Where does it go? What’s the difference between the BB&T account and the InterVarsity donation? And what does “scholarship” really refer to?
