Stuck Funds, Stranded Dollars

Most scholarship portfolios include at least one fund that no longer works. The criteria are too narrow, no students apply, or the original donor's intent no longer matches any student you serve. The money sits there, restricted and unused.

That stuck money is an opportunity. And there's more money waiting right behind it: donors who want to give to scholarships but have no good way to do it. Some can't meet the minimum to start a named fund. Others don't want the paperwork that comes with one. Right now, those gifts walk out the door.

A pooled scholarship fund solves both problems. It lets you redirect money that's stuck into a fund students can actually use, and it gives every donor a simple way to give — at any amount, without starting a fund of their own.

This session is a candid conversation with three community foundations that already run pooled funds. They'll walk through how they did it: the legal steps to redirect restricted money, how they kept donors comfortable through the change, and what the funds have raised since. One hour, live. Come with the fund you don't know what to do with.