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Who is eligible for the Guardsmen Scholarship Program?
Recipients must reside in the Bay Area, be entering a grade between kindergarten and the sixth grade, and meet the income requirements of the Federal Subsidized School Lunch Program. More than half our recipient families earn less than $20,000, and virtually all of our recipients' families earn less than $30,000 per year. Families must apply to the program through a written application that includes financial documentation.
How are recipients selected?
New recipients are selected annually by lottery from the pool of all new, qualified applicants. The lottery is held in late May, a few weeks after the May 1 application deadline. Excluded from the lottery and automatically receiving scholarships each year are recipients from the prior year, provided they have reapplied and continue to meet eligibility requirements. Siblings of recipients are also included in the program with going through the lottery. The lottery itself consists of a Guardsmen staff member pulling names from a hat.
We choose from the pool of qualified applicants by lottery rather than a method such as family interviews because of the lottery system's inherent efficiency. The lottery system gives each qualified application an equal shot at inclusion and consumes virtually no time or budget resources that can otherwise be devoted to adding scholarships.
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How much tuition does a Guardsmen Scholarship cover?
The program pays 50% of tuition up to a maximum of $2,000 annually. Our average scholarship is $1800, as annual tuition at most of our schools is less than $4,000. Tuition payments are made by the Guardsmen directly to the private schools.
In addition to our scholarship funds, the private schools we support frequently provide subsidies or discounts to the lowest-income families, such that our recipients often pay substantially less than the Guardsmen's amount. Some recipients' families pay only token amounts when parents or guardians make special arrangements with the school, such as agreeing to perform work at the school. Therefore our program includes a surprising number of students whose families rely entirely on public assistance or where no parent is present but a relative or foster parent is there to make arrangements with the school.
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Why are families required to pay part of the tuition?
Our belief is that parental commitment is the best determiner of student success, after adjusting for family differences in income and parental education. By requiring some level of financial commitment (as well as the completion of a new application each year), we are directing our resources to the parents most willing to take action to improve their child's education. The logic follows that we are helping the disadvantaged children with the best chance of benefiting from a better educational environment.
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How are schools selected to be in the program?
A student's parent or guardian chooses the school to be attended. The Guardsmen will fund scholarships for any state accredited, private school located in the Bay Area. Last year we supported students in 56 different schools. See listing of schools.
Tuition at the majority of our schools is between $3,000 and $4,000. About 40% of our schools are Catholic schools, roughly consistent with the mix of private schools in California. Our program is not affiliated with any religious faith.
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Who manages the program?
A committee of Guardsmen members oversees the program, handles marketing and fundraising, and makes final decisions on administrative matters. Day-to-day administration is handled by the Guardsmen's two full-time staff members and one part-time staff member who is dedicated to the Scholarship Program. The bulk of the administrative work involves the processing of applications and the dispersal of tuition checks to schools each semester.
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Where does the program's funding come from?
As our program is part of the Guardsmen, the bulk of its funding to date has come from the Guardsmen's traditional fundraising activities over the course of the year. The Guardsmen's best-known events include our annual Wine Auction, Sports Auction, and Christmas Tree lot. The Scholarship Program consumed about 30% of The Guardsmen's total fundraising in 2001, up from 20% in 2000 and less than 5% in 1998, the Scholarship Program's first year. Our group receives no funding from governmental agencies.
The Guardsmen's existing fundraising activities are sufficient to fund our already-established scholarship obligations for their duration. However, the continuing surge in new applications compels us to raise significantly larger amounts of money for scholarships. Our hope is to generate donations sufficient to support several times our current level of about 200 scholarships, and, ultimately, to have enough resources to fund all qualified applicants.
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How do the Guardsmen monitor the schools they support?
Members of the Guardsmen Scholarship Committee regularly visit the schools, particularly those receiving the largest numbers of our scholarships. On these visits we typically have a one-on-one meeting with the principal, spend time looking in on classrooms and visit with the students we're supporting. We're in touch with every school at least once a semester through the process of disbursing tuition checks and updating our student records.
We require all our schools to be accredited by the state, but arguably the most important "stamp of approval" for these schools is the willingness of poor parents to pay money to send their kids to these schools rather than to the free alternative.
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How can I donate to the program?
Donations can be made by check, cash, or stock transfer to the Guardsmen Scholarship.
In addition to one-time donations, we encourage donors to consider sponsoring a particular student, a group of students, or even an entire school. Financial commitments in these programs range from $1,700 to $25,000 per year and run from between three and thirteen years.
Mail donations to
The GuardsmenWhatever method you choose, you can rest assured that your money is going directly to funding the education of the children as our program is designed with a minimum of overhead and a maximum of impact.
P.O. Box 29330
San Francisco, CA 94129-0330
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