Introduction
SponsoredScholar is an innovative resource schools can provide to students to help them close tuition gaps and unexpected expenses. A fundraising platform proven to improve retention and completion, Sponsored Scholar enables students to run personalized fundraising campaigns aimed at the network that knows them best: their friends and family.
Payments and Gifts
What payment solution does SponsoredScholar use?
SponsoredScholar includes a payment solution through Chase Bank called WePay. The funds go directly to an institution bank account on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
How does WePay payments work?
Schools will login to SponsoredScholar as an admin and will establish a WePay account on behalf of their institution. The institution, via this WePay account, is the custodian of all funds. CampusLogic is NOT the custodian and has no part in the payment piece of the transaction. Learn more about WePay’s solution here.
Who is responsible for paying the credit card fees?
The supporter pays the credit card processing fees and is charged these fees during the checkout process. Your school will not pay these fees.
Is there a dashboard where we will be able to see what payments are made?
Yes. We provide the following payment reports through SponsoredScholar:
- Sponsorships: school admins can search sponsorships made through the system and post sponsorship gifts via the Sponsorships tab within their school admin account
- Transaction Details: school admins can download historical transaction details filtered by date range via the Reports tab of their school admin account
Please share the contact information of staff members who need access to payment reports with your CampusLogic Customer Success Manager (CSM). During the site setup meeting, we will review this process together.
Are monetary gifts made to students through SponsoredScholar refundable?
Depending on the institution's policy, the answer can be yes or no. WePay has the technological capability to refund gifts; however, the decision to do so - and the policy established - is the decision of the institution.
How long does it take to process a refund through WePay?
When a refund is issued through WePay, the payer can expect to receive their funds within 3 to 7 business days, as dependent on their card issuer's processing times.
What is the turnaround for a chargeback through WePay?
Evidence must be submitted within five business days of the date your institution receives a chargeback notification. Credit card companies have different resolution times. Please confirm resolution times with your provider, but in general American Express takes 20 days, and other cards take up to 45. Notification of the resolution of a chargeback will be sent to you directly by email.
What (or who) is a Sponsor?
A Sponsor is an individual or organization that makes a monetary gift to a student through SponsoredScholar.
Are monetary gifts made to students through SponsoredScholar tax-deductible?
No. Monetary gifts are allocated to a fund within the institution, and those funds are earmarked to the student. Because naming a scholarship and receiving a tax benefit could be used to create a financial tax loophole for the wealthy (where they name scholarships for their kids, and grandkids) the IRS does not allow for supporters to name scholarships and receive a tax benefit; therefore, these gifts are not tax-deductible.
Gift Reconciliation and Disbursement
How are monetary gifts reconciled?
Administrators will access, download, and upload SponsoredScholar’s Gift Report into their institution’s student information system. The Gift Report contains information needed to streamline monetary gift reconciliation. This information includes: student name, student email, student ID number, fundraising start and end dates, and funds raised.
How are monetary gifts distributed to the appropriate student?
When a Sponsor makes a monetary gift to a student's campaign page, the funds are sent directly to WePay for processing. WePay then transfers those funds via ACH to an institution’s merchant account of their choosing on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The school can select which option it prefers. Once the funds are in the merchant account, the school would follow the same internal process it uses to distribute funds to the appropriate student account within their student information system.
Is there any integration with our SIS?
We offer an integration between SponsoredScholar and your school's SIS via CL Connect. This will automate the data transfer from SponsoredScholar available. Please speak with your Customer Success Manager at CampusLogic to initiate this process.
Student Eligibility
How do students learn about SponsoredScholar?
The institution has many options for communicating SponsoredScholar to its students—use as many as possible to drive the greatest response! First, you’ll create a SponsoredScholar sign-up landing page. Embed the link to your SponsoredScholar landing page into email communications, onto the financial aid information page on your institution’s website, and share it across your social media channels. You can also drive awareness of SponsoredScholar in your AwardLetter, another product in the CampusLogic Student Financial Success platform.
Can any student that attends our school use SponsoredScholar? Are there limitations?
SponsoredScholar is for any student at your school to utilize as a financing vehicle for their education. The SponsoredScholar team will collaborate with your school during the onboarding process to identify which students will be invited to use SponsoredScholar. If you have a use case for those who are not yet enrolled in your school, we also allow for schools to upload a list of restricted students who should not have access to the solution.
How do students gain access to SponsoredScholar?
A. SponsoredScholar supports Direct Sign On (DSO) and Single Sign On (SSO) via the login link for their school’s SponsoredScholar solution (i.e., {school_name}.sponsoredscholar.com).
Fundraising
Is there a set length for a student’s fundraising campaign?
Each student is eligible to raise funding for 30 days. Students cannot use SponsoredScholar to raise funding beyond this 30-day window. School administrators can update this default setting within their admin account, which will apply to all students who sign up and launch campaigns from that moment on.
Is there a minimum or maximum amount a student can raise as their crowdfunding goal?
Yes. These settings can be configured by your school within your school's SponsoredScholar Admin Dashboard. You can set both a global Campaign Default Cap for any campaign launched and a Campaign Cap Window, which allows schools to restrict how much a student can raise across multiple campaigns within a set time period (typically a semester or award year).
How do students identify and reach out to potential supporters?
Students should leverage their personal networks to drive support for their fundraising campaign. This could include family, friends, community members, and those in their social networks. Inside of SponsoredScholar, we provide an email system with template fundraising emails. We also recommend students share via social media and through other relevant channels to reach their community.
How do students raise money for their SponsoredScholar campaign?
Students are prompted in their SponsoredScholar account to identify people within their network who they will invite to contribute to their campaign. Students add their contacts to SponsoredScholar and share templates email and text messages with those contacts. SponsoredScholar will then send automated follow-up messages from the school on behalf of the student to only contacts who were first originally contacted by the student through SponsporedScholar. These automated communications can be updated within the admin dashboard with respect to the template wording and frequency. Student contacts will no longer receive automated communications if they make a gift or the campaign ends.
How do students thank their Sponsors? Is there a way to do this in SponsoredScholar?
Sponsors receive an automated thank you message on behalf of the student from the school while also receiving a separate, official gift receipt from the school.
What happens if a student needs $1000 (as an example) but crowdfunds $2000?
During the signup process, a student is asked to enter the amount of money they need to raise for their bill. They then enter that amount in their SponsoredScholar dashboard to be applied to their crowdfunding page. If the student raises less than what they are eligible for by the system (for instance, they raise less than the Campaign Default Cap or Campaign Cap Window), then they are still eligible to receive more gifts during their campaign. If, however, the student reaches their goal and they also reach the Campaign Default Cap or Campaign Cap Window, their campaign will automatically end and they will not be able to raise more gifts than what was already raised.
Can students raise money for a prior balance?
Yes! Students can crowdfund their past-due bills as well as current bills for the semester.
Marketing SponsoredScholar
How do students learn about SponsoredScholar?
Students can learn about, sign up, and begin crowding through the following channels: (i) being invited through AwardLetter where students are prompted to signup via a signup portal page to raise their funding gap, (ii) receiving email communications from the school with a link to a signup portal page and (iii) reading about it on the school’s Financial Aid website as an option for financing their education and being directed to a signup portal page. We have also seen success with schools emails parents and inviting them to share the signup link with their children. Your Customer Success Manager will review marketing strategies with you as a part of the launch process of SponsoredScholar and provide a marketing kit with templates and digital assets.
Are schools expected to institutionally promote SponsoredScholar campaigns?
Some schools have expressed interest in sharing their student’s fundraising stories with alumni, but there are no expectations or requirements that a school to promote student campaigns on their behalf. This decision is completely school-dependent.
Onboarding and Implementation
What is the onboarding and implementation timeline?
On average, the onboarding process is 15 days from sign up to the launch of your platform. However, we are happy to move at your speed. The onboarding process includes six meetings:
Kick Off Meeting – Duration: 60 min
Site Setup – Duration: 60 min
Private Launch Meeting – Duration: 60 min
Soft Launch Meeting – Duration: 60 min
Financial Aid Advisor Training Meeting - Duration: 60 min
Support Training Meeting – Duration: 60 min
Additional meetings can be scheduled as necessary.