I know we’ve said this before but it looks like the paperwork is finally finished and our account is being created with our non-profit partner who will handle the donations.

Keep posted for full details later this week. We’re almost ready to get started on the real work – raising enough money to be able to give our first scholarship in June, 2012.

It’s taken about a year longer than we anticipated but everything’s a learning process. I don’t regret one day of that learning experience. Thanks for your patience and stay tuned!

Hi everyone, sorry for the gap since my last post. My final exams got pretty crazy and time just got away from me. I just finished the last one a few days ago and after a few days down on the coast of England, I’m back and ready to get to work!

I woke up this morning at 5AM and couldn’t go back to sleep so I decided to get another blog post out. It’s kind of nice to look out on the quiet streets before they start to bustle with daily life. It makes me think of my mom, how she liked to wake up early to write her letters before all of us kids woke up. I think of her sitting there by the kerosene lamp writing letters to her mom or friends in different communities. Now she still sits there and writes me letters and they find their way to the little mail slot in my flat in London, a reminder of her love.

I love the tradition of letter writing in the Amish communities. I realized that’s what I want this blog to be. It’s not as personal as opening the mailbox and getting a handwritten, stamped envelope, but these are my letters to you. I will always welcome your replies so feel free to email me, leave comments, or whatever form your letters may take.

We’ve signed the paperwork for ADSFund and we are now officially an organization, not just a dream. It’s a little bit scary because now we have to make it work. Right now we’re in the middle of finals and Naomi is about to head off to Peru for the summer through her nursing school (I’m really excited for her!!) and it feels like a lot of responsibility to make this happen. But I know we can do it because it’s so much more than us three – it’s you and your support. It’s being a community and looking out for each other the way we were raised to do.

We are planning a fundraiser in Ohio in September, which Will is organizing. I really hope I can be there. It would be so nice to meet our supporters and celebrate what we are trying to do. I expect there to be a lot of former Amish there and I’m really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and meeting new ones. The thing about growing up Amish – we are all connected before we even meet. We are a community that I’m really proud to be a part of. The nice thing is – anyone is welcome to be a part of this community and I’m feeling so much support from my friends from all walks of life. Thank you!!

We’ll keep you updated on the fundraiser so you can mark your calendar – it will probably either be the first or second Saturday in September. More information to come soon! I hope you all have a great day and I’ll write again soon.

Love,
Emma

Hello, sorry that was a really long Christmas break! Actually, we’ve all gotten really busy with school and jobs and our project was sitting idle for some time, but thanks to Naomi we’re back on track. She spoke to someone at Goshen College about it and they put her in touch with Roger who is the Director of Gift Planning at GC. He is very enthused and has been a wonderful source of information and support. He put Naomi in touch with someone at the Mennonite Foundation and they are interested in helping us. They will meet on Monday and discuss but so far it sounds like they are ideal.

Tax-Deductible Gifts & Trusts | eHow.com

Our initial investigation proved there is more than one way to do this!

The most thorough way to start a hands-on scholarship fund is to start our own non-profit organization, namely a 510(c)(3). We would have to become incorporated, which we’d have to file for through our own state government. After that has been approved we have to file for a Tax Exempt status in order to offer our donors a tax write off. It takes a lot of time and it’s a lot of work. For those of you who are interested in starting a non-profit, here is a link that offers a lot of information.

In addition we’d have to select a board of directors and organize board meetings and find the time to do all our administrative work. Once we’d finally be ready to fund raise we’d have to handle the money in our corporate account and then select our scholarship winners. That’s a very simple way of describing how much work goes into this method. It’s pretty much a full time job.

Which brings me to our second option and the one I’m strongly favoring. Except that I’m not even sure if it’s an option! I would love to find a scholarship management service that takes care of all the administrative work. They are already a non-profit so the donors can donate directly to them, but the money is allocated to ASDFunds. They handle all the money, the applications, the selection process and so forth. All we do is set the criteria for the winners.

So that sounds ideal, right? Well, it’s frustrating because that is hard to find! I’ve been in touch with Scholarship America which is probably the biggest scholarship management service in the US but they would need us to put $100,000 down from the start or they cannot work with us. Everyone I’ve contacted so far has the same qualifications. We can’t raise $100,000 until we have a fund in place where people can donate! Groan.

I’ll keep you updated. I’m hoping to find a smaller non-profit that will look at it as charity instead of business which Scholarship America is doing.