EFTC Readiness · New for 2027
We walk your school through its whole donor universe.
Your families are the donor base for the largest new source of scholarship money in a generation, and most of them do not know it yet. EFTC Readiness is The Principled Co. walking your school through that whole donor universe: naming everyone who could give, writing what each household needs to hear, and asking well, so the credit reaches as much of the room as it can.
Flat fee, never a percentage of what your families give. One engagement, the whole room.
Who it is for
A school in a state that is in.
Schools in one of the 31 states that have opted in, with a head of school who wants the families to hear it from the school first, and a board willing to say yes. If that is you, this is for your school. If your state is undecided, we will tell you what to have ready for the day it decides.
See the state mapYour room
The money is real, and it is yours to ask for.
Every family at your school could claim the credit. So could the grandparents behind them, your alumni, the people who work for you, and the households your families could bring in. Put in your numbers. That is the room we help you fill.
What you get
Everything a school needs to receive the credit well, written and in hand.
- Your family list, built: households, grandparents, alumni, faculty and staff
- The families who cannot use the full credit, found before the letter goes out
- The letter to families, in your school's voice
- The parent night talk, and the answers to the hard questions
- A one-page family FAQ
- The pledge list and how it is kept
- The board resolution, drafted for your minutes
- The reminder to give: give early in the year, fix the W-4, keep the donor letter
- The thank-you, and who sends it
- Your business office, ready to receive tuition paid straight from the scholarship organization and to return any overpayment
- A calendar for the whole first year, with one owner
How it runs
The work, in three movements.
Decide
First
Where your state stands. What your board needs to see. The decision, recorded.
Prepare
Then
The family list, the families to talk with first, the letter, the FAQ, the talk, the calendar. Everything written before anyone is asked.
Ask
And then, every year
The parent night. The letter. The pledges. The reminder to give. The thank-you. Then the state's list is published, and the giving begins.
What it costs the givers
For a giver who can use the full credit: $0. For everyone else, the calculator says.
Run one household's numbersThe questions a board asks
Five of them, answered plainly.
- Will our state file its list by February 15?
- Being on the IRS list means your state has opted in for 2027. It still has to file its list of approved scholarship organizations with Treasury by February 15, 2027, and for most states that is a formality. A few are uncertain, and we watch the list every morning. The careful plan dates the ask for right after your state's list is published, so no family gives into doubt.
- Do we need our own scholarship organization?
- No. A school's families give to a scholarship organization on the state's list, and most schools join one that exists. An organization has to serve at least ten students at more than one school, spend ninety percent of what it receives on scholarships by the end of the following year, give priority to prior recipients and their siblings, and be on the state's list. Starting one is a separate project.
- What about families who cannot use the credit?
- The credit applies after the Child Tax Credit. A family with several children and a modest income may have no federal tax left for it to offset this year, and unused credit carries forward up to five years. We find those families before the letter goes out and talk with them first. Their grandparents and friends in any state can still give to an organization in yours.
- What if we wait a year?
- The credit renews every year and a state opts in one year at a time, so a school can start in 2028. What it loses is a year of gifts, and, because scholarship organizations must give priority to prior recipients and their siblings, a year of its families' place in line. If your state is in, the honest answer for most schools is to start now.
- Can our head of school help the scholarship organization choose recipients?
- Not without a cost. Anyone who helps a scholarship organization select recipients or set award amounts, and anyone on its board, makes their own family ineligible for its scholarships. So does a giver of more than $5,000 in a year when that is more than 2 percent of what the organization took in, with a married couple's gifts counted together, for that year and the next. We say so before anyone volunteers or gives big.
- What does it cost?
- A flat fee for the engagement, never a percentage of what your families give. The number is a conversation, not a page. What it costs a giver who can use the full credit is nothing: the gift comes back on the federal return.
We are not a scholarship organization and we are not a vendor with a product to sell you. Flat fee, never a percentage of what your families give. The school's own advisor, on your side of the table.