🚀 go-pugleaf

Problem: Parents and college age students are worried sick over meeting 
college expenses.  There are millions of funding sources, most of which 
are tiny.  Philopanthric(sp?) organizations and individuals make a half 
hearted effort to find qualifying applicants.  Most grants have enough 
strings attached to make actual use nearly impossible.

At present, finder organizations charge the searcher a fixed fee for a 
fixed number of prospective grantors.  The list may result in financial 
help, but the intended result isn't assured.

People that offer assistance are like ships passing in the night: they 
can announce the availability of money, but that does not mean that 
anyone ever becomes aware of their existence.  Funding often becomes 
capricious, rather than based on either need or merit.

Opportunity: Put the donor list and search engine on the Web, and charge 
advertisers rather than students.  Likely advertisers: Insurance 
companies and financial houses (stock traders, mutual funds, etc.)  Any 
parent looking for college money is one step away from constructing their 
retirement portfolio.  The draw to this site would be tremendous (four to 
six million users at any one time); the cost of operating the site is 
incidental compared to potential advertising revenue.

Information on organizational donors comes from IRS form 990s 
(non-profits).  This is the source many current search operations use.  
The IRS does not publish this list on the web (yet).  However, 
publication of this list by itself would not do much.

Some rules of thumb...

Out of the total US population of 270 million, 1 million or more are 
millionaires.  Most of the time, this money is in real estate.  Most of 
the rest of the time, it is tied up in inherited stock or family 
businesses, and is not very liquid.  100 thousand or so may be capable of 
grants from cash or investment dividends.

There are around 10 million incorporated businesses in the United States, 
most of which are strip center shoe store scale.  Perhaps one million 
have real revenue, and 100 thousand are well enough off to fund 
scholarships.

If half the people in the United States go to church, and the average 
congregation is 100 people, then there should be around 1 million 
churches.  Out of those, perhaps 100 thousand are sufficiently well off 
to fund scholarships.

Ad hoc organizations that fund scholarships fall into a few categories: 
trade associations, company employee associations, professional 
associations, veterans/retirees, school or church auxiliaries.  Many of 
these fund scholarships to gain attention, others as a constructive 
pastime.  Might well be another hundred or two hundred thousand groups.

Then there are individuals who fund scholarships for no other reason than 
they feel like they need to contribute, or they have fond recollections 
of school and have no family or relatives to bestow their kindness on.  
Giving here is simply a personal reward.  If this were one person out of 
1000, there would be two hundred fifty thousand donors.

Some state and local governments also fund scholarships, as well as the 
Federal Government.  Add another hundred thousand to the list.

Using these rules of thumb, there may be nearly or over one million 
funding sources.  Many of these might only offer $500 in scholarships per 
year.  This amount of money is not worth a wide scale broadcast; that is 
until now.  Many more may fund several at $500 apiece, for a total amount 
less than one administrative salary for one month.

"Free" money attracts interest.  Interest is the currency of advertising. 
Advertisers should pay, not the prospective students.  Financial aid 
offers are often advertising in themselves: here is a good way to do it.

Of course, if someone is already doing this, then I'm a monkey's uncle.  
However, I couldn't find anything like this when I looked.