Transparency

There are a million "good causes" waiting for your support. When you make a contribution, how do you know where your money is going?

The following is a description of how we operate and where your money goes when you support the Barrientos Scholarship Foundation.

How We Operate

The Barrientos Scholarship Foundation operates under the direction of Founder and Executive Director, Marcos Mora, and an all volunteer Board of Directors. There are no staff employees nor do any members of the leadership team (Executive Director and Board of Directors) receive compensation for the roles they play in leading the organization.

In addition to general leadership of the organization, there are several committees formed each year:

• Scholarship Award Selection Committee - Chaired by a member of the Board of Directors, members are recruited from the community to review and score scholarship applications to determine which students will receive scholarship awards.
• Community Leader Selection Committee - Chaired by a member of the Board of Directors, members are recruited from the community to nominate and select community leaders to be honored at the Latino Heritage Awards Banquet.
• Banquet Committee - Chaired by Executive Director, members consist primarily of Board of Directors. Others with an interest in helping are always welcome!
• Fundraising Committee - Chaired by member of the Board of Directors, members are the Board of Directors.

We follow strict guidelines in our scholarship application, selection and disbursement process. For complete details surrounding the process see the Scholarships section of our website. Here are key components:

• Selection - To avoid bias by members of the selection committee, personal information (name, address, current school, etc.) is removed from all student applications prior to review / scoring.
• Disbursement - Students must provide proof of enrollment before monetary awards are disbursed. Scholarship awards are sent to the financial aid office of the college or university attended. Under no circumstances are checks sent directly to the students.

Where Your Money Goes

Scholarship Fund

100% of any contributions we receive from the following sources goes directly into our scholarship fund to be awarded to selected students:

• Donations received via the Fund A Scholarship page on our website (or the equivalent "offline" donation request form (pdf) we distribute to potential donors).
• Donations received via the "Donate Now" button on our web site.
• Donations received via the "Scholarship Challenge" held at our banquet.
• Net proceeds from our raffle.

Operating Fund

We are able to operate with very low overhead expenses, primarily due to the voluntary contribution of time and professional services provided by our Board of Directors. Our primary operational expenses revolve around the banquet each year - banquet hall rental, catering, and entertainment.

Proceeds from our banquet (other than those designated to go to our scholarship fund as described above) are the main source our operating funds and are obtained via:

• Banquet sponsorships
• Banquet admission fees
  NOTE: To encourage attendance, we have purposely kept our admission price at the same low price of $50 per ticket for the past few years. Banquet expenses (hall rental, catering, entertainment) typically run at $25 per attendee for a typical banquet with 250 attendees. We provide complimentary admission to each student and two guests (to allow parents/family to celebrate in their success) and we provide two complimentary tickets to each community leader being honored. This translates into approximately sixty complimentary tickets disbursed each year. (Even our board members are required to purchase their own admission tickets!)
• Prizes donated for our raffle

Bottom Line

Our leadership team is committed to being good stewards of the funds we raise. First and foremost, we strive to make a positive impact by investing (via scholarships/financial aid) in the future leaders of our community. Why do we do it? Because we are all passionate about the value of higher education.