Become a PEF Scholarships Plus Donor

Invest in our students’ college dreams and in our future workforce

PEF’s Scholarships Plus program rallies more than 400 community partners – including corporations, nonprofit organizations, and dedicated individuals – to offer more than 1,100 scholarships annually to students pursuing their college and career goals.

In 2026, we awarded nearly $6.7 million in scholarships, making us the largest scholarship management provider in Nevada. Join this community effort to support our next generation of coworkers, neighbors, and leaders by establishing your own scholarship opportunity!

PEF received more than 17,000 submitted applications from students in 2026, indicating the huge need in our community. Our scholarships range in amount from $500 to $100,000, but some of our most popular scholarships among students offer $500 or $1,000 toward college costs. This is an incredibly rewarding opportunity for community donors.

Create your own vision for a scholarship, and PEF staff will provide support and oversight for all aspects of the scholarship management process, including:

• Develop a rubric that determines your scholarship’s eligibility, partnering with you to include the characteristics you want to see in recipients
• Operate a best-in-class scholarship management system that is easy to use and accessible for students and ensures you have a range of qualified applicants for your scholarship opportunity
• Generate applicants for your scholarship by presenting to more than 100 school and community workshops
• Oversee the scholarship review process, including recruiting diverse community volunteers to review and score the more than 17,000 applications we receive each year and supporting more than 7,500 students with questions about the application process
• Confirm that our more than 800 recipients meet your scholarship requirements and disburse funds directly to more than 500 colleges and vocational schools that recipients attend
• Track data to monitor recipient success
• Provide you with documentation of your tax-deductible scholarship donation

PEF has created Scholarship Procedures to ensure that PEF donors, scholarship recipients, and reviewers can count on clear parameters and expectations for the administration of PEF’s Scholarships Plus program.

Major Scholarship Cycle Deadlines

In order to provide clarity for students and donors, PEF follows the following deadlines for the program:

Scholarships Best Practices

We have compiled best practices to create a successful scholarship:

• Start early! Connect with PEF staff by August of the year you would like to offer your scholarship.
• Consider making your scholarship renewable. Students are more likely to continue in college and graduate if they receive consistent scholarship funds each year.
• Determine what you’d like to know about students to decide who should receive your scholarship. PEF asks all students to submit a transcript, resume, letter of recommendation, and student-written financial need statement. Most donors also ask for a specific essay aligned to the meaning of their own scholarship.
• Limit the criteria you would like applicants to meet. While creating a scholarship reflecting your interests and passions is rewarding, we recommend setting as few requirements as possible, as that generates more student applications.
• Ask the experts! PEF is the largest scholarship management provider in Nevada and has decades of experience as a clearinghouse for scholarships. We are happy to share successful practices!

In order to administer the Scholarships Plus program as effectively as possible, we charge a small administrative fee for all scholarships we manage. Fees vary based on the scholarship renewal schedule and whether the scholarships are awarded to students across the country or specifically in Nevada.