Jovenes Adelante’s creative financial sponsorships make dreams a reality

Published July 14th, 2021

Jóvenes Adelante (JA) sponsors reliably make dreams into realities. Sponsors make a five-year financial commitment supporting a San Miguel de Allende student’s dream of higher education. Dream support may start right after high school graduation, or a university student may need support to complete the dream after running into financial obstacles in university.

Sponsors make this possible. This year JA took 34 students under its wing because of 34 sponsors. Looking at these 34 sponsorships I am struck by the creative generosity of so many of these “dream transformers.” Using pseudonyms, here are stories of how sponsors come to be sponsors!

Jane has two sons who had the benefit of university scholarships in the US. Jane thought it was time to give back and had heard about Jovenes Adelante. She chose to “return the favor” by not only sponsoring but also encouraging her own grown kids to honor their educational good fortune by joining her. Jane’s student will be a living legacy for all three!

Paul never thought he would be able to afford a JA sponsorship until an anonymous donor decided to issue a challenge grant: “Be a half sponsor, and I’ll match your other half.” The challenge stated a goal of four full sponsorships but besides Paul seven others joined! By combining half sponsors JA gained seven sponsorships in total.

Steven and Lillian did not necessarily have the need for a direct US tax deduction, but they also did not need their full mandatory IRA distribution. Being over age 70 they creatively had their mandatory distribution go directly to JA and avoided the income tax their distribution would have triggered.

Louise had the good fortune over her many years and at some point, for her own tax purposes, opened a Donor Advised Fund through Fidelity Charitable (Charles Schwab offers this as well). So this year Louise advised Fidelity that she wished to donate to JA as her philanthropy of choice with fewer headaches than family foundations often entail!

It is not too early to think about a 2022 sponsorship. JA already has several committed sponsors in the wings. An unknown student in 2022 from San Miguel may need your hand. The earlier we have committed sponsors for the incoming year the better we can plan how many students we can target and accept. Your creativity and our flexibility allow for monthly, annual, or five-year pledge commitments. And if you need a tax-deductible receipt for 2021 you can always pay a 2022 pledge forward! You can use stock shares and avoid capital gains taxes as well.

While JA cannot offer direct tax advice our treasurer is a CPA and our development team is quite familiar with possibilities for donors from Canada via our partner Amistad Canada as well as US and Mexican donors through JA directly.