Franklin & Marshall College

Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program

Pennsylvania's well-established Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) Program offers businesses an incredible opportunity to direct a portion of their state tax dollars to educational improvement organizations such as Franklin & Marshall, which use the funds to support innovative educational programs that directly benefit students in Pennsylvania's public schools.

The two approved educational programs operated by Franklin & Marshall and its higher education and public school partners impact the educational experiences of more than 11,500 elementary, middle and high school students annually. The programs' benefits extend to more than 25 schools in 19 school districts spread across the following seven counties: Adams, Bedford, Franklin, Fulton, Huntingdon, Juniata and Lancaster.

Participating in the program is easy. Just contact , Director of Corporate & Foundation Relations, at 717-291-4271 if you have any questions or would appreciate additional information.

What is the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program?
How long has the EITC Program existed?
Does my business qualify to participate in the EITC Program?
What is the actual cost of making a donation to Franklin & Marshall through the EITC Program?
What is the maximum amount of tax credits for which a business can apply?
How do I apply to participate?
How will Franklin & Marshall use the corporate contributions raised through this program?
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What is the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program?

Act 48 of 2003 amends the Public School Code to enable establishment of the EITC Program, administered by the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED). The Act authorizes the award of tax credits to businesses that make contributions to approved educational improvement organizations (such as Franklin & Marshall College) or to scholarship organizations. A business may receive a tax credit equal to 75% of its contribution to an approved educational improvement (and/or scholarship) organization, up to a maximum of $300,000 per taxable year. The tax credit increases to 90% of the contribution made, up to a maximum of $300,000 per taxable year, if the business agrees to provide a contribution of the same amount to an organization for two consecutive years.

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How long has the EITC Program existed?

Passed in 2001, Pennsylvania’s EITC Program was the nation’s first corporate tax credit program. The Reach Foundation provides an informative historic timeline of the EITC Program.

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Does my business qualify to participate in the EITC Program?

Businesses eligible to apply for the Education Improvement Tax Credit are those authorized to do business in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that are subject to the following taxes: Corporate Net Income Tax, Capital Stock Franchise Tax, Bank and Trust Company Shares Tax, Title Insurance Companies Shares Tax, Insurance Premiums Tax, or Mutual Thrift Institutions Tax. For applications received on or after July 8 of the fiscal year or applications for year 2 of a 2-year commitment submitted between May 16 and June 30, businesses may elect to pass through tax credits to the Personal Income Tax of S Corporation Shareholders, or partners in a general or limited partnership.

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What is the actual cost of making a donation to Franklin & Marshall through the EITC Program?

Because each company’s tax situation is different, only your accountant can accurately predict the cost, if any, for your business to make a gift to Franklin & Marshall. However, many scenarios exist whereby companies can closely approach or achieve a dollar-for-dollar credit for an EITC Program donation, especially if the company  has not maximized its percentage of charitable donations and can thus also deduct the contribution on its federal tax return.

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What is the maximum amount of tax credits for which a business can apply?

A business will receive a tax credit equal to 75% of its contribution(s) to Franklin & Marshall or other approved educational improvement or scholarship organizations, up to a maximum of $300,000 per taxable year (or the total eligible state taxes owed by the business per taxable year). The tax credit increases to 90% of the contribution(s) made, up to a maximum of $300,000 per taxable year, if the business agrees to provide the same contribution (in terms of dollar amount) for two consecutive tax years. Again, to receive and retain the 90% tax credit, the business must make the same level of contribution in each of two consecutive tax years.

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How do I apply to participate?

Businesses can apply to participate by downloading the Business Guidelines for the EITC Program (PDF) and completing and mailing the one-page EIO Appendix form to Mr. Ted Knorr, Department of Community and Economic Development, The Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program, Center for Business Financing - Tax Credit Division, 400 North Street, 4th Floor, Commonwealth Keystone Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120-0225. Please ensure that your 1-page application for EIO tax credits arrives in the Department of Community and Economic Development’s EITC Program Office in Harrisburg by July 1 deadline. The Harrisburg EITC Program Office staff members will date stamp all the forms and award tax credits to all eligible business applicants to the extent that such tax credits remain available for the fiscal year in which application is made (July 1, 2010 – June 30, 2011). Harrisburg randomly processes all applications received on a specific day before moving on to the next day's applications. Often, they award all available tax credits on July 1.

The Department of Community and Economic Development will send an approval letter to businesses awarded educational improvement tax credits. The business then has 60 days to send its philanthropic contribution to Franklin & Marshall. Franklin & Marshall will issue a gift acknowledgment which the business must send to the Department of Community and Economic Development within 90 days of the original approval letter. After sharing this written acknowledgment with the Department, the business will receive the amount of tax credits outlined in the original approval letter from the Department of Community and Economic Development.

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How will Franklin & Marshall use the corporate contributions raised through this program?

As an approved educational improvement organization, Franklin & Marshall must use 80% of gifts generated by the EITC Program for innovative educational programs conducted to benefit students in Pennsylvania’s public schools. Franklin & Marshall will use the remaining 20% of total dollars raised to cover the costs of administering the EITC Program at the College, with all remaining funds going to the Franklin & Marshall Fund.

As required by the Department of Community & Economic Development, Franklin & Marshall renews its application to participate in the EITC Program annually. The most recent application requests approval of two thriving initiatives at the College: the National College Advising Corps, Keystone Region and the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House Outreach.

National College Advising Corps, Keystone Region

The mission of the National College Advising Corps, Keystone Region (NCAC-KR) is to increase postsecondary matriculation rates among underserved high school students from low-to-moderate income families in rural south-central Pennsylvania. NCAC-KR began in spring 2007 through the collaborative efforts of two private liberal arts colleges (Franklin & Marshall College and Dickinson College) and two public universities (Millersville University of Pennsylvania and Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania). In 2009, Gettysburg College, another private liberal arts school, joined the collaboration. With nearly $1 million of initial support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and a $160,000 grant from the TG Public Benefit Grant Program in 2009, NCAC-KR has hired and trained twelve recent graduates of the partnering institutions to serve as College Advisers in rural high schools throughout south-central Pennsylvania.

Living in the communities they serve, these College Advisers annually counsel approximately 11,500 prospective first-generation college students in navigating the complex path from high school to college. The rates at which high school students in these communities matriculate at colleges are low, and the number of adults in these communities who hold at least a Bachelor’s degree is even lower. Thus, many students from these rural schools who do choose to pursue higher education are among the first in their families to do so. High school students aspiring to become first-generation college students require more information, guidance, and on-going support than do college-bound peers whose parents attended college. To address these needs, NCAC-KR trains College Advisers—recent graduates of the five partnering colleges—to work full time advising students on higher education options. In coming years, NCAC-KR plans to expand by hiring two additional Advisers (bringing the total number of Advisers working in rural high schools across central Pennsylvania to 14) and an Assistant Program Director. As a private–public joint venture to improve college access, NCAC-KR serves as a model for other similarly focused organizations in Pennsylvania and beyond.

By encouraging underserved high school students to pursue postsecondary education and training, NCAC-KR adds significant value to the curriculum in each of the schools served through the program. Specifically, NCAC-KR assists schools in achieving The Career Education and Work (CEW) Standards, Chapter 4 of Title 22, part of the State Board of Education’s regulations of required education for all students in Pennsylvania (http://www.pacareerstandards.com/index.php). The CEW Standards address four areas of knowledge: career awareness and preparation, career acquisition (getting a job), career retention and advancement, and entrepreneurship. As articulated on the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Career Education and Work web site, “Through a comprehensive approach, Career Education and Work complements all disciplines and other academic standards.” While promoting the opportunities afforded by postsecondary education of all types and improving access to those opportunities, NCAC-KR directly addresses career awareness and preparation. One of the key tools provided to students served by NCAC-KR is access to and guidance in using the online system Career Cruising (http://www.careercruising.com/Public/ProSchIndex.aspx), which is customized to meet the curricular goals outlined by the Department of Education for high school students in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. NCAC-KR’s efforts provide valuable assistance in meeting the CEW Standards, which, frankly, have proven difficult for many high schools to achieve.

NCAC-KR qualifies as an innovative educational program because its Advisers deliver instruction in college preparedness (with specialized materials) that is otherwise not provided (or is provided only at insufficient levels) by the public schools that the program serves. Schools that NCAC-KR anticipates serving in FY2011 include Bedford, Biglerville, Chambersburg, Columbia, Donegal, East Juniata, Everett Area, Fannett-Metal, Forbes Road, Huntingdon Area, James Buchanan, Juniata, Juniata Valley, Manheim Central, McConnellsburg, Mount Union Area, New Oxford, Southern Fulton, and Southern Huntingdon.

Philadelphia Alumni Writers House Outreach Efforts

In fall 2005, the Philadelphia Alumni Writers House at Franklin & Marshall initiated an ongoing program to share eminent authors from the Writers House with students in the School District of Lancaster. The “Writers in the Schools” program gives local elementary students, who do not typically have access to such opportunities, a chance to hear famous visiting writers read from their work; to ask them questions about their careers and the writing life; to engage in interactive, curriculum-enhancing writing exercises and workshops; and to discover first-hand that writers do not live far away, but that a writer is alive in everyone. Guest writers have included Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass, and Guggenheim and Lannan Fellow poet Naomi Shihab Nye. The Writers House has developed partnerships to produce “Writers in the Schools” programs at Fulton Elementary School, J.P. McCaskey High School, and McCaskey East High School in past years. The success of these collaborations has led to plans to bring more writers to these schools in 2011-2012.

In fall 2009, the Writers House initiated another innovative program in the schools as part of Poetry Paths (http://www.poetrypaths.org/), a new public art and poetry project launched with major grant support from the Lancaster County Community Foundation. Since 2009, Writers House administrators and faculty have worked with Barbara Strasko, former Literacy Coach for the School District of Lancaster and Poet Laureate of Lancaster County, to offer curriculum-enrichment events and poetry-writing workshops to students from the following 12 public schools in Lancaster City: Buchanan Elementary, Burrowes Elementary, Fulton Elementary, King Elementary, Lafayette Elementary, Lincoln Middle, J.P. McCaskey High, McCaskey East High, Reynolds Middle, Ross Elementary, Washington Elementary, and Wharton Elementary. As part of the innovative Poetry Paths programming, students have visited the Arts Hotel and met with professional artists whose work is displayed there, visited Central Market and the Fulton Opera House, “met” with James Buchanan (via a professional actor who played him), walked the Greenway at the Conestoga watershed with a professional naturalist, learned about their own school’s green roof with the horticulturalist who installed it, and traveled by Amtrak train from Lancaster to Philadelphia and back. The students wrote poems about these experiences, which they have performed at two annual Poetry Paths Kids Events in May 2010 and 2011. In 2011-2012, Writers House Director Kerry Sherin Wright will work with Barbara Strasko and twenty Franklin & Marshall students to continue offering these workshops and related curricular activities in the following six public schools within the School District of Lancaster: Buchanan Elementary School, Carter-McRae Elementary School, Fulton Elementary School, Hand Elementary School, Reynolds Middle School, Ross Elementary School, and Wharton Elementary School.

Both of these Writers House programs rely on specialized “instructors”— professional writers with in-depth experience and significant expertise in writing— as well as accomplished college students and local writers to supplement the language arts or future career preparedness components of the curriculum at the partnering public schools.

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Sample Calculations