Ray Greenly Scholarship Update

I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve had  a very successful holiday season at CyberMonday.com.  Started several years ago, all of Shop.org’s proceeds from CyberMonday.com go to the Ray Greenly scholarship fund.  The scholarship is designed to help Shop.org establish relationships with Universities that could be potential research partners and encourage interest among college students in e-commerce and online retail as a career

This season, we’ve raised over $450k, bringing the lifetime total raised for the scholarship fund to over $1.3 million.  It’s been a busy year for us.  We’ve just finished working on an endowment with the University of North Texas, for their electronic merchandising program.  This program will provide, through the University, two scholarships annually to deserving students.   Creating an endowment has proved to be a more challenging task than I had ever imagined, and it’s gratifying to see it come to fruition at the end of of 2009.

We’re continuing to search out university partners, where we might be able to make an impact with our mission.  Recently, we began the process of compiling a database of all applicable programs in the country.  Beyond development offices to talk to, it may also provide the basis of an online directory to help students who are looking for programs of study.

If you are an alum of an ecommerce program,  a development officer, or a professor in the space, please contact me, and we can discuss how your university might be able to participate.  We talk on a regular basis to people who are interested, and have been very pleased to see several awards come out of those discussions.

Additionally, we’re beginning a search for a consultant to help us develop a plan for the future, helping to ensure  program does the most good for the community in the future.

For members of the Shop.org community, Scholarship Committee applications will be available in early 2009.  If you’re interested, please contact me at greenej@shop.org.