Gene Grawe Fund FAQ

Those percentages are the rebate amounts that the retailer has agreed to discount to the Gene Grawe Fund. Basically, if a merchant has agreed to a 10% rebate, then the Gene Grawe Fund only pays that merchant $90 for a $100 gift card. The GGF then sells that gift card to someone for the full $100 thereby securing a $10 rebate that will be used to help fund the tuition awards.

No. Everyone from the president of the Fund and the Fund’s board members to the office and IT staff do not receive any salary or other compensation from the Gene Grawe Fund. We generally have around 30 people that donate considerable time and resources to make the Gene Grawe Fund work. No one receives a salary.

We know the 2% and 50% thing can be a bit confusing, especially for new supporters of the Gene Grawe Fund. But it’s done to give you the opportunity to earn more rewards based on a particular purchase situation. We already have a tip on our website that explains it all. It is vitally important for you to thoroughly understand the difference because it will put more tuition money in your pocket if you understand when to buy the gift cards online versus at the GGF office. Just click, tap, or touch here to read it.

Scrip Year is the term widely used in the scriping (gift card) world to designate the time period during which a school-related charity earns its rebates from gift card sales. The Gene Grawe Fund pays its portion of your child’s tuition to the child’s school at the beginning of each school year. However, the Gene Grawe Fund is not a bank and cannot grant credit. So the tuition funds must be earned before they can be paid to the school. Those funds are earned during that school year’s preceding Scrip Year. Our Scrip Year starts on April 1st of one calendar year and ends on March 31st the next year. That Scrip Year is then followed by its associated school year which starts in August.

Directly, no. The Gene Grawe Fund is affiliated only with Quincy’s four Catholic elementary schools and QND High School. However, maximum participation in the Gene Grawe Fund during a child’s elementary and high school years will significantly offset those tuition costs. Then, the money you save could be invested and later used to help defray college expenses at Quincy University.

The Gene Grawe Fund office follows the Quincy public schools. If the Quincy public schools are closed, we will be closed. For closings that occur on non-school days like Saturday, holidays, teacher conference days, and during school breaks, you can check the frontpage of our website and the weather closing lists at WGEM.com and KHQA.com. We will also send out a quick email announcement to everyone on our newsletter email list. To make sure you’re on that list, go to the Home page of our website and add your name and email address to subscribe. If your email address is already on the list, it will tell you.

We usually recommend shredding them. Some cards will only return their remaining balance when the card number is entered online at the merchant’s website. However, some cards will link to an online transaction history that can show dates, times, amounts, locations, and businesses where the transactions occurred. We’ve never seen any that returned personal identity information or what merchandise was purchased. So I guess the best answer is to use your own judgement based on your spending habits.

This another good reason not to let a cashier toss your zero balance Visa card. If you use your GGF FiveBackGift Visa at one of the 50 or so merchant partners of FiveBackGift​.​com you earn a 5% reward that is credited back to your Visa as a Promotional Load. We already have an article in the Tips section of our website that explains the occasional Promotional Load that shows up in your Visa’s transaction history. Click, tap, or touch here to read the tip on our website.

Several years ago, one of our members stumbled across a very unique wallet with a huge card capacity. Click, tap, or touch here to read an article about it on our website.

Support for the Gene Grawe Fund is normally achieved through the purchase of its gift cards. However, the Gene Grawe Fund, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that can accept monetary gifts from any source such as religious, youth, and community organizations; bequests from estates; funeral memorials; and donations from individuals. Today, most charity websites offer an online giving capability, like a Donate button, to accommodate those who wish to use a debit/credit card to make a personal donation or a memorial donation for an upcoming funeral. The Donate button is only for processing donations and cannot be used to purchase gift cards.

We recommend keeping your zero balance gift cards until you’ve checked them a few weeks after last use. Merchants make refunds and returns back to the payment method used. Restaurants place holds and make multiple charges as meal costs, bar drinks, and tips are processed in the first few days after dining out. Then the holds are lifted. Sometimes, it doesn’t always add up today to what the waitress saw yesterday. If a few dollars end up on the card and it’s now in the local landfill, then it’s your money down the drain. But, you’ll never know it if the cards were thrown out. Recently, I had a card tossed at a restaurant. Fortunately, I had the number written down at home from a bill I had paid. When I ran it a few days later, it had a $3.56 balance.

When you order and pay for physical gift cards from RaiseRight.​com, the fullfillment notice is actually sent to the Gene Grawe Fund office here in Quincy where the cards are pulled from stock, sealed in an envelope with your name on it, and placed in our safe until you stop by to pick them up. We do not mail out gift cards under any circumstances. If you live, say in Oregon, then you have a problem if you’re not coming to Quincy or have no family in Quincy that would be willing to pick them up and mail them to you. However, RaiseRight.com has certain hard gift cards that they can mail.

The Gene Grawe Fund office can only accept cash or checks. Years ago, we tried accepting cards, but quickly realized that the fees associated with accepting cards wiped out our thin margin of profitibility. In many cases, the card transaction fees alone exceeded the merchant rebate causing the Fund to lose money on every purchase. In the end, it was self-defeating and hurt the very people we were trying to help. However, RaiseRight.​com can accepting credit/debit cards. Read about it in their FAQs.

No, we no longer mail gift cards. The cost of shipping and the risk of loss quickly erode the slim margin the Fund operates with. It’s best for out-of-towners to make full use of the hundreds of online merchants and nationwide chains on RaiseRight.​com. Many national retailers have RaiseRight’s instant eGift cards that can be purchased ahead of time or even while waiting in the checkout line and then scanned by the cashier straight from your smartphone using the RaiseRight mobile device app. We do it all the time at places like Lowes, Wal-Mart, Texas Roadhouse, and so on. Some online merchants like Amazon​.​com are setup to instantly transfer your funds from your eGift cards on RaiseRight.​com to your gift card balance on the retailer’s website. Within seconds the money is there!

No you do not. We have people living all over the United States who support their extended family and friends back here in Quincy who have students enrolled in the Quincy Catholic Education System. Many no longer have nieces, nephews, or grandchildren in school so the undesignated rebates they generate go into the general fund for all participating students to share in.

There are no extra or rollover funds. Except for the operating funds retained for running the Gene Grawe Fund, there is no leftover money. Our tuition award model is designed so that all rebate funds are fully distributed every school year and each student starts the next Scrip Year with a zero balance account.

Every year, during Spring school registration, all students and their parents are extended the opportunity to participate in the Gene Grawe Fund. Extended family and friends don’t need to register with the Gene Grawe Fund and only need to know the student’s name when they purchase gift cards at the Gene Grawe Fund office. Please see the section of FAQs that explain the process of setting up your account with RaiseRight​.​com to enable you to make online purchases that will provide rebates back to your designated student and the Gene Grawe Fund.

Absolutely. After all these years, many people are now so used to shopping and paying bills with the Gene Grawe Fund gift cards, that it’s simply no problem for them to continue even after their student is no longer enrolled in a Quincy Catholic school. In that case, the rebates from their gift card purchases go into the Gene Grawe Fund’s general fund. You can also designate one of the Catholic schools to receive your rebate earnings. In that case, your designated school will receive the funds as a donation to use in any way they see fit.

The Scrip Year runs from April 1st of one year to March 31st of the next year. For example, the Scrip Year to earn tuition rewards for the 2027-2028 School Year runs from April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2027. The Gene Grawe Fund tuition award announcements for an upcoming school year are usually made in late April, within a few weeks after the Scrip Year ends. The tuition awards are then paid directly to each school. Parents must still make sure that any tuition due in excess of their student’s Gene Grawe Fund award is paid in full by July 1st.

No, the tuition awards are participation-based. A student and their family must participate in the Gene Grawe Fund to be eligible to share in the tuition awards. The degree to which a student’s family, extended family, and friends participate in the Fund, will determine the dollar amount of the tuition award that student receives. Simply put, the more Gene Grawe Fund gift cards that are purchased in a student’s name, the more tuition money that student receives.

All five of Quincy’s Catholic elementary and secondary schools.

Specifically, they are:
Quincy Notre Dame High School
Blessed Sacrament School
St. Francis Solanus School
St. Dominic School
St. Peter School

For administering the program, the Gene Grawe Fund, Inc. retains a minimal amount of the rebates received from scrip purchases. The retained funds are used for maintaining gift card inventory, fees, supplies, and other expenses.