Step Up For Students spins up a dedicated §25F SGO for Florida: the Step Up, Step Further Scholarship Fund

When Governor Ron DeSantis opted Florida into the federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC / ECCA / §25F) on January 28, 2026, the open question was who would actually move the money. The answer arrived the same morning. Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that already administers Florida's state scholarship programs for more than 500,000 students, announced that it will participate in administering the federal program, and that it is doing so by establishing the Step Up, Step Further Scholarship Fund, described in its own materials as “a separate 501c3 non-profit.” Rather than route federal donations through its existing state Scholarship Funding Organization, the largest incumbent in American school choice is standing up a distinct federal entity built for §25F from the ground up.

The structural choice is the news here, and it is instructive for every operator weighing the same decision. Step Up could have retrofitted its state apparatus to take federal contributions; instead it created a clean, purpose-built vehicle with its own public-facing site (stepupstepfurther.org, also reachable at federalscholarshiptaxescredit.org) and a live donor and parent interest list inviting Floridians to sign up before the program opens. Keeping the federal SGO legally separate insulates the §25F program's compliance posture, accounting, and donor reporting from the state programs it already runs, an approach that matters because the federal credit carries its own distinct rules. The fund commits to spending at least 90% of donations on scholarships, the floor that defines a qualifying SGO under the statute, a standard we break down in our guide to the 90/10 rule.

The economics for donors track the federal statute exactly. Contributions to the Step Up, Step Further Scholarship Fund will be accepted beginning January 1, 2027, and they carry a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit of up to $1,700 per donor, with any unused credit eligible to be carried forward for up to five years. On the family side, the fund says it will serve households earning up to 300% of area median income, covering K-12 students at both public and private schools, a deliberately broad eligibility band that mirrors the wide reach §25F was written to allow. For an organization that has spent two decades operating inside Florida's state credit framework, the federal program is additive: Florida donors will be able to support both the state and federal programs through separate contributions, claiming each credit on the corresponding return.

For prospective SGO founders watching the rollout, Step Up's move sets an early template: when the nation's biggest school-choice operator chose to build a separate federal entity rather than bolt §25F onto its existing structure, it signaled that the federal program is its own beast deserving its own vehicle. The pattern, a dedicated 501(c)(3), a live interest list well ahead of the January 1, 2027 launch, and an explicit 90% scholarship commitment, is worth studying for anyone mapping out how to start an SGO. We track Florida's status and its participating organizations on the Florida state page, maintain a running directory of scholarship-granting organizations by state, and follow the broader rollout on the participation map.