Client Success

Situation with Client: The Felicia M. DeLorenzo Scholarship Foundation was established through the generosity of Felicia M. DeLorenzo, a longtime Arlington, Massachusetts, resident and successful business owner who died at age 81. The Foundation represented the fulfillment of Ms. DeLorenzo’s dream of using the resources she amassed over a half century of work to benefit the young people of her hometown far into the future. The directors of the Foundation turned to Nutter for legal counsel and pragmatic advice on how best to build a program that would serve the Foundation’s mission: to award scholarships to exceptional high school graduates who reside in Arlington and who desire to further their education at any accredited college or university.

Action We Took: Tom Jalkut, Julia Cosentino and Tom Rockwell worked closely with the directors, including a representative of Ms. DeLorenzo’s family, to identify the particular qualities in today’s students that Ms. DeLorenzo would most want to recognize and reward, principally a strong work ethic, care for others and commitment to the Arlington community, and then developed an application and selection process that has allowed as many as 150 applicants to be carefully considered for awards ranging in size from $2,000 to $20,000 each spring season. This same team, along with Nutter’s Trust and Tax Accounting groups, has managed the Foundation’s corporate filings, federal and state nonprofit reporting, website development, on-line application support, award payments, accounting, and publicity. Nutter Investment Advisors has provided investment management services to the Foundation, as well.

Result: Thousands of high school seniors from Arlington have applied to the Foundation for scholarships, hundreds of high school seniors have been chosen as DeLorenzo Scholars and almost as many DeLorenzo Scholars have merited scholarship awards throughout their college years. Over the nine years that the Foundation has operated, it has supported the young people of Arlington with more than $2.5 million in scholarships so they could pursue their dreams in college, precisely as Ms. DeLorenzo had envisioned.