Student Assistance Foundation of Montana

Student Assistance Foundation of Montana

The Student Assistance Foundation of Montana was structured as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) support organization to serve the Montana Higher Education Student Assistance Corporation (MHESAC). President and CEO Scott Todorovich oversees both SAF and MHESAC, with the Montana Board of Regents appointing members to each entity’s board. SAF’s revenue is earned through loan servicing, bond financing administration, and business management services rather than through philanthropic donations. SAF's deployment model centers on operating the back office of Montana's student loan infrastructure: coordinating complex bond financings, managing day-to-day loan servicing for MHESAC and other historic lender partners, and ensuring strict compliance with federal student loan regulations and consumer credit laws. The cash flows generated from these fee-based activities fund the organization's public benefit mandate. Since 2000, SAF has pushed over $32 million into Montana-focused education initiatives, principally through Reach Higher Montana, the nonprofit it powers under VP Kelly Cresswell. Reach Higher Montana runs Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) awareness campaigns and directly advises Montana students — an in-state geographic footprint that extends from the foundation's Helena headquarters across the state's rural and tribal communities. The foundation maintains a lean institutional footprint: its management team averages more than 20 years of finance or student-loan experience per member, with CFO Jolene Selby running financial operations alongside Todorovich. SAF owns the Power Block Building in downtown Helena as a commercial asset. It participates in industry associations including the National Council of Higher Education Resources (NCHER) and the Student Loan Servicing Alliance (SLSA), and it is a member of the Montana Nonprofit Association. While SAF does not publicize a conventional investment portfolio allocation, its balance sheet includes earned revenue reinvested into its mission and real property. What separates SAF from a generic education foundation is its hybrid structure: a taxable service business embedded inside a 501(c)(3) that exists solely to fund a downstream charitable program. The revenue engine — student loan servicing — and the public benefit arm — Reach Higher Montana — are legally and operationally intertwined under one organization, creating a self-sustaining cycle that requires no annual fundraising. That architecture makes SAF closer to a captive operating nonprofit than to a philanthropic endowment, with governance tightly linked to the Montana Board of Regents and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education.