Donor FAQs

Q. What is Project Steno?
A. Project Steno is laser-focused on one goal: Get students into court reporting school and graduate them in a timely manner into the field.
Step 1 – Getting the right students into court reporting school
Step 2 – Sending those promising students to the right court reporting programs
Step 3 – Offering $1,000 Merit Awards to students achieving certain benchmarks while enrolled in school

Q. How is Project Steno different from previous initiatives to attract people to court reporting?
A. Our plan addresses the three principal barriers to attracting students: people don’t know about our field; the lack of schools in one’s area; and the cost of schooling. We have created two professionally produced videos telling our story, describing the opportunity, so young people know about us. The videos are on this website’s home page.  We will invite prospective students to meet our requirements in order to determine students most likely to succeed. Students who meet our benchmarks are eligible for our Merit Awards.

Q. Why does Project Steno believe its plan will be effective?
A. Initially, we will connect “graduates” of Project Steno’s Basic Training Program with a dynamic court reporting/captioning program. We offer our $1,000 James DeCrescenzo Merit Awards to students who meet our benchmarks while enrolled in school. 

Q. Isn’t it too late for this kind of project?
A. Actually, this is a great time to be promoting court reporting. Students with degrees are struggling to find employment and are faced with thousands of dollars of student loan debt. The expansion of captioning and CART, coupled with the increasing need for freelance and official reporters, has led to a nationwide demand for our skills. Project Steno is uniquely positioned to get students into training and then out to meet that growing demand!

The message we have for prospective students is the right message at the right time: a white-collar, six-figure-income career for men and women, without the need of a four-year college degree and the attendant student debt that entails. We will be opening the eyes of young men and women (and their parents) to the startling opportunity that exists for them in our time-honored profession. No glass ceiling! One pay scale, for both men and women! We’ll have eager students jumping at the chance to be a court reporter, to do good, to have variety and portability of career. And once that ball is rolling, the word will spread, the students will come, young reporters will graduate into the field – and the tide will begin to turn! It’s an exciting prospect for all of us, and we need your buy-in to make it reality.

Watch video about Project Steno.

Q. Are contributions to Project Steno tax deductible?
A.  Project Steno is the trade name of Project to Advance Stenographic Reporting, Inc., a Delaware non-profit corporation that is recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.  100% of your monetary donation is tax-deductible. Our Federal Tax ID number or Employer Identification Number (EIN) is 82-3189873.  Donations made outside the United States may not be tax deductible.

Q. Will I get a receipt for my donation?
A. Yes. We will send you a confirmation letter by email. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Q. How does Project Steno’s Basic Training Program fit into your plan?
A. These introduction-to-steno programs have taken off like wildfire due to the grassroots efforts of volunteer reporters across the U.S., and we want to build on that success. Young folks “graduate” from Basic Training eager to enroll in school. Then what? That’s where Project Steno comes in.

Upon completion of these intro programs, we will connect them with a dynamic court reporting/captioning program. Project Steno will make it easy for a student to assess their options in schools, show them what it’ll cost, offer the $1,000 James DeCrescenzo Merit Awards, and let them know we’ll be there for them because we want them to succeed and graduate into the field.

Q. Who is being paid in connection with Project Steno?
A. Our lawyer and accountant. The founders have contributed substantial money to Project Steno (see the Donors page). The Varallo Group LLC has been paid as the project administrator.  Our Forms 990 are available on the Donate page of this website.

Q. What kind of marketing plan do you have?
A. We will leverage the success of Basic Training to create a pipeline of students. We will use marketing tools we develop to create awareness of court reporting and of Project Steno. We will encourage state associations, freelance court reporting firms and captioning firms, and all interested freelance/official reporters and captioners to use our tools. We will use social media, our website, and meetings and conferences with firm owners, captioners, freelance reporters and groups of official reporters to increase awareness of the availability of tuition assistance to potential students they know and desire to support.

We have created two professional quality videos about our profession, which are posted at the home page of this website – and offered free to any reporter or agency who wants to post them on their website or social media pages! We will encourage state associations to use our videos and word of mouth to create awareness of court reporting and of Project Steno. 

Q. Where will you recruit students?
We will disseminate our videos as widely as possible, generating word-of-mouth inquiries from folks who’ve just learned who we are and what we have to offer. Likewise, social media attention will direct interested men and women to Project Steno to have their questions answered.  Our board and advisory council freqently visit high schools, make presentations, and attend career fairs to encourage high school students to explore stenographic reporting as a career. 

Q. Does Project Steno plan to make attending court reporting school tuition-free?
A. No. But we offer the $1,000 James DeCrescenzo Merit Awards to students who work hard and succeed, meeting our benchmarks while enrolled in school. 

Q. What are your benchmarks?
A. Students who meet a speed benchmark of 140 words per minute within one year from school enrollment, or 225 words per minute by the end of year two are eligible for our the $1,000 James DeCrescenzo Merit Awards.

Q. Are students who are already enrolled in a program eligible for the $1,000 James DeCrescenzo Merit Awards from Project Steno?
A. All students who apply for the $1,000 James DeCrescenzo Merit Awards must be enrolled continuously in one school. If a student transfers but does not take time off from school they may be eligible.