Let’s start off with a quick survey. Raise your hand if you’re saving in a U.Fund 529 College Investing Plan. If your hand is raised, take that hand and pat yourself on the back for the progress you’re already making in preparing for your child’s future college costs. If your hand isn’t raised, no problem! Pop over to our U.Fund page to learn more about how to easily set up a U.Fund account.

Let’s do another quick survey: Raise your hand if your child receives checks from family or friends for birthdays, holidays, and other celebrations. My guess is that if we were in an auditorium, a lot of hands would be up.

Wouldn’t it be easy if your family and friends could automatically deposit their monetary gifts into a college savings account for your child?

If you’re saving in a U.Fund, you may or may not know that there’s already a way to set up online gifting for your child. And it’s pretty easy, once you know where to look. The resource allows friends and family members to simply follow a link and electronically deposit funds into your child’s 529 account.

I’m going to walk you through the easy steps to get started.

1. Log into fidelity.com and navigate to the beneficiary’s U.Fund account dashboard. Once you get there, you’ll see a visual with your financial information, and a number of other blocks with different resources. Find the section titled Prioritize saving, and click on Set up or review my gifting dashboard. This will take you directly to a page where you can set up your online gifting page.

2. As you set up your personal gifting page, you’re able to create a greeting, change the display name of your child, upload a photo, show your child’s age, and add the year your child is expected to enter college. You can also list your child’s intended college major!

3. As you scroll further down the set-up page, you’ll be required to read through the Terms and Conditions. Once you do that, click Agree and Continue.

4. Once this is all complete, your gifting page is set up! You can access it from your Fidelity main account dashboard at any time just by once again navigating to the section titled Prioritize saving, and clicking on Set up or review my gifting dashboard. 

5. It’s easy to invite friends and family to contribute to your child’s U.Fund account from your gifting page. Simply scroll down to the bottom of the gifting dashboard, and you’ll be able to generate a unique URL and/or a QR code to share with family and friends for direct access to your child’s personal gifting page.

Happy saving!