The Educational Funding Company

EFC was the first company to offer a fee collection service to owners of Martial Arts Schools, Sports Gyms, Dance Schools and other sports and leisure pursuits.  Trading world wide in the USA, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Australia and New Zealand EFC has helped school owners to grow substantial businesses for over forty years.

Having satisfied the banking authority’s stringent requirements, we are Direct Debit Originators sponsored by Nat West Bank in the UK and the Ulster Bank in Ireland.  We have a well equipped, modern office, using the best office and banking technology available to provide an excellent service to our clients.

As a long-established global company, we have a huge amount of resources and many of the world’s most well-known and successful Martial Arts School owners willing to share the secrets of their success with you. Our regular meetings and spectacular annual global summits are excellent opportunites to network and learn from the best.

Becoming an EFC member is easy, and our full service package makes us the perfect business partner to grow your school into a successful business. We have welcomed schools with a handful of students, and schools with hundreds, no matter your situation we will be here to help you run the school of your dreams!

Our Services

Collecting membership fees by Direct Debit

As an EFC member, we will handle all of your collections, contacting late payers, sending welcome letters and dealing with any paperwork and banking matters for you. This allows you to focus all of your energies on running a first-class School rather than sitting in an office dealing with paperwork.

Our highly trained staff are on call to handle any membership queries from your students via telephone, e-mail or letter. Because we are specialists in Martial Arts schools and leisure clubs, we know the best way to handle issues and provide a service tailor made to the industry.

Advice on running your School

We have been in the Martial Arts business globally for over forty years, and have a huge amount of information to offer you on growing your School into a thriving business. You can avoid making the common mistakes when building up your School. Joining the us allows you to tap into the vast network of EFC Schools, and exchange advice and new ideas. At the EFC we believe “the rising tide lifts all boats,” and the sharing of knowledge between schools helps everybody.

Your own personal Account Manager

Upon joining us, you will be assigned your own Account Executive who will be your first point of call when contacting us. They will track your progress, and pre-emptively handle any potential problems with your memberships, provide tailor made advice and information for you depending on your situation. We are always pleased to hear from you, and often arrange weekly catch up telephone meetings to keep ourselves appraised of your current situation.

This is just a brief summary of the advantages we can offer you as a member, please explore the rest of the site to find out more about our company, and tap into the information freely available on the site to get a taster of what else we can do for you.

Billing

EFC are approved Direct Debit Originators sponsored by NatWest Bank in the UK and the Ulster Bank in the Republic of Ireland. This enables us to collect your student or client fees efficiently, saving you the time and inconvenience of collecting payments by cash or cheque.

All you have to do:

As an EFC client all you have to do is arrange for your students to complete and sign a Direct Debit Mandate and an agreement form which we will provide to you and on receipt of these we will do the rest.

Agreements are entered on our database on the day they are received and you will be able to track all of your student accounts on our real time client web site ‘Aquila Connect’, using your IPhone, Blackberry or PC at any time 24/7/365.

Payment to you:

At month end we will issue a comprehensive report to you detailing the fees we have collected during the month and the full amount collected less our commission will be paid directly to your account. This will ensure that you have a consistent monthly income, which is essential for any business to operate profitably.

Your Account Executive:

As an EFC Client you will be assigned an AE (Account Executive) who will monitor your account, effectively becoming part of your team. Your AE will rapidly follow up on a default payments, keeping you advised of progress. Whilst communicating with students your AE will always work in the best interests of your school, reminding students of the values and benefits of your programs.

Growing your Business

EFC have been helping our clients to grow their businesses since 1967 and we do so through introducing you to tried and tested techniques for marketing your school in order to gain new students and most importantly how to retain them.

Meetings and Seminars:

We hold regular meetings where you can learn cutting edge business development ideas from top school owners. Our Annual International EFC Summit is attended by nearly a thousand school owners every year and it is an essential opportunity to learn from the best business people and school owners in the martial arts field.

Support materials:

Your AE will notify and remind you about EFC events and meetings, as well as helping you to use the EFC on-line services and support material, which includes Audio CD’s, Graphic CD’s, Eagle Express magazines and a library of on-line materials.

EFC Connect:

Your AE will also connect you with any resource, networking relationship, or martial arts support materials you may need, either directly or via our email help service EFC Connect.

Elite Consulting Group:

Being an EFC client will allow you to join our elite consulting group MAUI (Martial Arts University International) led by top EFC client Kyoshi Steve LaVallee.