Zero Bound allows students, current and alumni both, to do voluntary work on select projects in exchange for college funding. Funds donated through ZeroBound thus support a given community, as well as the individual recipient.
It is an intriguing innovation on the standard pledge-based model, which can suffer from a lack of incentives for donors to provide funding. Kelli Space founded ZeroBound after raising $13,000 in crowdfunding donations towards clearing $200,000 of her own college debt. Space and her co-founders then set about trying to offer altruistic donors more in the way of a return.
“We hope to use the trend of crowdfunding to not only help a generation pay off their debt, but also increase volunteerism among an age bracket that actually volunteers the least,” said Space. “To that end, I believe crowdfunding can be a largely beneficial way to raise the funds to make that happen”.
The benefits for students are not just limited to debt-reduction – voluntary work is also a handy asset to the CV. Communities will benefit from an influx of highly incentivized, skilled volunteers. There may be no more fitting marriage in the crowdfunding world than that between the donation-based model and struggling students. We will track with interest ZeroBound’s attempt to fine-tune that relationship.
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