Ready to raise some funds its beautiful Boulder campus, The University of Colorado is turning to crowdfunding for eight projects. According to the Daily Camera, CU will be announcing several campaigns in two weeks for the campus ranging from undergrad research to departmental programs.
Daily Camera also noted that university officials say they hope enough people will give gifts in small increments to help the projects get fully funded. Organizers also hope to fund interesting and unique projects on the campus along with giving alumni, students, friends, family and others a deeper sense of engagement with the school.
Project leader for the crowdfunding effort, Ray Johnson stated, “There’s a lot of good stuff happening here, but how does this stuff get funded?” Before working with the university, Mr. Johnson has helped to raise over $ 85 million for startups around the world.
Mr. Johnson also revealed that CU has consulted with Cornell University about its crowdfunding success. Cornell raised almost $115k in less than 60 days for a total of seven projects. It was also noted that roughly 60% of its backers were alumni and half of those were first-time donors.
Maggie Linn-Addison, assistant director of annual giving remarked, “[The investors] prefer to give online, so this gives us another venue to reach out to them more effectively and communicate with them in ways that they prefer via Facebook or Twitter. They’re the type of donor that really wants to know what their money is doing and the impact it’s going to make.”
Along with Ms. Linn-Addison, spokeswoman of the university system’s fundraising arm, the CU said, “There’s an engagement aspect often with crowdfunding, and people feel invested in a project or a program that’s being funded in a awy they might not when it’s an appeal for our annual fund. Crowdfunding will be able to show them that the progress goes on after the money is raised.”
Other universities have also turned to crowdfunding projects on their campus, including Arizona State University of Albert, University of Utah and UCLA.
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