ScholarJet

ScholarJet engages donors to create action-based scholarships. Instead of writing essays, students can participate in enriching challenges, including coding, graphic design, painting, music production, or even volunteering for a cause. Students everywhere will be engaged in experiential learning while gaining access to education.

The only way for students from underrepresented communities to gain access to higher education is to write essays for scholarships. Essays are not valuable for their time, and if English is their second language, it places them at an even greater disadvantage.

Philanthropic organizations and individuals are struggling to create an impact with the current scholarship process. Our research shows that the process for creating essay-based scholarships can be expensive, confusing and relatively low impact. Typically, if 50 students apply for one scholarship, only one student is impacted by the financial reward. The rest only receive a rejection letter.

We tested 4 action-based scholarships. All students applied (80) said that they gained valuable experiences that can be added to their portfolio for their future careers. Donors were excited to learn that the impact they created extended beyond the scholarship amount. One of our donors who is looking to promote 3D modeling is excited to demonstrate the educational applications for the students who are applying to the scholarship challenge.

We also conducted a survey of individuals from 47 universities and showed that they were 7x more likely to contribute to our scholarships when compared to the national alumni participation rate.

We are using technology to create a donor behavioral change and increase impact in the philanthropic world. Companies and individuals who are looking to create impact while providing experiential learning for the work force of the future will benefit from our solution. Students are provided with a chance for experiential and practical learning that will add to their portfolios and to gain access to higher education from the financial reward. ScholarJet, with our online platform, is currently working with our donors to generate more action-based scholarships in the Greater Boston Area.

Amount of scholarships awarded on our platform - Increased access to higher education

Number of student participants on the platform - Increased student exposure to experiential learning

Number of individuals and companies creating scholarships on the platform - Increased community engagement and impact by donors

Others in our field are using technology to enhance the essay-based scholarship process. They are not innovative in providing experiential learning or increasing the impact per scholarship. ScholarJet focuses on the experience one scholarship can create while the others are focusing on the financial value. We have a simple, streamlined platform that can automate the process of action-based scholarships from creation to awarding. The more action-based scholarships we provide, the more marketing content we can create to capture further interest from future donors. We have a strong first movers advantage in this space.

Our technology replicates the feel of professional crowdfunding platform that billions are accustomed to. Students are able to sign on and submit projects. They are rewarded with an experiential certificate for every challenge they complete. We are able to provide real-time feedback from existing donors on projects submitted and also to connect donors to students as our stewardship process. Our students who go on to receive scholarships are expected to come back as ‘alumni’ of the platform and go on to judge and contribute to future scholarships.

The solution is free for students from underrepresented communities. They can access our solution using the internet. We are partnering with college access programs (both locally and nationally) to build our student base and get the word out there. We are also looking to work with other philanthropic organizations and individuals to sponsor our scholarships and reach out to the targeted communities. College access programs already have identified students in need of our solution and are more than willing to reach out to them on our behalf.

So far, we have won approximately $30K through pitch competitions and accelerators to fund our initial expenses. On top of that, our initial business model takes 10% on top of the scholarship amount. ScholarJet is also fiscally sponsored. Therefore, we are able to accept grants/donations in addition to investments through our corporate structure. We are currently focused on gaining traction and proving value for our scholarship sponsors prior to expanding to a more profitable business model. In the next couple of months, once we have enough scholarships on our platform, we will be looking to raise a round of investment and grant opportunities to help sustain ourselves.

One of our limiting factors is the capacity of the current team. The 3 core members of the team are working at maximum capacity and we need more funding to expand the team. The second limiting factor is that our concept is brand new to the market, therefore we meet the challenge of finding the right early adopters and innovators to help kickstart our traction. Another factor is the limited network that we have. We need to be able to reach out to more sponsors for our scholarships, and this requires a lot of time-consuming relationship building.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyXn-q5ciok0zS41sTWm2fg

https://www.facebook.com/scholarjet/

https://twitter.com/ScholarJet

We are young and hard working individuals who are constantly learning to figure out the best way for ScholarJet to meet the market and succeed. ScholarJet hopes to find funding so that the team can focus on building ScholarJet as well as figure out the right strategy to scale business model moving forward. We believe that ScholarJet needs to exist in this world and because we come from a disadvantaged background ourselves, we are in need of mentorship and resources to help bridge our own experiential gap.

We are a part of 3 venture accelerators, Smarter In The City, Northeastern IDEA, and MassChallenge. ScholarJet also receives the support from the Boston Foundation. We are also working with community organizations such as Bottomline, Artists for Humanity and uAspire. 

Scholly, Raise.me, Scholarship America, MindSumo, ScholarSimple