Bursary Network has successfully crowd-funded six students at South African universities since its launch on 11 November.
The platform helps local and international full-time students at South African public universities to crowd-source their tuition and accommodation fees from anyone willing to make a donation.
Using Bursary Network, students and students-to-be at South African universities can set up personal profiles telling donors who they are, what they are studying, why they need funding, and how they plan to use their qualifications to contribute to society.
Students can seek funding for tuition, accommodation, or both, specifying the amount of funding they need and how many more days they have to gather these funds.
Bursary Network pays the money raised directly to the students' institutions. The platform also uses documents provided by the students, and consults with the students' institutions to verify their identities and the information they provide.
Donors can contribute to individual students' crowd-funding campaigns in increments as low as R100, and post comments or questions on students' profiles.
The Web site allows donors to look for students from specific provinces or studying at specific universities.
In its two months of operation, Bursary Network has amassed 152 registered donors who have contributed a total of R196 163.
Selective success
Yet, while Bursary Network poses immense promise to students seeking funding, only a tiny group of student profiles is hand-picked from the masses submitted for funding via the platform.
Bursary Network's Web site featured 10 student profiles at the time of writing - although it has received in excess of 600 student profile submissions to date, says Emmanuel Luthuli, Bursary Network founder.
The reasons for this selectivity relate to each featured student's potential to be successfully funded, Luthuli explains.
Adding more students to the Web site's pool would dilute the total funds raised, making each student less likely to reach his/her funding goal. With fewer students to choose from, the more likely they are to reach their goals, he elaborates.
As with most well-known crowd-funding platforms, Bursary Network returns all donations to its donors if a student does not reach his/her goal.
In addition, the Bursary Network Web site does not have the capacity to host a greater number of student profiles, which is largely why the profiles of the six successfully funded students are no longer on display, says Luthuli.
Currently, Bursary Network selects students based on how much the story they have to tell is likely to resonate with potential donors, says Luthuli. Students generally explain how they plan to use their degree, and why they require funding. "All of them did have a very strong story to tell," he says of the six students who managed to successfully fund their studies via the platform.
Growth goals
Luthuli hopes that as the platform gains support and capacity, it will grow to support more students and broaden its criteria.
Whereas currently the platform only supports full-time students at South African public universities, in the future Luthuli hopes it will expand to support students who do not fit this profile, including part-time students, students at private universities and technical colleges, and students attending universities outside SA.
Bursary Network is also working towards ensuring donors' contributions are recognised as tax-deductible donations, Luthuli says.
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