[dalibrandi]

Hi Hacker News,

I want to introduce Codefund, a crowdfunding platform for aspiring coders. We have built a platform that enables users to crowdfund their tuition after being accepted into a programming bootcamp.

Our first campaign is now live, and we're fundraising for Rose Afriyie, who has been accepted into the Starter League (http://www.starterleague.com/) in Chicago. She's hoping to learn web development in order to continue building mRelief, a social services app she is developing in partnership with the City of Chicago.

Check out her campaign here: https://www.codefund.io/campaign/rose

twitter: @codefunding

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Codefund is the bootstrapped project of Adrian Moses and Dana Alibrandi. Adrian is a software engineer with a keen mind for good products, and I'm a product manager filling in the gaps. We're aware that there are holes in our product, but we feel like this platform is something that should exist in the world. Maybe its current iteration isn't the ideal, but if you agree that we should find a way to help diversify and bolster the tech industry, then we'd love to hear your feedback on how to improve.

And most importantly, donate if you believe in the campaign and want to see Codefund grow :)

[johnny_utah]

On https://www.codefund.io/discover, why are you logging an object that contains all the information on the page?

Open the chrome console to reproduce.

Cool idea though! How do your terms compare to something like gofundme?

[dalibrandi]

Thanks for pointing that out, we're working on fixing it.

As compared to gofundme, our terms are similar in that there are no penalties for missed deadlines and the fundraiser gets to keep any amount they raise. It didn't seem right to reject donations just because the goal wasn't met. If a fundraiser can raise any amount, then it makes their future debt much more manageable.

We've been tossing around the idea of removing the deadline, but because of the gap of time between acceptance and your first tuition payment, we inserted a deadline to focus donations in our limited timeframe. In the future, we can encourage applicants to create campaigns as quickly as possible, in order to maximize the amount of time before the first tuition payment. In theory, fundraisers can continue their campaigns until their full tuition is covered, where a portion of the total is sent directly to the school in order to cover that particular payment period. At the very least, it will buy fundraisers more time to cover the total cost of their needs.

[sgibat]

Funny, I had this idea as well. What about abstracting the app academy model and vying for investors instead of donators? That is, people could donate money in exchange for x% of the applicant's first year of income after coding school.

[dalibrandi]

Definitely something we've thought about, and it's similar to what Upstart offers bootcamp applicants. Our only hesitation was that it's a debt-based solution, which is something that we want to avoid at all costs. Contributing to the growing student debt amount doesn't seem like the right move. Taking the step to change your life through empowering yourself with skills should be easier, and we want to reduce roadblocks as much as possible.

[sgibat]

True, it's a debt-based solution, but the most innocuous of debt-based solutions. But, I like your sentiment/mission statement.