in Founders' Corner, Team Updates

Hey Everyone,

Time sure moves fast, isn’t it? It’s been 8 months since we first launched Skolafund.com with our first campaign. A lot of things happened, and if you follow our social media pages (Twitter & Facebook), you’d know what we’ve been up to, in general.

We’ve been fortunate to be featured in quite a number of media – both online and offline. Thank you to all of the writers that were willing to write about what we do and thank you everyone that made it possible. I’ll try to find a way to post the articles here on this blog for our record and reference.

Most importantly, I hope via this exposures, more people will realise that there are actually many brilliant young minds that are facing difficulty in paying for education. While there are many parties and groups out there who are fighting to make quality education affordable, I hope community will continue to rally to help those who are affected by this problem today. Till the day higher education becomes affordable to everyone, we’ll need to work together to help these students out so that they’ll have a chance to improve the condition of their families and those around them. Skolafund is just a platform, ultimately, the community of sponsors on Skolafund are the key players; true heroes; the enablers. Without you sponsors, the platform would be obsolete and the students would not receive the scholarships that they need.

What are we working on right now?

We are looking into two things.

Firstly, making the verification process more efficient. If we manage to do this properly, more students can be approved, get their campaigns launched faster and crowdfund their scholarships.

Secondly, we are looking for a way to effectively remove the all-or-nothing policy without compromising on transparency and quality of campaign. By having this policy, students will be encouraged to use the platform which then ensures transparency among all sponsors. We’ll know exactly how much have been raised and how much more is needed. With this information, we can decide properly if we still want to sponsor this student, or another student who might benefit more from our sponsorship. Without this all-or-nothing policy, a student might not be motivated to fundraise the platform since he doesn’t have a target to meet. He might be getting sponsorship directly via bank transfer to his account which consequently means sponsors, will not have the right information as to much more he actually needs. This policy also encourages students to furbish and run their campaigns seriously for their own scholarship. However, we understand that for most of them, whatever amount they receive can help them in a way or another. Hence, we are looking for ways to enable us to execute this properly.

The team is looking into these matters seriously. We’ll weigh the pros and cons and make the decision together. If you do have suggestions on this, we really wish to hear them. You can email them to me at [email protected] or drop a comment below.

Thank you everyone, for your support thus far. We truly appreciate it.

Have Your Say!
  1. Dear Syamil

    I read with awe on your group’s effort to help students in need despite being undergrads yourselves. Infact, as a lecturer having students in the same predicament, I think what you’re doing is nobel indeed. Keep up the good work boys.

    I have a couple of suggestions to increase more fund:
    1. Collaborate with PUZ – the less conservative one (not sure which one). Many people want to help and ensure that their zakat contributions are properly channelled to the cause of their choice. By paying through zakat, they can offset their income tax. This is the best option for muslims.

    2. Apply for tax relief i.e. non-muslim contributors can also benefit from this.

    Lots of thots
    Dr. Suriyati
    0129386860

    Btw how to make a contribution…

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