How the University of Essex use crowdfunding to help student employability

The graduate job market continues to become more and more competitive, year upon year. The UK now sends 47% of school leavers to University, one of the highest percentages of any country in the world. However, only 31% of graduates are landing a graduate level job.

There has already been some great work done by Universities to address this, but clearly more needs to be done in order to fulfill the promise to students that investing in their further education will unlock future higher earning potential.

Crowdfunding can make an important contribution to the employability agenda, it is not only a fantastic way to help students fund their extra-curricular projects, but also teaches important life skills that are vital in new graduates finding that all important graduate level role.

The Big Essex Award

The Big Essex Award is the University’s Employability Award. It aims to ‘identify the skills you’ve developed over your time at Essex so that you can show future employers why they should hire you’. Launched in 2012, over 4,000 Essex students have used the scheme.

Students complete a range of modules, which are then listed on their Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR). Previously this was marked on their degree transcript, but now students must use the Big Essex scheme in order to have any annotations on their record.

Two crowdfunding modules for the Big Essex Award were launched in January, which vary in points value depending on how involved in the project the student is.

Crowdfunding Module

The Crowdfunding Module helps students to develop very useful skills such as entrepreneurship, planning, budgeting and managing a business project, as well as multimedia and digital marketing practices.

In addition, crowdfunding enhances student’s passion, ambition and innovation in order to complete their project.

Crowdfunding Workshops

Whilst formal teaching of crowdfunding is not yet available at Essex, regular workshops are held on topics from getting the most out of your project page to promotion and digital marketing. These sessions are well attended and provide an engaging way to teach the basics of crowdfunding.

Encouraging Student Enterprise

The relationship with the Student Enterprise Officer at Essex has translated into a steady flow of fantastic enterprise projects. Regular attendance at networking evenings organized by the Enterprise Team has helped meet student entrepreneurs and interested stakeholders from the local community.

Recent Successes

OWL APP, Safety App

• Helps students find their way home
• Also helps students find each other in campus venues
• Raised £1,506

EYEWINK, Accessibility App

• Helps people use their phone by winking
• Aimed at people without use of hands
• Raised £4,605

Connecting People

The EyeWink team was put in touch with an Essex alumnus that works for the Alzheimer’s Society, resulting in a deal where they can test their prototypes in a live environment, a fantastic breakthrough for their app.

The True Value of Student Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a fantastic and innovative way of raising money. It suits the accountability and impact that donors demand, and the quirky and sometimes instant need for student funding. But its importance shouldn’t just stop there.

Universities can formally recognise the value of crowdfunding skills, and put this value front and centre to graduate employers. This can then not only help solve a very real challenge in UKHE, but grow crowdfunding as a whole.