Professional Development

Fundraising startup EdFundr banks first university partnership

The 1776-based EdFundr, which helps simplify the process of alumni donations, is now working with Penn State.

EdFundr's two cofounders are Penn State alums. (Photo by Flickr user Ben Stanfield, used under a Creative Commons license)

Jason Morris and Ahmed Awadelkarim have some big news for their higher education donation platform, EdFundr. Big Ten big.
Their first “partner” is Pennsylvania State University, where the cofounders both obtained degrees in electrical engineering while learning the ropes of higher ed fundraising.

EdFundr

EdFundr’s Jason Morris and Ahmed Awadelkarim. (Courtesy photo)


Awadelkarim, the COO, was a fundraiser for the National Society of Black Engineers while Morris, the CEO, reached out to corporate donors and alumni for the school’s Office of Engineering Diversity.
“People truly want to help remove the financial hurdles that exist in higher ed, but it was often times difficult to help,” said Morris in an email. “We decided to change that.”
Here’s how it works:

On the institution side, we do this by streamlining the various complexities that exist in today’s higher education fundraising process, so the universities can be laser focused on their alumni. How do we do this? We don’t charge setup fees, we don’t require backend integration, and we don’t charge institutions for the basic use of fundraising on our platform. We also empower everyone in the university pipeline to be able to manage pages.

After launching in May 2014, EdFundr competed in the education division of 1776’s D.C. Challenge Cup in October. The team of eight (including Morris and Awadelkarim, who are the only full-time employees) is based in the downtown incubator.
“Other universities have begun to reach out to us without a single push for university outreach (yet) on our end,” said Morris.
EdFundr is planning to expand and has already set its sights on New York. Opening an office in NYC would be an occasion to reach more “available talent, university networks, and startup capital with an interest in EdTech/FinTech,” Morris said.

Companies: Penn State

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

Y Combinator alum lands $4M seed to boost open-source connections

Celebrate your tech community: Nominations are open for the 2024 Technical.ly Awards

Tech lobbyist warns US not to ‘cut off’ innovation in new book

This Week in Jobs: A wealth of opportunity in these 24 open tech roles

Technically Media