About Boost Fund For Students
Addressing the Need for Professional Training
Boost Fund For Students is an initiative begun in 2024 to unblock access to post-secondary education and the economic mobility it provides. This is an urgent need at both societal and personal levels. America needs all hands on deck to address current and future challenges, and high-demand fields that lead to a strong economy face a shortage of trained professionals, yet many aspiring students are derailed by the economic disparities that persist in American communities.
On the personal level, a thriving and just society allows everyone a chance to find and develop their talents and make their unique contribution - fulfilling their professional aspirations and contributing to their communities. Formal training in targetted fields like cybersecurity, healthcare, and construction trades can quickly lift a family into financial self-sufficiency. And yet schooling is prohibitively expensive (yes, even for short-term license and certificate training), especially when taking into account the costs of supporting a family combined with reduced work hours to attend school.
Beyond the financial cost, taking any first step toward an unknown future requires guts and determination. BoostFundForStudents.com creates a community of Boosters to cheer and support these achievements by providing financial support to enrolled students and decision support to those still navigating their choices.
​​The Mission
​
To serve this need, BoostFundForStudents.com hosts crowdfunding campaigns that create opportunities for caring individuals to provide funds for those working to change their own financial trajectory. A Boost award can be spent on tuition, fees, and also other out-of-pocket expenses that sometimes block good students from achieving a milestone like license exam fees, transportation to apprenticeships or clinicals, child care, tools and uniforms, etc. These are expense categories not addressed by the current funding landscape.
​
Each Boost Crowdfunding Campaign is aimed at a specific cohort of awardees. We partner with selected credentialing programs that prepare students for family-supporting professional careers in fields like health care, skilled trades, green energy, and tech. See our fundraisers page for current campaigns, or you can suggest a campaign using the contact form below. The FAQ page has more details on the criteria for schools and award cohorts.
A Boost Award For Your First Credential is provided as a completion grant rather than as a scholarship. Scholarships are fabulous and we hope the scholarship model remains strong in American philanthropy. Our hope is that completion grants and other financial aid for professional credentialing courses will become just as popular as scholarships for degree programs are now, as one tool in our arsenal to build a more equitable and thriving society. You can read this post for more about why Boost Fund For Students awards are grants not scholarships. Boost completion grants fill a complimentary role alongside scholarship programs by sending support to a broader subset of students as a recognition that they are blazing their own path toward success.
​​
Our process creates funding pools that are unlocked after students have successfully completed the first portion of training, which alleviates the need for up-front proof of their drive and academic abilities. Boost award funding pools can be accessed by all qualifying students in a cohort.
​
Each quarter, opportunities will be posted to enable bright moments of hope and achievement. Please join us as a donor and participate in the joy as we cheer and support students to complete their higher education dreams.
​
How does a donation become a grant?
Boost Fund For Students works with the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts as our fund administrator. You can donate directly on their portal and learn more about this non-profit organization. The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts provides financial oversight and fund management for small philanthropic initiatives, and has 20 years experience managing scholarship funds for our home region in Western Massachusetts.
​
Funds go directly to the Community Foundation, making them tax-deductible (depending on the donor's personal situation of course). From there, grants can only be distributed to public charities. As this flowchart shows, Boost Fund For Students grants go to the 501(c)(3) entity of the training program (often a foundation), along with instructions on using them for student expenses according to the stated goal on our fundraising page. The school itself provides funds to their students - creating a layer of validation that all funds go only to enrolled students making good progress. Students might receive the funds as a credit toward their program expenses, or in some other form to offset out of pocket expenses such as transportation or child care.
​​​​
This contrasts with other crowdfunding sites where donations are sent directly to individuals and donors accept the risk that the use of funds could be misrepresented. Our differentiation is detailed on this chart.
​
Behind the Scenes
​​​
Donna K. Byron
​
Founder and Chief Encouragement Officer
​
​
I'm Donna Byron, a technologist and inventor with a long-standing passion for encouraging young adults to pursue their educational and professional dreams. I'm deeply grateful for the help I received to pay for college - especially at a time when few young women were nurtured in their dreams of a career in computing. That support, plus some hustle and part time jobs, allowed me to complete B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Texas at Arlington and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Rochester. College courses sparked my fascination with business software and computational linguistics, and launched a challenging and fulfilling career spanning enterprise software development, Artificial Intelligence research and college Computer Science teaching.
After the pandemic and its disruption of educational trajectories and jobs, I felt called to get more serious about providing support for the next generation of professionals. Through conversations with other women about how they were helped in their own journeys, a theme emerged and the vision for Boost Fund For Students started forming. The common thread was that returning students often embrace short-term professional training as a first step on their way out of abusive relationships, financial dependence, or dead end jobs.
Around that same time, short-term trainings and micro-credentials were blossoming and offering more options than ever. But with a catch: even a micro-credential or skills training can be prohibitively expensive. How to make it more affordable? I came to realize that students in non-degree training programs have far fewer funding options than those pursuing traditional four-year degrees. That realization cemented my mission: to raise the funds these students need to complete an educational goal that can open doors to a life-changing career.
​
My husband and I, both firm believers in formal education as an engine for economic mobility, provided initial funds that cover the operating expenses for this website and seed the fund at the community foundation. That makes 100% of the money generously donated by the community available to students. It took some fits and starts, but Boost Fund For Students was finally ready to launch in Fall 2024. Shout out to the many friends and coaches whose wise advice and guidance has helped me get this initiative off the ground.
​
If your own professional training was made more affordable by caring supporters (or taxpayers), if you're concerned about the unsustainable amount of debt piling up for higher education, or have hoped to find a way to make a meaningful improvement in the opportunity and wealth gap that persists in America, I hope you'll find inspiration on this site to contribute to a fundraiser and pay it forward.