- £100,000 Student Impact Fund run in partnership with Crowdfunder will help at least 50 student projects across the UK
- Fund launches with a £10,000 competition on 23 February
Santander today announces the launch of a new fund designed to support the challenges and priorities of students or student groups across the UK. Students with projects in need of financial support can now receive matched funding through an innovative partnership between Santander and Crowdfunder.co.uk.
The Santander Universities Student Impact Fund has up to £100,000 of funding available and will support students in delivering projects which help people: create, run or participate in a student society or team; support a charitable or social cause; or run a university, community or student focused project or event. These could range from graphic design students raising money to showcase their work in a London studio to a student rowing team crowdfunding to support a new project with the aim of providing rowing lessons for the local community.
To be eligible, the project must be led by students from a UK partner university (1) with money raised through a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdfunder.co.uk. Santander will assess the projects against a range of criteria and those which are successful may receive up to 50% of the total funding required (up to a maximum of £2,000).
To launch the new fund, Santander will be initially giving away up to £1,000 to 10 exciting projects that go on to raise a further £1,000 via crowdfunding. To enter the competition, students need to provide 100 words about their project and its impact via the Crowdfunder’s Facebook page as well as completing a short online form at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/studentideas. Entries will be accepted between 9:00am on the 23rd February 2018 and 9:00am on the 26th February 2018.
Up to 10 entries will then be selected and assigned a bespoke Crowdfunding coach who will provide 1-2-1 support to help the projects reach their funding target. All projects will run their Crowdfunding campaign between the 14th and 28th March 2018.
Matt Huttnell, Director of Santander Universities UK, said: “This fund is an exciting development in the bank’s partnership with Crowdfunder. We know that many students are very keen to play an active role in the world around them, and while they may have excellent ideas for projects that can benefit their communities, it can be a challenge to raise funds to bring those projects to fruition. We hope that this new fund will allow students around the country to achieve their ambitions and enable their projects to prosper.”
Rob Love, Founder and Chairman of Crowdfunder said: “We are really pleased to be building on our relationship with Santander. We know that students are full of great ideas, which might just change the world. Crowdfunder's mission is to tackle society's challenges by making ideas happen and this new fund is perfect for supporting student projects that could have an immediate impact at a local level. We encourage any university team to check out the criteria and apply.”
Students wishing to find more information on the eligibility criteria and how to apply to the fund should visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/funds/studentimpact
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Notes to Editors
- Santander Universities partners with 83 institutions around the UK – for a full list see here: https://www.santander.co.uk/uk/santander-universities/about-us/our-partner-universities
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its innovative products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. At 31 December 2017, the bank serves around 14 million active customers with c19,500 employees and operates through 806 branches (which includes 61 university branches) and 64 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful market share in 10 core countries in Europe and the Americas, and is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization. At the end of 2017, Banco Santander had EUR 986 billion in customer funds (deposits and mutual funds), 133 million customers, 13,700 branches and 200,000 employees. Banco Santander made attributable profit of EUR 6,619 million in 2017, an increase of 7% compared to the previous year.
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