She raised $1,787, which seems like a lot—but her goal was $13,000. Still, things sort of worked out: Her LinkedIn page says she’s graduated and looking for legal opportunities.
Amanda Nicodem, whose campaign ended this June, did slightly better, raising $2,382 of $6,228. Instead of emphasizing her tough situation—which seems to be standard, i.e. law school is crazy expensive, and she’s not made of money—she lead with her academic accomplishments: a 91st percentile LSAT score, seven semesters on the Dean’s List, et cetera. She also made a video explaining her interest in international law and her desire to work in Africa, which would probably go over better than, “I want to work in a giant law firm and make a lot of money!”
Finally, she offered donors little prizes in return for their help. $1? She’d tell a lawyer joke. $50? She’d bake and ship you cookies. $300? She’d show you around New Orleans for a full weekend. Girl clearly put skin in the game.
GOFUNDME: “CROWDFUNDING FOR EVERYONE!”
To be clear, the exclamation mark is theirs, not mine. GoFundMe describes itself as a place for “The World’s #1 Personal Fundraising Websites.” The word “personal” seems to make it the most appropriate place for students looking to cover their costs: A search for “law school” brings up 43,613 results, and most people get between $100 and $1,000—which really isn’t that bad when you consider the fact that most of them just wrote a paragraph or three.
One of the funniest projects is titled “Law School Student Loans & Honeymoon.” The poem on the page says it all:
Please join us on our special day,
Your attendance is desired.
Don’t feel obliged to give a gift,
But your dancing shoes are required.
If you were thinking of giving a gift,
What would really make our day,
Is a contribution to our honeymoon & Law School Loans
To help us on our way.
The couple created the project in February, and they’ve raised $165 out of $5,000 so far.
If you’re looking to make a real dent in your law school loans, crowdfunding probably isn’t your best bet. But if you need to pay for some books, it can’t hurt—especially if you make yourself look like a solid investment and a generally good person. Just don’t make the all-too-common mistake of filling your project description with spelling errors; the employers who Google you probably won’t be impressed.
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