Who wants to see Jamie Foxx rap like Bill Clinton? He promises to do just that if he raises enough money for University of California’s crowd-funding campaign—Promise for Education.

The idea is for people to make a campaign funding goal, and make a personal promise to do something if that goal is reached–become a vegetarian, volunteer at a soup kitchen, wear the same shirt for a month straight.

All money raised will go to scholarships and grants for UC undergraduates. The money that is raised will be in addition to money students receive from UC’s traditional financial aid program.

In some cases, the money will help middle-income students who wouldn’t normally qualify for aid. The campaign has made its impact by harnessing the power of social media.

People can post their promises on their social media sites making it easy for anyone to click on the link and donate
money. With the help of sites like Facebook and Twitter, the campaign has been rallying students, alumni, faculty,
celebrities, politicians, and anyone who wants to contribute.

Rapper Watsky promises to play a free concert; Jerry Brown promises a “Brown Bag” lunch with a student from each campus; The CEO of Paramount Pictures promises to work at a movie theater concession stand.

“I will tap dance for six hours,” said UC Davis graduate Isaac Williams on the UC’s Youtube channel. Promise for Education has raised over one million dollars in just one month. The campaign is the first crowd sourced fundraiser to focus only on scholarships for undergraduate students.

In the last five years, state support for UC system has been cut by about $900 million dollars. The state used to cover 78% of the cost of a UC student’s education, while now it covers 39%. Tuition has nearly doubled to fill that gap, and more students are in need of financial help.

“Increasing our fundraising is an important part of the mix in order to ensure that all students with identified need can be helped,” said Jason Simon, UC executive director for marketing and communications, via email. Many students are at Skyline to save money toward a four-year college.

However, the majority of junior college students still cannot afford to transfer to UC or private colleges without the help of grants, loans, and scholarships. “And tuition is just part of the challenge.

Most UC students live away from home, so they also have to cover room and board, books and supplies, health insurance and other costs in addition to tuition,” according to a press release on the Promise for Education’s website.

The UC system has claimed to cut administrative costs by $500 million in five years’ time. They also have started the fundraising project “You Can”, aimed to raise $1 billion towards student scholarships. However, more financial aid resources are still needed to keep UC affordable.

Unlike “You Can” and most fundraising projects, this crowd-funding campaign does not demand large donations or any affiliation with the schools. Some people might donate money for the sole sake of seeing Jamie Foxx impersonate Bill Clinton.

People generally have an interest in supporting and improving education. The campaign is driven by people’s desire to be a part of that movement, and social media is the perfect platform to enable those people

This article has been replaced with a newer version that corrects a mistake in which the first few words of the article was missing. 8:48 P.M. 10/11/13