2,600 HSEcoins

Launched last year, HSEcoin is an internal crowd-funding platform where students and, starting  this year, teachers, can support a project they care about. Now that the year is coming to a close we are sharing the platform’s biggest achievements and 2019’s winning projects.

This year, 20 projects participated in HSEcoin fundraising, 14 of which successfully raised at least 70% of their initial fundraising goal. Eight projects managed to raise the entire amount pledged.

In total, the projects raised 2646.85 HSEcoins, which is equal to over 500,000 roubles.

This was also the first year   university teachers  participated in the fundraising From now on they too, , together with graduate and doctoral students, can support their favorite student projects .

We met with representatives from  a few of  the most successful student projects to learn how they spent their HSEcoins this year and discuss their biggest fundraising challenges.

HD dance

Polina Kolesnichenko, Project Coordinator

We have raised 185 HSEcoins (100% of the declared amount), which equals 37,000 roubles.

As a  student association that’s actively growing, we needed our own brand and merchandise, so we used this money to make branded t-shirts for all the dancers, instructors and organizers. We have also printed amazing sweatshirts and tote bags with our logo. We gave away some of these items as prizes  at the Noch festival, where we organized dancing classes. We are going to give away the remaining prizes online and at our internal New Year’s event.

vk.com/tancy_hse

The coolest part  is that our dance hall now has some personality! We ordered a press wall with our logo, and now we have photos posted to the background.

Overall, HSEcoins allowed us to buy what we needed much faster than if we had applied for project support. The support from students who attend our classes helped us tackle our task quickly.

#poboltaem? Conversation Club

Kamilla Izimova, Project Coordinator

This year, our student association participated in the competition twice. The first time, we raised about 20,000 roubles and spent them on cookies and sweets for our cozy meetings, as well as board games for Game Evenings and stickers with our logo, which we have been giving to guests.

During our second fundraising round, we raised slightly more than 23,000 roubles. We used this money to replenish our supplies of treats and order new stickers, as well as pins and tote bags with the club logo to give away as prizes to our regular visitors.

The opportunity to receive financial support has been helpful for many student clubs, including ours, but we also need to remember that collecting HSEcoins is not as easy as it seems.

‘Romeo and Juliette: HSE vs. MSU’ Performance

HSE University Youth Musical Theatre

Darya Fontana, Project Coordinator

We have raised 30,000 roubles with HSEcoins. We spent this money on renting headsets, a soundboard, and wires to connect the headsets to microphones.

At first, we simply asked the students to help us raise HSEcoins, however, our promotional efforts were ineffective So, we started asking everyone we knew to donate HSEcoins to our project.

vk.com/mtmhse

We were very scared that we wouldn’t raise the required minimum amount and then wouldn’t receive any funds at all, particularly when one night, there was a system malfunction, and the HSEcoins already donated  started to disappear. Thankfully, everything returned to normal in the morning, and the missing HSEcoins reappeared too.

HSE Student Mentors, Project ICE 2.0

Ekaterina Morozova, Project Coordinator

This year, HSE Student Mentors earned 100% of the HSEcoins we aimed to raise – 750 coins or 150,000 roubles.

1. Since, at the time of submitting our application for HSEcoins, we were the only project that had applied, we thought it would be easy to raise the necessary amount. But despite how dispersed our mentors are across many faculties and programmes, we still faced  difficulties. Master’s students had absolutely  no idea about HSEcoins, student associations, or extracurricular life at HSE.
2. Many undergraduates didn’t know about HSEcoins either, or didn’t understand their purpose.
3. Many were willing to help but had difficulties entering the HSEFamily website. Some couldn’t log in, while others didn’t remember their password.
4. Some donated 0.1 HSEcoin instead of 1, by mistake.

Plans for Next Year

In early December, HSEcoin went on holiday,  but it will be back next year with new ideas, new projects, and new opportunities to support extracurricular life at HSE University.

December 17, 2019