Black women are finding even more creative ways to implement fintech into our everyday routines.

Spare change technology — also referred to as round-ups — has been around for years, but I Heart My HBCU founder and president Dominique King became the first to introduce this kind of tech to HBCUs via a mobile app.

“I Heart My HBCU became the first platform where users could donate spare change to any of the 104 HBCUs in one place,” King shared in a statement.

King launched this groundbreaking Atlanta-based funding platform back in 2017 with the help of an elite group of Black women tech entrepreneurs.

As a fellow HBCU graduate, her plan for the platform was to preserve the rich heritage of HBCUs across the country, such as Concordia College in Alabama, by connecting them with new ways to fight challenges like closures and lack of funding.

Attending Howard University as an undergraduate student gave her a first-hand account of the cultural significance behind HBCUs and why it’s crucial for these kinds of universities to be specially cared for in our society.

In the spirit of giving back, King developed I Heart My HBCU and its tech-based app to support HBCUs in their efforts to continue producing scholars and future leaders of today and tomorrow.

The way the app works is users connect their banking information. From there, every credit or debit purchase rounds to the nearest dollar, donating the extra change to the user’s five favorite HBCUs.

“When creating this app, it was important for me to encourage HBCU Alumnae to support all HBCUs. Users can easily adjust how much or how little of their spare change they share to their five favorite HBCUs,” King continued in her statement.

King continues to update the app to attract more fellow HBCU alumnae to help her cause and expand the platform’s donor base beyond students and alumnae in order to reach Black and other communities at large.

King believes that preserving HBCUs takes a community effort. I Heart My HBCU also offers a chat integration system that is building a virtual community for HBCU alumnae, the Divine Nine, and friends of HBCUs to network, exchange ideas, support other Black-owned businesses and, most of all, HBCUs.

Now more than ever, it’s important that we support our surrounding communities and stay connected as communal interaction is scarce.

I Heart My HBCU’s platform intentionally goes beyond the status quo to get people to interact and offer a helping hand with new features like chatrooms, in-app challenges, and even the chance to get users’ student loans paid.

I Heart My HBCU is available for download on Google Play and the Apple app store.

There are several ways you can donate to your HBCUs.

Have you heard about I Heart My HBCUs App?

With the Original Spare Change App you can donate your spare change to your favorite.

Download from your Google Play Store or Apple Store. #iheartmyhbcu pic.twitter.com/6NOBJrW7NH

— I Heart My HBCU (@iHeartMyHBCU) December 8, 2020

For more information about I Heart My HBCU and its platform, click here.

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