New York angel investor Tony Davis invested $750,000 in a bond to retrain low-income, low-skilled workers for tech jobs in the borough of New York.
The non-profit C4Q has enrolled 200 students from New York in its 10-month program since 2013.
On average, students more than quadruple their incoming salaries of $18,000 per year. Now, C4Q is asking students to donate 12% of their salaries back to the program for two years.
“It’s not a loan, and it’s not a debt,” founder Jukay Hsu says, but it will enable C4Q to repay Davis at a 6.6% rate of return. Other organizations are testing a similar approaches.
Microsoft is backing a similar initiative in Colorado with a $25 million grant.
“We need new approaches, or we’re going to leave more and more people behind in our economy,” Microsoft’s Brad Smith told the New York Times.
