How Pursuit Bond Works
We created Pursuit Bond to create life-changing transformation for our community and link our Fellows, organization, and funders together. The best part is that we designed it so that we’re all focusing on helping you get and keep a high-paying job.
How you can
earn your
career
Through the Pursuit Bond, you're able to start your Fellowship with no loans and no upfront costs. Instead, it's based on your success—you'll pay a percentage of your future earnings for a set number of payments when you get a high-paying job. If you don't get a job or make above the salary threshold, you pay nothing. And if you lose your job, your payments pause until your next job.
Pursuit Bond is a funding model that brings our Fellows, Pursuit, and social impact investors together to create transformation for low-income, high-need communities. With Pursuit Bond, we are able to secure funding from social impact investors to create high-quality programs and deliver them to many more people than would be possible with grants and donations alone.
We secure funding from social impact investors who cover the upfront cost of your training. Unlike investors in for-profit companies, social impact investors want to create positive change for you, not just profits for themselves. Unlike funding models used by for-profit coding schools, we designed Pursuit Bond to ensure that you will be financially better off after you come into our program than you did before you came in.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how it works:
- We secure financing from our social impact investors to cover the upfront costs of your training.
- We help you learn to code, hone your professional skills, and get a high-paying job.
- We offer career-building services to help you keep your job and find your next great opportunity.
- You contribute a percentage of your earnings to Pursuit. For as long as you don’t have a job, you pay nothing. If you stop working for any reason, your payments pause.
- We pay back our social impact investors for the funding they gave to cover the upfront costs of your training.
- Repeat the virtuous cycle!
Your payments are tied to your salary and are calculated based on your gross annual income. Scroll down to see our progressive rates.
Pursuit Bond allows us to create high-quality training and career-building services and deliver those programs to many more people than would be possible with philanthropy alone. When we first started Pursuit, we relied entirely on philanthropy. At the time, we trained 21 Fellows with an all-volunteer staff in a donated classroom space in Queens. We were thrilled by the transformation we were able to create for those 21 individuals. But we wanted to design a better program—and we wanted to deliver it to more people.
While we are thankful to our generous community of donors, we cannot achieve these goals on donations alone. There simply isn’t enough philanthropic funding for adult workforce training. Pursuit Bond allows us to tap into a new source of funding that, much like solar energy, is renewable. That is what enables us to further our mission: to provide transformation for adults with the most need and potential.
Our goal is to help transform your life.
You don’t need any prior coding experience.
You get a laptop, access to 24/7 space, and a community to support you.
You are only paying for your outcomes. If you don't get a high-paying job, you never pay anything.
Creating a Virtuous Cycle
Pursuit Fellows go from earning an average of $18K to over $90K working as software engineers at some of the best companies in the world.
We make this transformation possible through Pursuit Bond. With this model, we’re able to secure funding from social impact investors to create high-quality programs and deliver it to many more people than would be possible with grants and donations alone.
Step 1
We secure financing from impact investors to cover the upfront costs of our training and career-building services.
Step 2
We help you learn to code, hone your professional skills, and get a high-paying job.
Step 3
We provide you with career-building services to keep your job, get raises and promotions, and find your next great opportunity.
Step 4
You contribute a percentage of your earnings for a set amount of time to Pursuit. For as long as you don’t have a job, you pay nothing. If you stop working for any reason, your payments pause.
Step 5
We pay back our impact investors for covering the upfront costs of your training.
Step 6
Repeat the virtuous cycle.
Pursuit Bond Terms
The Pursuit Bond model is accessible (lower contributions while you are earning less) and equitable (more successful Fellows contribute more). Applicants must have an annual salary under $45,000 to be eligible for the Fellowship.
Progressive Rates
Your income share terms are tied to your annual salary. If you make under $50,000, you pay nothing. Above that minimum income threshold, your rates grow with your income. Your monthly payments are calculated based on your gross annual income.
Your Pursuit Bond income share agreement is complete when one of the following occurs:
Payment Term: 48 Months
Your payments end after you have made 48 monthly payments.
Payment Cap: $70,000
The absolute maximum amount you can pay through your income share agreement. For example, you would reach the cap if your annual salary was $117,000 or more for 4 years.
Payment Window: 8 Years
Your income share agreement ends 96 months after your date of enrollment, even if you've paid nothing during the window.
Let’s look at some examples
Why Pursuit Bond?
The goal of the model is to create a renewable source of funding and make our program sustainable. Most importantly, it's an outcomes-based solution. The Pursuit Bond holds us accountable for our work—we’re only successful if you’re successful.
