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The idea for ActionGrad was inspired by the desire to give back during the subprime mortgage crisis. When the recession hit, ActionGrad founder Nick Brown found himself accruing massive debt while pursuing higher education. He returned home from college during his freshman year. A year later, the BP Oil Disaster made headlines. A year later, the BP Oil Disaster made headlines. As an able-bodied construction worker with skills to offer, images of devastation on the coast became a call to action. Within a week, Nick planned to volunteer in the cleanup, budgeting for food, gas, and lodging after securing time off. But he soon realized it wasn’t living expenses holding him back—it was his student loan payment. Seeing thousands of paid relief workers while debt prevented him from both finishing college and volunteering for causes he cared about, Nick set out to rethink how the cost of education impacts our ability to help others.

From the wake of the BP Oil Disaster through the beginning of the Student Loan Debt Crisis arose the inspiration for ActionGrad - an innovative platform that provides students and graduates the ability to source funds toward their student loan debt in exchange for providing volunteer services for the social and environmental issues that impact us all. Nearly 10 years later - having risen from entry-level labor to managing high-stakes operations across the US, Nick returned to school full-time where he completed his Bachelors of Science along with a Baccalaureate and Masters Degree in Product Innovation. It was during this time he met his cofounders at the VCU da Vinci Center and Unstuck Labs Business Accelerator who came together to make that dream a reality.