Zack Yanger wants change — pocket change, that is.
On his quest to become a millionaire, Yanger, a 24-year-old 2010 UF advertising graduate, is asking 4 million people for a quarter.
Yanger said he got the idea a couple of weeks ago when he was talking to his friends about ways to make money. Jokingly, he thought he could become a millionaire off of people giving him change.
Two days later, he launched the website www.makezackamillionaire.com.
“I want to basically show the true power of digital sharing in today’s society,” he said. “Four million people is a lot of people, but when you think about it, there are YouTube videos with hundreds of millions of views.”
But there’s a catch. If he reaches $1 million by his deadline of Sept. 1, all the money goes to charity. If he doesn’t reach the $1 million mark, he gets to keep what he earned.
Anyone who donates a quarter has the opportunity to say where he or she wants the money to go, Yanger said. Donors also have the option to vote for other people’s requests. The request with the most votes gets the $1 million.
Yanger said some of the requests have been to donate the money to a sorority, pay someone’s rent, give it to the Ronald McDonald House, build a Publix in New York City or give it to a random homeless person.
Greg Slepak, a 25-year-old UF computer science senior, said people have become millionaires off of the Internet before, so he thinks the goal is possible.
It’s admirable that Yanger would give it to charity, Slepak said.
Yanger said by getting more people on board with his social experiment, he’s positive he will make it to the $1 million mark for charity.
“I guarantee there is a quarter in arm’s reach of you that you don’t need,” he said. “You can part with a quarter for a cause.”
Quarters can be donated on the website through Paypal. On Wednesday, Yanger said he had $5. Having accepted donations since March 1, Yanger expects to get about 500 donations by the end of this week.
He won’t accept $1, $100 or even $1,000.
“All I want is a quarter from 4 million people,” he said.
Paul Numbers, a 20-year-old UF civil engineering sophomore, said he thinks the goal is possible, and he would consider donating.
“It’s only a quarter,” he said. “I don’t see why not.”
Contact Alexa Volland at avolland@alligator.org.
