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"Often times, working families have a hard time making ends meet. "I went through this, I understand the need," said Kristan Nigro, a kindergarten teacher at Schorr Elementary who started a "giving closet." There's food items in the pantry and toiletries like toothbrushes, soap, laundry detergent and contact solution. Kids can discreetly get what they need throughout the day and get back to learning. Kids and their parents can also use the giving closet after school. Nigro uses DonorsChoose.org to help fund the giving closet, "There should never be any embarrassment, we're a community. We rise together and fall together."

Watch the full report on fox5vegas.com

Email is the #1 most effective tool you can use to fund your DonorsChoose request. Asking for donations from the people you know can seem daunting at first, so we’ve broken the process down into six easy steps. Here’s all the information you need to advocate for your students and reach your project goal.

1. Brainstorm your list.

Decide who to email by answering these three questions:

         Who cares about me? Make a list of the friends and family members who would be curious about the awesome stuff you’re doing in your classroom. Your dad? Your cousins? Old college friends? Your running group? Write ‘em all down.

         Who cares about my school? Supporting a project close to home may appeal to people who don’t know you or your students very well. Write down local businesses, community members, and former students who might be invested in your school and want to support your community.

         Who cares about my students? Add your students’ parents and guardians to the list as well. If this group’s resources are very limited, you can still involve them without asking for donations. (More on that later.)

2. Keep it personal.

Send individualized emails to the people on your list. Cut-and-paste certain elements of your note, but tailor each one to your recipients, their unique interests, and their relationship with you.

Let your supporters know you’ve posted a project, explain why you thought they'd want to know, share a couple of details about your students, and highlight the impact your project will have on their lives. No need to write a formal essay; a few sentences will do!

3. Create urgency.

Potential donors are more likely to contribute when time is of the essence. The easiest way to utilize urgency is if you have matching donations (for example, if it's a special match day, if you have a match code, or if you have a match offer.) If your project qualifies for matching donations, make sure you let your donors know.  

If you don’t have a matched donations, you can still give supporters a nudge to donate early: “My goal is to get five contributions in this first week. Please help if you can.”

4. Keep your request short, sweet, and clear.

Once you’ve explained a bit about your project and created urgency, ask for support. Ask clearly and simply, and don’t forget to include your project link to make donating easy. Here are a few example asks to get you started: “Click on the link below to contribute to our classroom!” “Please donate. Every little bit truly makes a big difference.”

If you want to involve parents and guardians but know their resources are limited, you can simply ask them to share the project link. "Most parents are willing [to spread the word]," says teacher Michelle Ramos, "because it's quick, easy, free, and effective."

5. Embrace the (r)email.

After that first email to each potential donor, make sure to send at least one reminder email (aka remail). There are lots of great moments to send a remail. Pick your favorite:

         Is your match code going to expire tomorrow? Remail.
         Are you halfway to your goal? Remail.
         Has your project been up for two weeks without much action? Remail.

6. Say thanks.  

One of the most important elements of email fundraising is actually the easiest: the gratitude email. Each time you get a donation, respond to the notification email you receive from us with a thank you note to your donor. This makes people feel great about their contribution, encourages them to give to your future projects, and shows potential supporters how much you’ll value their support.

Want more email advice? Get tips from a fellow fundraiser.

Just can’t find the words? Use a template.

Already sent your emails? Explore other fundraising techniques.

“The first time it happened, DonorsChoose founder Charles Best was shocked. It was 2010, and a woman called his company saying that she was having a little bit of trouble making a donation to the site, a crowdfunding platform that helps teachers across the country fund classroom necessities and educational projects. Best called her back himself, “and I figured I would just be helping her troubleshoot a $10 donation,” he says,” but then a curious thing happened: She asked how many classroom projects there were from the state of California, and how much it would cost to fund them all.“

Read the full story on fastcompany.com

“A total of 30 school districts now belong to the District Partnership Program of DonorsChoose, a platform that helps districts and teachers crowdfund for school supplies and other resources. The program, launched a few months ago, provides support for teachers who use the crowdfunding program, ensures safety and security of donations, and aligns with each district’s strategic priorities, according to DonorsChoose."

Read the full story on EducationDive.com

“WICHITA FALLS, Texas (TNN) -We often push students to use their imagination; however, that creativity comes with a cost. Kindergarten teacher Megan Halford says she never has enough art supplies. So, she went to the Donors Choose a website and requested things like a simple block of wood that keeps markers fresh and tools so she can work with students in small groups. Donors Choose is making it possible for schools like Lamar Elementary to begin introducing coding, robotics, and VR to kindergarten students.“

Watch the full story on NewsChannel6Now.com

No time of year inspires more generosity than the holidays. 

Last December alone, DonorsChoose supporters contributed $18 million to classroom projects on the site. And the giving season isn’t unique to DonorsChoose; 30% of all nonprofit giving in the United States happens during the holidays!

When you share about the work you’re doing in your classroom, folks are more likely to hop in and help this time of year. Here are some tips to harness the power of the giving season to help bring your classroom dreams to life!

Word-of-mouth is your most powerful tool.

The holiday season is all about gatherings, whether it’s a party, volunteer meeting, family get-together, or a trip to the grocery store. When folks ask how things are going this year, let them know what you have planned. For example, is your cousin asking about your students over dinner? Share your goals for the year, including your current project.

Give an end-of-year update.

The holidays are a natural time to reach out and share updates from the past year, particularly with people in your life who haven’t heard from you in a while. Tell a great student anecdote, gush about the new instruments you scored for the band, or let them know about the classroom library you hope to expand this year. Whether it’s in a Facebook post, an Instagram story, or your handwritten holiday notes, don’t forget to share the amazing work you do with your students.

Print and share.

During this time of giving, make it easy for people to find your project and get in a festive, charitable mood. We have some great printable materials like flyers that you can post on community bulletin boards and business cards you can give out at events.

Often the biggest hurdle for people who want to help others during the holiday season is finding an opportunity. Let your supporters know how they can make a tangible difference for your students.

It’s an exciting new day at DonorsChoose! We just released our new visual identity, with a fresh take on everything from our logo and font to our color palette and illustration style.

We’ve all been fans of the orange chair over the past 7 years, but here’s a sneak peek behind the scenes and why it was time for our org’s look and feel to evolve.

We were fortunate to collaborate with the social impact designers at Hyperakt on our new look, and they helped us outline some pretty big design hurdles. Namely:

• The color orange is a really hard primary color to work with. On a white background, it looks great. On black, suddenly we’re a Halloween party. On any other color...blech.
• Our old logo was R E A L L Y   W   I   D   E. That makes it hard to read, which is why so many people call us “Donors Choice” or the grammatically befuddling “Donor’s Choose.” It also doesn’t work well alongside our partner logos, and when we’re working with some of the most respected brands in the world, we want to bring our A-game.
• Our beloved chair is nostalgic, but that style of desk doesn’t exist in many classrooms today. And, of the tens of thousands of things we send to classrooms every day, that desk is not one of them. 
• Where’s the motion? Where’s the emotion? Where are the people? There’s so much more to DonorsChoose than a single chair or color, and we wanted the core elements of our identity to say more.

So what does it all mean?

Logo

Our new logo is a wordmark. It’s bold, and it takes the form of basic shapes, evoking building blocks that form the foundation of a great education. 

Color Palette

The best classrooms are bold, vibrant places, and that’s reflected in our color palette. Our new primary blue is the merger of the blue lines and magenta margin line of a piece of notebook paper, symbolizing the work that students do under the guidance of their teachers. With a full-color palette, our website and all of our emails, social media images, and print materials work together with a consistent look and feel. 

Illustrations

We no longer represent DonorsChoose with just one icon – the chair. Now, we have “The Tapestry”: a growing collection of the many pieces, parts, and experiences of our thriving community. The single color wireframe tapestry represents the ideas teachers have; a blueprint for a quality education; a wish waiting to be fulfilled. The full color tapestry is about potential realized; the magic that happens when donors help teachers bring education to life. 

We now have a way to represent all of the people who are a part of the DonorsChoose community! Like the rest of our illustrations, our people are created from basic building block shapes and reflect the diversity of our supporters and the students and teachers we support. Our human figure illustrations are always in action — just like our community. 

Design Playground

We didn’t think it would be any fun if we put in all this work and kept it to ourselves! Our teachers and donors are some of the most creative people around and love to shout their favorite projects from the rooftops… or at least from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. So we made it easy for people to play with all of these assets on our new Design Playground, where you can personalize and customize your favorite images to share on social media, print a flier, or wallpaper your phones and desktops. (We’ve also got some new swag if you prefer to wear your DonorsChoose pride!)

We hope you’re just as excited as we are about the new look and feel of DonorsChoose. After all, YOU were the inspiration for a new visual identity that better reflected the dynamic group of educators and supporters who help bring learning to life on our site every day. Tell us what you think!

Explore classroom projects

"The couple's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is fulfilling all existing professional development projects requests on the crowdfunding platform DonorsChoose. The projects were initially created by teachers on the nonprofit crowdfunding platform DonorsChoose, which allows educators to make requests for classroom resources that are then sent directly to them once enough money has been raised."

Read the full report on people.com

We’re constantly thinking of ways to work more deeply with districts who are looking to get the most for their students through DonorsChoose. This year, we’re launching the District Partnership Program to collaborate with districts that want to make DonorsChoose an intentional part of their school fundraising strategy.

We’re thrilled to welcome the first cohort of participating districts!

• Atlanta Public Schools
• Chicago Public Schools
• Compton Unified School District
• Highline Public Schools
• Indianapolis Public Schools
• Los Angeles Unified School District
• Oklahoma City Public Schools
• Portland Public Schools
• Rockland R-1 School District
• Stockton Unified School District

When teachers, administrators, and DonorsChoose collaborate, classrooms can shine

In addition to the benefits that all school districts receive when their teachers use DonorsChoose, districts who partner with DonorsChoose also receive the following:

• Customized landing page. Donors can give directly to district partners through a dynamically updated webpage that showcases impact. Check out the landing page of Los Angeles Unified School District!
• First notification of funding opportunities. We alert district leaders when companies or foundations are supporting projects, matching donations, or offering other funding incentives for teachers.
• Annual presentation for district leaders. DonorsChoose team members will share data on the innovative ways teachers at the partnering district are using our platform to secure new resources for students.

Celebrating across the country

We recently visited LAUSD to announce the launch of the program, and DonorsChoose board member Yvette Nicole Brown joined the celebration!

The media’s taken notice of the District Partnership Program — check out this article from EdWeek, or take a look at district features in The San Fernando Valley Sun, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Stockton Record.

Curious how your district can leverage DonorsChoose to get the most for students? Get started with our resources built for district leaders like you.

It’s been a busy few months for the DonorsChoose team! We’ve been meeting with district leaders, education organizations, and policy thinkers across the country to better understand how we can serve the needs of public school teachers and their districts.

From ISTE to EdVenture, here’s a rundown of where you might have seen some DonorsChoose faces — and where we’ll be coming up!

NSBA's Equity Symposium

‍In January, our founder Charles Best spoke to 700 school board members, superintendents, and NSBA staff at the NSBA Equity Symposium. He spoke about how school districts use platforms like DonorsChoose to support school wide initiatives and close the achievement gap, building a more equitable education system. Learn more about our work with NSBA.

‍CoSN Envision 2030 Conference

‍Keya and Sam, two members of our Advocacy and Public Partnerships team, headed up to Portland, Oregon in April for the annual COSN conference. They shared classroom technology trends we’ve uncovered through our data, and learned more about the needs — especially around compatibility — of district technology directors. Learn more about our work with CoSN.

NAESP Pre-K–8 Conference

‍Danielle and Kirk, also on our Advocacy and Public Partnerships team, visited Spokane, Washington for the NAESP conference in July. They led a session on “Crowdfunding Best Practices to Help Your School,” and handed out DonorsChoose gift cards to everyone who attended. Learn more about our work with NAESP.

‍ISTE Conference

‍In June, Sam took a trip down to Philadelphia to attend the ISTE conference with our Business Relations team, who manages our 22 integrated vendors. In partnership with Best Buy for Education, Amy, Director of Business Relations, led a presentation on classroom and educational technology.

‍NASSP Principals Conference

‍DonorsChoose founder Charles made another appearance in Boston at the July NASSP conference. Charles shared information about our org and the specific measures we have in place to support secondary schools principals. Learn more about our work with NASSP.

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EdVenture Summit

‍As we headed into the back-to-school season, Danielle visited Idaho to speak on the EdVenture Summit main stage, where she introduced our organization and shared the impact our community has had to date.

‍Coming Up

‍Over the next few months, folks from our team will be at the ASBO International Conference from 10/25–10/28 in National Harbor, Maryland on and at the Grants Professional Association Conference in Washington, D.C. on 11/7. We hope to see you there!

"DonorsChoose.org is starting a free program to help school leaders find resources and funding opportunities to address the needs of their teachers. The District Partnership Program is working with 10 school district to pilot the initiative. Each district gets access to a customized landing page on DonorsChoose.org where they can monitor materials donated and get early notifications on new philanthropic funding opportunities for their teachers."

Read the full report on thejournal.com

"AUSTIN (KXAN) — Overton Elementary school is $10,000 richer Monday morning. Teachers often reach into their own wallets to pay for classroom supplies. Charles Best, CEO of DonorsChoose.org and Chevron representatives want that trend to stop. Best and others gathered students, teachers and faculty inside the Overton gymnasium. Three boxes decorated with bows and #FuelYourSchool signs sat in front of everyone on a table."

Watch the full report on kxan.com