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Same Mission, New Look: Behind the Scenes of our Design Refresh

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.

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

Outlined tapestry of classroom inspired icons

colored tapestry of classroom inspired icons

We no longer represent DonorsChoose with just one icon – the chair.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.

2D characters that represent teachers, one is using a laptop and one is sitting on a chair reading

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

three social media sample posts that include teacher messages and school related icons

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

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Fund $1.2M Worth of Teacher Resource Requests

The couple's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is fulfilling all existing requests on the crowdfunding platform DonorsChoose

DonorsChoose is Collaborating with School Districts through the New District Partnership Program

We're partnering with districts who want to get even more out of our non-profit crowdfunding platform.

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

Yvette Nicole Brown standing with three others in a classroom

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.

Conference Round Up: Where You Might Have Seen the DonorsChoose Team, and Where We’ll Be Coming Up

The latest on where we're speaking.

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!