Learning to Love Grant Writing: An Introduction to DonorsChoose and

a Few Other Funding Opportunities By Amy Rodriguez

Donors Choose Anonymous

What is it? (A brief overview)

• DonorsChoose is a crowd-funding site for educators’ projects• You write the grant, others fund it with your help• DonorsChoose receives an optional 15% to offset costs

• Donors can change this option when on the payment page. (Ex: Donate $20.00 to your own project and choose 0% to have $20.00 come off of your project. If not DC will take an automatic 15% from your donation.)

• You accept funding within 7 days then receive your materials• Complete your Thank You package

• Student pictures, Impact letter and donor thank you letters from students {5} ($50 or more given by 1 donor)

Getting Started• Visit DonorsChoose at http://www.donorschoose.org

• Click on: I’m a teacher

• Click on Get Started

• Click on: Setup a teacher account

• You will need to enter your contact and school-specific information.

Funding opportunities• Use the match code you get in your email for the first 7 days of

your project. Usually INSPIRE or 100WOMEN they will match any donation. • Refer to http://help.donorschoose.org/app/fundingopportunities for

funding partners (updated at the end of the month). These are offers that will cut the coat of a project in half. But they can disappear fast.• Almost Home (is Awesome): sponsor covers all but $96-$98 of your

current project total. (written as AH in postings) 3D printer• Selective funding: sponsor funds 50% or more of the total project.

Elsa and David Burle

Funding opportunities• Pay attention to project limits regarding project total or materials

total. • Offers can be taken away at any time. • For some larger matches, you may have the match, then the next day it is

gone or vice versa. Work to get these matched projects funded as quick as possible. This happens because the people giving the money reach their limit of donation so you will lose the match. Ex: lakeshore learning STEM (Sci, Tech, Engineering, Math) they will cover half of a project but will not give you the ½ right away you must fund the rest they wil give you the ½. $500 you need $250 to fund and then Lakeshore will give you their $250

Points

• Begin with three points• Projects cost you between 1 and 6 points each.• Earn points after your project is completed• If your project doesn’t fund or you pull it, you get the points

back

Helpful hints when creating a project

• Keep project costs under $500• Break up a large project into smaller projects when possible

• Click “Save Draft” every once in awhile to prevent possible loss when creating your project

Current Vendors

Requirements of posting a project• Immediate thank you to the donors after project

funds• Thank you package requires (upon arrival and use of

materials): • Letter of impact• Photos (6) – parent permission slips, can post

photos without permission and no faces• Student thank you letters (5) per donor who request

it (occasionally this is not required; recently, I had one project with 3 sets of student letters)

My previous projects

My previous projects