Getting Parents Involved

Hello All!


I listed in my previous post the various codes which parents, friends and family could use to double donations. Below is a letter I also have sent out before to parents to solicit donations. Copy and paste it into a word document and then add you Donors-Choose web address in the appropriate spot (this can be found when you log in on your account page). After that your ready to print! You would be surprised how many people may donate! Good Luck!

Dear Parents,

I am writing this letter in order to ask a huge favor from anyone who may be able to help!  I have recently written and submitted some grants through a website called DonorsChoose.org which helps to get teachers materials and equipment they need/want for their classrooms. 


At this time, I have some grants posted which are very close to being fulfilled; in fact one has only $95 left! If these grants are fulfilled, they will provide the students in our classroom several much needed  items such as a (_____________).    If we could receive these materials, I believe our students would be even more engaged than ever before, leading to greater learning and success! I am very excited about the possibility of receiving the items requested.

If you are able, and would like to help us get these materials into our classroom, please visit the following website to see my project(s) and add a donation.

You can donate as little or as much as you choose. Even a donation as small as $5 would be greatly appreciated! It would move us one step closer to having richer learning experiences in our room!

If you do choose to donate, please make sure to type in the matching code: CHASE, YELP or SAVINGS  when submitting your donation. With these codes, donations you make will be matched or doubled! This turns your $5 donation into $10, or a $50 dollar donation into $100!

Thank you in advance to all who will donate! I look forward to seeing our students getting access to tools they will LOVE to further their success at school!

Sincerely,

Donors Choose Match Codes to Double Donations

Hello all,


here are some match codes for Donors Choose which you can give out to your peeps to double donations!

CHASE ( up to $50)


YELP ( up to $100)


SAVINGS ( unsure of the limit)

Happy Grant Writing!!!!

Tech Specs for getting exactly what you want under $400

Greetings!

By now, many of you have written and had grants fulfilled or nearly fulfilled and I know there are many more who are interested. Some of the most coveted items are document cameras, projectors and laptops and of course interactive whiteboard systems.

For those of you who do not feel you are as tech saavy as you wish you were, or soon will be, I would like to offer a few tips for selecting items that will be exactly what you're looking for without exceeding that $400 budget sweet spot.

1. Laptops - If you're like me, a laptops is at the top of your list of needs for classroom connectivity. With the dusty old models we're working on, it's amazing email even circulates around the school! Keeping that $400 limit in mind, many of you will be looking to find the cheapest laptops possible to place on your grants - and this is good thinking - but make sure your know what it is you want from that laptop!

If it will mainly be for student use, then any size would be appropriate, but if you want to use it as a main part of a projection ensemble, I would suggest looking for one that is between 14 and 15.6 inch screens as this size of lap top will still include a DVD drive - something you may not think you would miss  - until it's unavailable! In addition, a lot of the materials you may receive requires installing software; this is more difficult without the disk drive. Bust Buy has a some decent 15.6 inch laptops on their site for about $300 - 400 dollars and would serve the daily needs of your class. Also, one of the better processors for an economy laptop would be the Intel Pentium for speed and reliability.

2. Projectors - of all the items I would avoid going cheap on, this is probably the one! Cheaper projectors will have lower levels of luminescence and shorter bulb life ( I have learned this the hard way ).    A good buy is either Vivetek or Epson. You can find some of these are 300 - 400 dollars. An excellent quality for the price. If your unsure which model to purchase, check out the Product Specs. Anything over a 2000 ANSI lumens ought to be good to go.

3. Document Cameras -  Be very CAREFUL when choosing these! There are a ton of different models at a broad range of prices - for a reason! The cheaper versions, for the most part, are cheaper because they requre hookup through a laptop USB rendering them useless unless you have a laptop to go along. However, if a laptop is not a problem laptop then order away!

One of the cheaper laptop required Document Cameras which is also filled with techno awesomeness is the AverMedia Avervision U10. At Best Buy it is just 190 bucks  - pretty awesome huh? 

If, however, you are looking for a Document Camera that is not reliant on a laptop, the Dukane Digital Document Camera 101  is just 339.00 through School Specialty, and has a nice flexible goose neck on it for easy adjustment. 

Now, the more expensive the camera is, the more likely it is to be stand alone - but READ carefully! If the specs. say the connectivity is USB, then it requires a laptop. VGA connectivity does not. 

4. SmartBoards and other Interactive Items -   Okay, as far as these go, you can find your traditional Smartboard, which we all know and love through Kaplan Early Learning now - the cheapest model coming in around $1200. However, if you are open to some alternatives, there are some other things available which will cost less and will most likely be funded quicker. Just last week I received my Mimio Interactive which was priced at just under $600 dollars through CDW. I have to say, my class is loving it! The Mimio is a small strip that attaches to your regular dry erase board or any other hard surface. Just press the calibration button and VIOLA! your board is now interactive! It is highly portable and easy to set up. The only superiority I see that SMART has over Mimio is the fact that you can activate SMART with touch and the Mimio requires using a stylus. I also discovered, as I suspected, if you have computers with the Smart software already installed, you CAN use SMART lessons on the Mimio as long as the Mimio tool bar is activated. Pretty cool huh? 

Okay so now that I have just let out of the bag how much of a techno dork I really am, I hope that everyone has found this little ditty useful and informative. 

For further questions and comments about materials you are writing grants for, feel free to email me!

To the Digital Nation of Wayne County and Beyond (both natives and immigrants alike) TaTa!

How to pitch your grant to big companies for funding

Hello all,

Just another quick tip I thought I would throw out there for those of you who are new to the Donorschoose grant writing.

When writing with a particular company's support in mind, make sure to CAREFULLY read what they are looking for in a project - particularly key words necessary. 

In Example:

Leap Frog has the following requirements for funding:

50% match offer for projects that request the LeapFrog Tag School Reading System. Projects should include LeapFrog Tag School readers, books, maps and accessories only. Materials should cost $350 or less.

Tag School readers can be found through the following vendors: Best Buy, CDW, Kaplan Early Learning Company, Nasco, Quill, School Specialty, and Teachers' School Supply. Be sure to include the phrase "LeapFrog Tag readers" to qualify. 

This last line may be seemingly unimportant to some but may be the making or breaking of your funding opportunity.  If a donor has a specific instruction such as this, FOLLOW IT TO THE LETTER.

In other words, Tag reader, Leap frog, or leap Frog reading system will not suffice. The words you list in your project must be exactly as the donor has requested. Many companies search for projects by a string of key words/phrases they have listed. If your phrasing does not match their search, then you have missed the boat. 

I am only mentioning this because I have seen leap frog funding a plethora of grants; however, the ones which have not had funding applied to them, I noticed have imprecise wording of the phrase above or have requested other items in addition to Tag materials, making them ineligible for this funding opportunity.

Here again is the link for current companies funding grants:

http://help.donorschoose.org/app/fundingopportunities#northcarolina

Read carefully and Good luck to all! 

Don't give up - this is after all a learning process!

latest new year tips....

Hello all,

hope everyone had a very restful holiday season! As we are about to get back to school, I am once again encouraging teachers, who have particular technology and material wants/needs to go ahead and write a grant for www.donorschoose.org

At our school alone over 50 grants have been fulfilled through this website and I personally had 5 fulfilled during the month of December alone!

 The result? A laptop, document camera, INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD ( yes I FINALLY got one!!!!) multiple books and lessons on character ed and bullying, various science and energy experiments, equipment and materials, floor cushions, stress balls, Microsoft office license and more!

IN addition another teacher from our school used a few of the tips I gave in previous emails and had 2 grants fulfilled in less than 2 weeks! She is receiving 2 laptops, a digital camera, weather station and more!

Sound too good to be true? Its NOT! Again, don't worry about your writing skills - you are a teacher after all! Follow some of the pointers I gave you and you could be on your way to having many of the items you may have only wished for before. Also if you are one that learns better by seeing a model, feel free to look at some of my completed grants at the following site http://www.donorschoose.org/harbisonshomeroom  This will give you an idea of just how easy this is!

So here is my latest tip:

1.     Regularly check the following website to see what donors are out there to fulfill large portions of your grant - http://help.donorschoose.org/app/fundingopportunities#northcarolina

2.     Post grants near to PATRIOTIC holidays, CHRISTMAS and definitely NEW YEARS. 3 of my grants were fulled on the 31st of December as an end of year non-profit donation and an couple of my grants recieved donations for Christmas.

3.     For what its worth the MOST RELIABLE funder of grants I have seen so far is TOWNSEND PRESS. If your projects relates to combating bullying they will fulfill most, if not all of the grant for you. They have funded two of my grants and multiple others in our school and county.

Here is a new company that is currently helping to get technology into classrooms:

Double Your Impact From Leapfrog

How it works

50% match offer for projects that request the LeapFrog Tag School Reading System. Projects should include LeapFrog Tag School readers, books, maps and accessoriesonly. Materials should cost $350 or less.

Tag School readers can be found through the following vendors: Best Buy, CDW, Kaplan Early Learning Company, Nasco, Quill, School Specialty, and Teachers' School Supply. Be sure to include the phrase "LeapFrog Tag readers" to qualify. 

May you new year be filled with lots of great new equipment and materials from Donors Choose,

Response sent to Middle School Math teacher for ideas.

Hey !

Glad you found the email helpful. I would encourage you to begin your grant as soon as possible. Probably the most reliable funder is Townsend Press - their focus is on  Bully Prevention. You could easily tie this into math by having your students do a survey on Bullying in schools and create a multimedia presentation to "show" on the Promethean Board. One problem is I think Townsend may mainly fund grant that are under $400.

 2 other large funders I have gotten my grants fulfilled through are Progress Energy and UPS.  UPS picked up my grant for a Promethean Board and it is halfway funded right now. If you focus on an energy study of some kind they will usually pick up your grant. An example might be calculating how much energy the average classroom is using - this may be intense but it would be a great project based learning experience. With it being algebra you are teaching you could look variables changing in relationship to one another - for example, florescent light use vs traditional light bulbs. They could contact the energy company or research on line these rates and how much money/energy is saved per classroom/per school/ per county by switching bulbs. Just some ideas - project based learning  is a passion of mine. Whatever you choose to do, make sure to be very specific about how each item you ask for will relate to the topic of energy. Also include energy, electricity etc. somewhere in your title

  Below is copy of a grant I posted and had fulfilled. I also included a link to the one the girl from my school wrote for the Promethean board. You can take a look at how I specifically listed what I was going to do with the items. Make sure to include in these grants, along with the Promethean Board, some science related materials like solar kit or windmill generator ( something cheap) this will help get it fulfilled. Also like I said before, in your demographics include the fact that you have military students. All these things should aid in getting your grant fulfilled. Good luck and feel free to call me sometime if you want to chat about it. 

PS ( Feel free to copy any info from mine that you would like into yours)

MY GRANT

My Students: Waste! We see it everywhere - even in the classroom! After studying global warming, my students have become quite concerned with continuity and conservation. As a result, we have decided to explore ways in which our school could be come more efficient in its use of energy and other resources.

The school at which I teach is a Title 1 school in a rural area. In addition, I have a very diverse classroom. The school is located near an AF Base and so my class is made up of a mixture of local and military students. Over 25% of my students have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. I also have a population of about 15% which are ESL students, 30% Special Education, as well as the majority of them receiving a free or reduced lunch.

My students are an energetic and motivated group, but many of them lack the background knowledge necessary to be as successful as they can be. Science can often be a very abstract subject with its own set of unique vocabulary. Often times I find my students struggle to understand many concepts I am teaching without some hands-on experience As a result, many of the lessons I teach and materials I use need to be very hands on. Abstract concepts and reading passages just don't hit the mark. Especially when investigating science!

My Project: 

With the solar energy kits I will be able to extend to my students more depth in the concepts of electricity and how it is created, stored, distributed etc. Students will be able to see that there may be other better or alternative methods of obtaining energy while conserving the resources we currently have.

With the laptop and spreadsheet software, students will be able to chart data we gather about school energy usage and use the data to come up with solutions for better energy use. 

This study will allow my students to engage in hands on, problem and project based learning. This will prepare them with the some of the technology and social skills necessary for their life in the 21st Century.

This project is important on so many levels but I will try to express the reasons I think it is most important.

1. It makes my students aware of the need for conserving energy and other resources in our school, while showing them how to accomplish it.

2. It increases problem solving skills with math and technology.

3. It empowers students to make a difference in their school, community and world.

4. It increases global awareness and social conscientiousnesshide»

My students need a solar energy kit, a laptop, and a Microsoft Office license.

Promethian Board Winner Grant

click link below to view

http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=671240&verify=1655863490&challengeid=114763

more tips

Dear Friends,

We are just a few days away from our Christmas break and I know all everyone can think about is just getting the next few days behind us, but, once again I just wanted to send out a little encouragement, that if, during your break, you find your mind wandering, consider trying your hand at writing a grant for WWW.DONORSCHOOSE.ORG   

 Just this week I had 2 grants fulfilled through this website for technology and learning materials in my classroom. I also have 2 more posted which are both at under $100 to fund. All four of these grants have been up LESS THAN an MONTH. I would like to resubmit to you some of the previous tips I gave before as well as some new ones:

New Tips

·  Place the key word "military" somewhere in your description of your students. As Wayne county does serve SJAFB I think this would be a good demographic to include in student descriptions. Goldman Sachs is currently teamed withwww.donorschoose.org  to fulfill all but $95 dollars of grants with this key word. They started on Veterans Day and are still currently applying funds to grant with this buzz word. At our school one teacher alone had this word in her proposal and now she has a Promethean board waiting to in her classroom to be mounted. This should definitely be motivation to give it a try!

·  Keep most of your proposals under $400 dollars for materials ( 1pt projects) - These tend to get funded faster.