DonorsChoose
Support a Classroom. Build a Future.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Teachers spend, on average, over $500 each year out-of-pocket on classroom supplies and basic needs for their students. We connect teachers who need supplies with donors who want to help.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Classroom Project Funding
DonorsChoose is the leading way to give to public schools. As the most trusted crowdfunding platform for teachers, donors, and district administrators alike, DonorsChoose vets each request, ships the funded resources directly to the classroom, and provides thank yous and reporting to donors and school leaders.
Where we work
Awards
Nonprofit Innovation Award 2005
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Amazon.com
The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies 2011
Fast Company
Members Project Winner 2010
American Express
Golden Halo Award 2011
Cause Marketing Forum
Directors Award 2011
Committee for Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy
External reviews

Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Evaluation documents
Download evaluation reportsNumber of overall donors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Classroom Project Funding
Type of Metric
Input - describing resources we use
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Measured for our fiscal year, which runs July 1 - June 30.
Number of clients served
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Classroom Project Funding
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Measured for our fiscal year, which runs July 1 - June 30. "Clients served" refers to teachers who had a classroom project fully funded on our site in each fiscal year.
Number of facilities improved
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Classroom Project Funding
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Measured for our fiscal year, which runs July 1 - June 30. "Facilities improved" refers to schools which had at least one teacher with a fully-funded classroom project on our site in each fiscal year.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
DonorsChoose engages the public in public schools by giving people a simple, accountable and personal way to address educational inequity. We envision a nation where children in every community have the tools and experiences needed for an excellent education.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
To achieve our goal, we:
- Recruit individual donors to support classroom projects, using web search tools, email marketing, social and traditional media outreach, and yearly "tentpole" outreach campaigns.
- Partner with corporations and foundations to fund projects on a large scale, match citizen donations, and raise awareness about DonorsChoose.org and education inequity.
- Collaborate with entrepreneurs and inventors to introduce teachers to novel classroom resources such as 3D printers, underwater robots, and coding lessons.
- Elevate teacher requests from Equity Focus Schools — schools where at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students come from low-income households — to address both socioeconomic and racial inequities in education.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The assets we deploy to implement our strategies include:
- Our website: All transactions with donors, teachers and partners take place through our website, www.donorschoose.org. Our goal is to make it easy for donors to find classroom projects to support.
- Our products: We've created tools that make it easy for partners and donors to engage with their communities.
- Our marketing plan: We use a mix of email marketing, digital marketing, personal outreach, and social media to raise awareness of our organization and engage donors and teachers.
- Our thank you packages and reporting: Once a project is funded, teachers share thank you notes, photos and reports with every donor who gave to their projects, describing how each donation has improved their classrooms.
- Our staff: Our team of 100+ full-time employees is organized in teams that focus on each of our capabilities, including Marketing & Partnerships, Product & Engineering, People Operations, Finance, and Operations.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Our total impact to date as of October 2021:
- $1.1 billion raised
- 2 million projects funded
- 85,000 schools participating
- 660,000 teachers with projects funded
- 5 million supporters
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
Who are the people you serve with your mission?
U.S. public school teachers
-
How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
-
What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
DonorsChoose
Board of directorsas of 02/02/2023
Ms. Theresia Gouw
Acrew Capital
Term: 2021 -
Peter Bloom
General Atlantic, LLC
Stephen Colbert
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Theresia Gouw
Aspect Ventures
Trabian Shorters
BMe
Jeff Weiner
Desirée Rogers
Johnson Publishing and former White House Social Secretary
Richard Lovett
Creative Artists Agency
Yvette Nicole Brown
Mitch Cohen
Retired, PwC
Amanda Calzada
Teacher
Maria Castañón Moats
PwC
Kristie Jones
Teacher
W. Kamau Bell
Comedian and Host, CNN's United Shades of America
Donna Ratchford
Teacher
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? No -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 10/28/2021GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We analyze disaggregated data and root causes of race disparities that impact the organization's programs, portfolios, and the populations served.
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We use a vetting process to identify vendors and partners that share our commitment to race equity.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.