Donor's Choose Walkthrough

This school year has been a new adventure in my career.  New school, new grade, new programs- eek!  I went on a massive supply hunt over the summer to get myself and my classroom ready.  I explored Craigslist, Savers and other thrift stores, Freecycle (if you don't know what that is get on Google now!), and a few donation sites (Adopt-A-Classroom and Donors Choose). 

I put a project up on Donors Choose to help get leveled readers for Daily 5.  Here's what I learned from the experience:

You start of with a certain number of points.  Projects cost different amounts depending on the type of project you are submitting (supplies, author visit, trip).  If you are putting up a supply project, the point cost depends on where you are getting the supplies, more points for using a vendor not in the "mall." 

Once submitted, Donor's Choose will approve (or not) your project.  It will not post instantly.

If this is your first project you will get a special code for friends and family to get donations doubled up to $50.  Unfortunately, you can not donate to your own project.    The code is only good for about a week so post it everywhere!

It is important that you quickly post on your project wall thanking each donor.  This is used to determine how many points you earn toward your next project.

Any donations over $50 will require a personal thank you card from your class.

When your project is funded Donor's Choose will send the items to your school.  These items technically belong to your school now.  There is a notice on the DC website explaining this policy.

You will be required to upload 6 photos of your students using the materials.  There is a release form on the DC website.  My recommendation is to get these release forms out to parents while you are still waiting for funding. The form says something about the teacher either having a funded project or working on a project, so it shouldn't confuse the parents if you start early (although, we all know that this will happen anyway). 

Using Donor's Choose was fairly easy to do.  I was able to get a few sets of books for my Just Right Daily 5 baskets.  The part that I didn't like was how much DC added on for their costs.  However, considering that there were a few donations from strangers it balanced out.

Here's the link to my project (it was funded in about a week!):
http://www.donorschoose.org/project/building-a-classroom-library-to-build-a/874092/

Good luck!