In 1998, AdoptAClassroom.org was founded as one of the original crowdfunding platforms to bring equity in education to all students and classrooms. The award-winning, online nonprofit has been best known for helping individual teachers raise funds, through private donors and corporate sponsors, to purchase the classroom supplies they need without draining their personal budget. Today, with continued budget cuts in education, increased teacher spending on supplies, and stagnant teacher salaries, AdoptAClassroom.org wants to make a bigger impact on education.
AdoptAClassroom.org sees a great need for donations to be directed at the school level to cover the big ticket items such as technology, alternative classroom furniture, and other investments to support teaching innovations. While the organization will continue to serve individual teachers, they also want to be the go-to platform for school principals and administrators to access needed funds.
In early 2019, AdoptAClassroom.org will officially launch their new School Program. The program, which they have been testing over the past two years, will enable school principals who are authorized by their districts to use the platform to raise discretionary funds for their schools and to be eligible to receive funding from the nonprofit’s corporate sponsors. The registration process for schools will be very similar to the teachers’, which has been designed to be quick and easy to use for busy professionals.
More recently, three of New York City schools, P.S. 111, P.S. 34, and Renaissance School of Arts, MS 377, have benefited greatly from an early test of this new program. “We worked closely with AdoptAClassroom.org to find schools that would benefit most from this program. AdoptAClassroom.org was a trusted partner, committed to carefully considering where their funds would do the most good for our students,” says Mariano Guzmán, Senior Advisor, Office of the Chancellor, NYC Department of Education. “We thank AdoptAClassroom.org for their invaluable support of our schools and students.”