Educators Seek Support through Crowdfunding

Drawing or reading a book while pedaling seems awkward and dangerous for many people. However, the 5th-grade students at Granby Elementary School in Worthington, Ohio find it cool and relaxing. Tina Swearengin, a  fifth-grade teacher at Granby, came up with the idea to make pedaling a helpful learning activity.  She decided to raise money through crowdfunding on the website donorschoose.org. It took her 9 days to raise $1,588.40 from 23 online donors. She used the money to purchase 6 Stamina Wirk Ride Cycling Stations. There were a lot of encouragement and motivational messages that were sent towards this campaign, especially by former students and parents.

Sometimes it is difficult for teachers to implement projects they believe are helpful to their students, but are not included in the school’s budgetary allocations. That is the reason why crowdfunding has been used by several educators in seeking support from donors to purchase supplies. Websites such as AdoptAClassroom.org give teachers a chance to post projects and  ask donors for help.  Interested donors can search for projects by school name, city, teacher’s name, or category of project based on highest funding need.This idea of seeking financial assistance through crowdfunding has prompted many teachers to be creative in developing learning objectives  for their students. So far, numerous projects have  been funded in this manner.      

The success of Swearingen’s crowdfunding campaign inspired her colleague at Granby, Todd Korn.  He  created a campaign to purchase Kore Wobble Chairs for his 6th-grade language arts and math classes. Korn managed to raise $513 in 2 days.

Courtney Massey, President of Westerville Education Foundation, said that they established the foundation when they saw how most donors wanted tangible and specific projects in which to donate. After realizing that more ideas were being brought on board, the foundation decided to launch the Adopt-a-Classroom and Fund-a-Project websites. Five hundred dollars ($500) was raised through Fund-a-Project in October for Longfellow All-Day Kindergarten to paint their playground. Moreover, Adopt-a-Classroom raised $280 last year. That’s when the  foundation decided to boost the activeness of the program and in two weeks’ time, $2,560 had been raised for the Westerville classrooms.