DonorsChoose CEO Charles Best On Where Teachers Need Support Right Now

Welcome to the future of education. I'm excited to have our guest today, Charles Best, the CEO of DonorsChoose, which many people know. But I just want to say some statistics for folks out there who are tuning in just to quantify the impact that donors choose has had on the lives of teachers and students. And Charles, you can correct me if these numbers are wrong, but I think it's over a billion dollars raised since the founding, over a million projects, almost 2 million project actually funded. And I think maybe the most interesting stat actually is not the dollar figure, but roughly 85,000 schools I think have participated and benefited from what you all have stood up. Which just to put that in Context, there's roughly 100,000 schools nationwide in the United States. So you've Basically, you know, 85,000 schools is a significant number of places that have benefited from the platform that you've created. So it's a big deal. Thrilled you're here to talk about what you're learning in these times. And it's great. So much. Thanks so much for being here.

Oh, Michael, thanks for having me. Really excited for the conversation.

Yeah. So let's dive right in. You know, I think people have a sense of what donors choose is and how it works. I think the big question that I'm curious about and eager to learn from is what are you seeing as the areas of biggest need right now during these times from educators? What are they? What sorts of projects are they posting? Where are they seeking funding right now?

Yes. Well, the moment the pandemic hit, we anticipated that teachers would have different new needs for their students, new needs for themselves as educators. Reaching those students that donors choose might need to pivot in some important respects to be able to serve classroom needs, student and teacher needs, in a pandemic context. That started with our needing to figure out a way to ship materials to an address that might be different from the school. For 20 years, our whole model has been hard coded to only send materials to a verified school address. And we appreciated we needed to let teachers have funded materials sent to a student's home, a teacher's home, a district receiving center. So we built that capability pretty quickly. In turn, we needed to build a new teacher verification system to confirm even farther upstream that a teacher is who they say they are and that they're an educator in good standing at the district they list. If we're going to give them this new ability to have materials shipped to an address which is not the school, in any case, that was kind of the infrastructure foundation for our Then seeing what are the new needs that teachers have. And you wouldn't be surprised to hear that teachers are requesting all manner of instructional technology, both for their students to have at home, to be able to participate in remote and hybrid learning, and for teachers to be able to reach their students. Here's what might be less intuitive. Districts have, many, many districts have done a pretty good job at delivering the core device of a Chromebook or an iPad, or the fundamental piece of hardware that lets you access the Internet and see your teacher. And I think especially the wireline cable companies have been pretty good at extending major discounts to low income families to be able to get online. Here's one thing that's left out of that equation. Students who are in households with a lot of members, with a lot of people who need a listening device and, or a set of headphones to be able to make productive use of that Chromebook and that Internet connection. Because if you're in a cozy household and there's a lot of stuff going on around you, headphones are non optional. And districts understandably didn't think about that auxiliary and yet absolutely imperative piece of equipment. And so we're seeing vast, vast numbers of teachers using donors choose to request headphones and listening devices. We're seeing all sorts of teachers, especially in the younger grades, who are seeking physical materials that they need their students to have at home. Because, you know, if you're a pre K, first grade, second grade teacher, zoom is an important ingredient. But it can hardly be the same.

It can't be the whole experience. Yeah, exactly.

And if you're working with students in low income communities, you cannot make any presumptions about what materials they have in their home. That in turn severely constrains your ability to give out assignments. If you can't assume that a kid has a set of art supplies or paper and pencils or a particular set of books. And so many, many teachers have been coming to our site to request those materials, even to request ppe, including hand sanitizer. And hopefully that gives you a flavor.

Yeah, no, it's fascinating. So let's actually step back before the pandemic because I hadn't even thought about all that logistical work that you all would have to do of basically. I mean, you multiply the number of addresses you're shipping to, I suspect by like 30 per teacher or something like that, maybe in high schools by a factor of 100 or 150. I imagine in some cases that's a significant change on top of the fact that it's now all those teachers in schools. So that's at least, you know, probably 30 to 100 fold in a high school. Right. So that's a deep logistical challenge. Before the pandemic hit, what were the areas of biggest interest from teachers in their classrooms? Just to give us a sense of the contrast, frankly.

Yeah, I think books and laptops, Chromebooks would have been the most frequently requested items.

And so still technology.

Still technology, but a different set of technology than what we're seeing requested now. Similarly, the books teachers were requesting were overwhelmingly for use in the classroom. And now we're seeing teachers requesting books that may actually be higher engagement, more fun, more fictional than what they requested pre pandemic because they're now as much thinking about helping their kids to build small home libraries that that can help them learn to love to read.

Makes a ton of sense. I'm curious then. So in this shift and the earphone or the headphone example that you gave is a really good one for two reasons. Frankly, it's really important. But two, headphones break a lot, especially with young kids. So I suspect that there's replenishment demands coming in and the like. But there's another part of your website that I thought was super interesting in terms of the categories that you're supporting, which is this warmth, care and hunger category. Can you talk a little bit about the sorts of projects that maybe are non instructional in nature but are really critical for educators to support their students right now?

Yeah, I really appreciate you asking about that category. It's a category that we saw emerging organically starting years ago where teachers would go to donors choose and rather than seek classroom resources or kind of traditional physical resources, they would be requesting jackets for kids who are coming to school, cold, nutritious snacks that they could discreetly slip into a student's backpack when they were going home for on before the weekend. Even teachers using our site to request prescription eyeglasses and hygiene items. And we thought of these projects as kind of life essential projects and decided we needed to recognize this category with a proper name. Warmth, care and food. And yeah, we're seeing even more of these projects now during the pandemic when teachers see that many districts have been good about creating grab and go free lunch programs, maintaining the free breakfast and lunch that they were offering before. But as with so many things that that still leaves gaps and cracks and teachers will create these warmth, care and hunger projects on donors choose to address those gaps.

It's interesting hearing you describe that because I think districts have been criticized so much in some of their responses. But I think where they've been strong is what you just said in really the food security and some of those logistical challenges of serving families basic needs before you can even consider learning. Because the pandemic and the resulting recession has been so severe for low income and minority populations in particular. And so then it's interesting to think about, I guess, the instructional side back to that house where maybe there's been more short shrift of resources from districts and more challenges. But I guess I'm curious a different question, which is teachers, some of them are teaching in person with students, and there's probably different demands there from those teachers who are virtual working with students. Have you seen any of those splits? Are you able to quantify or notice any trends about how those populations of teachers are differing from each other or even how their own needs have evolved over time?

Couple trends we see. One is that those teachers that are who are in person, whether hybrid or completely in person, are not surprisingly requesting ppe, including hand sanitizer. But then we're seeing a new phenomenon which is teachers who see that each of their students needs their own proper set of something. So pre pandemic, a teacher could have a common set of art supplies that all students were handling and touching and grabbing from the same bucket. And now it can be a matter of serious health risk or safety that each student have their own set of the materials that are part of a student activity or project. And so of course, we see in class, in person teachers coming to our site to provide that kind of guarantee of each student being able to access the materials without creating a health risk that comes with common use materials.

Makes sense. And I guess I'm curious that as you think about the virtual teachers, then back to that piece, and you mentioned the need for physical manipulatives, particularly for the younger students. You can't base everything in Zoom classroom. Where is the appetite of funders right now as they meet donors choose right? Like, do they understand these needs and are they more inclined to support certain projects than others? And I just pick on that one example because I can imagine someone saying, like, oh, the biggest need is technology. I want to make sure I give to technology. Or are donors really listening to what teachers are saying on the platform and making sure to support those projects of highest need?

Well, there are two major types of donors on our site, big donors and small donors. Big donors come in the form of corporate partners, major foundations and major philanthropists. And on that front, we have a few corporate partners who are struggling in this recession and who may be funding fewer projects on donorschoose. Thankfully, though, just last night we got word of a major grant that will match donations to pre K through second grade teachers who are seeking the books and bundles that they want each of their students to have at home so they can give assignments to those young kids who cannot spend the whole day on zoom knowing that their kids have the supplies to do a particular art project or to read a particular book or to be able to learn geometry with a particular math manipulative. So. So that's exciting on the major giving front and then on the small donor front, which actually constitutes the majority of the dollars given to classroom projects on our site, people giving 10 and $20 at a time to project requests that they hand pick, we would have braced for a major drop in small donor giving given the recession.

Yeah, I would think.

Yeah, that's right. Given the presidential election that is consuming appropriately so much attention. And in fact, small donor giving has proven remarkably resilient so far. We don't want to jinx it. Who knows what the next several months have in store. But small donors have been giving at just about the same level this year as compared to last year pre pandemic.

That's incredible. Are you seeing the number of projects on the site spike and interest from teachers? I guess that's the other piece of this, right, that teachers are just saying need anything I got donors choose is sort of synonymous with the support a teacher. In our language. It feels a critical job to be done. And so you've become a purpose brand in essence, right, for that job. Do you see teacher use going up on the site right now?

There are 50,000 project requests live in need of funding, and projects have a discrete span of time to be up on our site. So all those projects are very fresh, very current, very urgent needs. In honesty, teachers are in such a state of uncertainty and anxiety right now, so many aren't sure where they'll be teaching one month from now, whether it will be a hybrid environment or the school they know or some other place or at home remotely. So many teachers are worried about their own health as many teachers are worried about their family's economic livelihood in the midst of this recession. And that has meant that a whole lot of teachers aren't able to create a project request on DonorsChoose, even though the needs that they have are more urgent than ever. But again, 50,000 project requests live on our site right now. We've got our work cut out for ourselves, inspiring and mobilizing donors large and small to fulfill those projects. Not least because donors choose is overwhelmingly used by teachers working in low income communities. Because we've built this community of donors who like to support teachers and students whom they've never met. Which in turn makes donors choose the one place where a teacher in a low income community can bring a classroom dream to life, even if they do not have Facebook friends with disposable income, even if they do not have students, parents with disposable income.

And in that way, you really are targeting the resources to those who need it the most, which is a distinguishing feature I think of, again, you know, the service that you all provide in the education field. I'm curious, you know, you've started to give us some sense of the trends and how it's changed from the spring to the fall. Peer around the corner a little bit. I imagine like new things are starting to pop up on the site, new types of projects. Where are we not noticing a trend in the public dialogue of need that we ought to be starting to talk about? What should we start to focus on or maybe peer around the corner about what's going to become a major issue down the road?

I think two categories that we're going to see grow even further on donors choose. One is professional development projects, which is a category that we created with help from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation just a few years ago so that a teacher could seek resources not just for their students to consume, but resources that would help them become even more effective educators. And so many teachers are saying, I've not ever been in this environment before where I need to reach students remotely and where I need to help students navigate public health issues. I need some training in this, in this arena. And I think some of the training is catching up. And we're going to see even more professional development project requests on our site. And another category is mental health, where we're seeing even more teachers create projects on our site for resources focused on that area. And we anticipate that area growing for all the reasons you'd imagine.

Yeah. And on the mental health piece, do you see that being focused on the teacher's mental health or their students or some mix thereof? Where's the acute need right now?

Probably the reality is probably a mix. The projects being created on DonorsChoose are teachers focused on their students mental health. We did a partnership with the Born this Way foundation, which Lady Gaga did so much to create. And that's just one example of the work we're doing to support teachers who Want to help ensure their students mental health.

Yeah, it's an interesting topic because I think it's one that's gotten mentioned. But the mental health crisis could get a lot worse, particularly if we go into winter. If there's further flare ups of COVID more sheltering in place, lack of sunlight, lack of outdoors, I could imagine that there's the makings of an even worse crisis around mental health that would get a lot worse. And it's not been the primary, I would say news driver of education at the moment. Does that resonate or are there other.

I think you said it actually exactly right.

Gotcha. Yeah. So let's go back to the professional development piece then for a moment because I think that's an interesting one before we wrap up, which is, you know, a guest on the show a few weeks ago from Age of Learning, ABC mouse head of curriculum there, he said, you know, imagine a teacher, they're sort of like a chef, right? They're in their element. They know where all their tools are in the classroom, they know where to pull things, all the tricks of the trade. And they might actually do some very innovative learning designs, blended learning and the like, but with technology in their classroom. Now you throw them into Zoom with a technology, you know, first classroom, if you will, and they almost retreat from some of those practices because it's so uncertain, it's so different. And I think it's a really good point. Right. I just like how radical a shift this is. And then the professional development need to think about how do I incorporate cutting edge technology tools, how do I incorporate curriculum when I can't necessarily see my student? I know I don't want them on Zoom all the time, but how do I orchestrate that? Is that the sort of professional development that you're seeing a lot of interest in? And are there different flavors or areas where teachers are saying, like, gosh, I really need training on this so that I can meet my students needs?

Yes, that is the area, the primary area that teach where teachers are seeking professional development. How do I reach my students, engage my students, give my students a holistic, humanistic education, not a rote digital only education. That's a core area where teachers are raising their hands saying, I would like some professional development, I'd like some tips, I'd like some training. Another area is teachers who want to be as thoughtful and empathetic as possible as educators navigating the country's reckoning with racial injustice. And as just one example, we have a major match offer with the equal justice Initiative for teachers who are seeking racial justice books and materials for their students. And that's, I think, come along with a growing number of teachers who want professional development training in equity, especially racial equity.

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense right now. I mean, that's the other piece that we've noted a lot is that this moment hasn't just been a pandemic and a recession. It's been a pandemic, a very odd recession. And then this conversation around race and equity and sort of a racial reckoning in it and a big set of questions about how does education play into that. I'd love, as we sort of wrap up this conversation for you to give us what is inspiring you the most these days. I'm assuming from the projects you're seeing on DonorsChoose but. And stories that you get privy to, but it can be larger than that as well. What's inspiring you to say out of this? Maybe we can come out stronger as an education system, as a society. Whatever speaks to you right now?

Well, here's what inspires us every day, even before the pandemic, and that is the passion, the ingenuity, the dedication of the teachers who create projects on our site, who are so frustrated with the status quo, who so yearn for their students to have the materials and experiences they need for a great education, that they're ready to spend a half hour, hour outside of their working hours telling the world about a set of materials that their students really need or that they need to bring the subject matter to life. We see that now more than ever. I'll give you an example. We talked at the beginning about donors choose creating flexible shipping so that teachers could have funded materials sent to the address that makes the most sen. During the pandemic. We presumed that teachers would overwhelmingly make use of this feature to have materials shipped directly to a student's home. Because that's, that's just what makes sense. The vast majority of teachers are having materials shipped to their homes because they opt to personally deliver all of the materials to their students homes themselves because it is an excuse to see their students in the flesh, even though they're doing it in a socially distanced way. It's an opportunity for them to see their students, to say hi, to greet their students families, to have that sense of connection. We had one tweet from a teacher in rural Alabama who shared that she had driven 300 miles through 17 different zip codes as part of personally delivering all of the materials that she had gotten funded through DonorsChoose to each of her students. And that was entirely by choice. And for us, that just underscores how inspiring and humbling this kind of teacher ingenuity is that we get to channel through our platform. Wow.

That's a great story to leave it on. Charles. Appreciate it. And while I hope we were in a system that teachers didn't have to do those superhero heroic efforts, inspiring that they're able to, and just thankful that you all are helping empower them to be able to do that. Thanks so much for joining us.

Michael. Thank you for the conversation.

Then we'll be back next time.