www.DonorsChoose.org

  The first thing that any Cheaper Teacher should do is run on over and get herself an account at www.DonorsChoose.org.  I'm assuming that most of you know about Donors Choose, but I figure it was a good choice for a first post, just in case you guys have been living under a rock for your entire teaching careers (or maybe you're a brand new teacher, in which  case you get a pass).

I'm teasing, of course.  Actually, I've known about Donors Choose since before I began teaching, but I was convinced that it would take a ton of work to create proposals and g

et funding, so I ignored the site until this past July (yes - just last month!).  I already have a project fully funded and another that is more than halfway there, and two new ones I just created that I am equally confident in.  Donors Choose is easy, fun and, of course, FREE!

Here's how to use it:

(1)  Head on over to www.donorschoose.org

(2)  Submit your school and a brief profile to sign up.

(3)  You get 3 points to start "spending" by requesting materials.  1 point gets you roughly $400 of materials.  You can use between 1 and 6 points on different projects.

(4)  Write a brief essay (guided by questions to keep you on the right track) about what you want and "shop" at the e-school mall for the materials you want.  Not everything you want might be available, but a lot of awesome things are.

(5)  Optional:  email your friends and send facebook messages to sucker your peeps into throwing you a few bucks (I did this but only to a few family members and it only got me $30 of all the money I've gotten so far).

(6)  Wait for your project to be funded!  

(7)  Once your project is funded, send a few thank you notes from you, a few from your students and some digital photos of your students using the stuff they were given.  Doing everything on time can earn you up to SIX points to spend on the site, exponentially increasing what you can ask for!

Aaaannnddd... that's it!  Like I said, I've already had one project funded (took about 2 weeks!) and another is more than half-way funded.  Depending on where/what you teach or what you request, you can also qualify for matching gifts from companies (the site finds them for you - no extra work), which means your project could be funded twice as quickly.

Seriously, folks... I was an idiot to not join up on this site sooner.  Get over to www.donorschoose.org now.  And while you're at it, consider paying it forward and throwing another teacher a few bucks!