Cents in Action: Windy City Rockstar
For this week’s 'Cents in Action' post, we wanted to take the opportunity to highlight an amazing teacher in Chicago, IL who has raised close to $500 for her classroom! Katie Friedl, a Kindergarten teacher at Fiske Elementary School, shares her experiences with crowdfunding on PledgeCents in the form of raw feedback below.
My name is Katie Friedl and I am a Kindergarten teacher in a Chicago Public School. I discovered PledgeCents while doing a google search to find a way to receive funds for much needed books for the upcoming school year. I was excited to find out that PledgeCents allows you to keep the funds that are raised - even if your project is not "fully funded" (that was the best part)! I put my first project up and asked for $200 for classroom books that would aid me in teaching the Common Core State Standards for writing. After the project was up for several weeks, I was sad to see that my project was only funded $37. I was still able to purchase books, and tried to stretch my money as far as it could go to get as many of the materials as I needed.
A few more weeks went by and the amazing people at PledgeCents started a Facebook sharing campaign. For each "share" of my project, I would receive $1 in funding. I thought - this is amazing, I can totally get my friends and family to share my project. So I posted the project on my Facebook wall, asking friends and family to do just that - SHARE (I did all this at 9pm... crossing my fingers before heading off to bed)! I was ecstatic to discover that in less than 24 hours my project was shared 105 times - receiving the available $100 plus a friend had donated additional money to my project as well! I was able to order all the books I needed to finish teaching my students writing (using mentor texts) for the remainder of the year. AMAZING!
So when I received an email a couple months later introducing another Facebook sharing campaign but this time if your project was shared 300 times you would receive $300, I was ALL IN! I decided that with a possibility of $300, I would purchase an iPad mini, case and protective screen for my new student. I had the amazing opportunity to have a 1:1 student to iPad ratio, however I received a new student into my classroom, and she didn't have her own, and was using the classroom computer, or had to share an iPad in order to be involved in the apps and websites we were constantly visiting. My project was posted, and friends and families again supported my efforts with simply sharing my project on their Facebook pages. It was as easy as that! A college friend I hadn't talked to in years donated to my campaign, and it was also shared 271 times - I had all the funds I had needed to fully fund my project. My students were incredibly excited to be able to see our newest student receive their very own iPad - just like them! Every student shared in the excitement and we couldn't have been happier!
I love the fact that PledgeCents engages my family and friends in a new way! My family and friends hear stories about my classroom constantly, and I'm sure want to help in some way, but giving money or supplies is sometimes not in their budget. With PledgeCents' Facebook campaign my friends and family are able to help my classroom out either financial (and they KNOW what I need for my class and feel like its a great cause to get behind) or just sharing my project on Facebook to widen the amount of people who see my campaign. Anytime I need something in my classroom, PledgeCents has definitely been a place I've turned to. They do an incredible job supporting a teacher through receiving as much funding as possible!
You can also support Katie's new cause to raise money for a 1 year Nearpod Subscription for $142 - click here (also has a Facebook Matching campaign).
*Katie was not compensated for this post.
