Read this article about DonorsChoose.org, one of our finalists, in the category Best Operational Excellence Project under 90 days, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

At DonorsChoose.org our mission is to make it easy for anyone to help a classroom in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education. Our model is straightforward:

• One ➞ Teachers create projects to request classroom materials.
• Two ➞ Citizen donors and/or corporate partners donate to projects.
• Three ➞ When funded, we purchase and ship materials to schools.
• Four➞ Donors get thank-you letters and classroom photos from teachers.

To ensure integrity and a seamless experience for our teachers and donors, our Operations team is there through every step of the process. We vet all project requests, ensure teacher eligibility, purchase all items, ship materials directly to verified schools, and track and review student thank-you letters before sending them to donors. On a “typical” day, we apply roughly $400k to nearly 700 classroom projects that our Operations team fulfills and supports.

On March 27, 2018, we applied nearly $26 million to all classroom projects bringing more than 35,000 classroom projects to life. To the 28,478 teachers who woke up to find their projects fully funded, March 28 is better known as Best School Day. This is the true story of how DonorsChoose.org came together to make this happen—all in less than 90 days—and the crucial role of our Operations team!

Project screening is typically done by teacher volunteers. In order to keep the funding a secret and complete the batch funding, we had to suspend volunteer access to screening prior to the event. So, during this black out for volunteers, full-time staff members screened 1,000+ projects in under 24 hours to ensure as many classrooms as possible would benefit from this funding. The week following Best School Day, volunteers screened 25k+ projects, which marked a 220% increase from the same time period the prior year.

Our 26 partner vendors in many ways feel like an extension of our staff, and our Business Relations team often keeps them informed about upcoming events that may cause inventory spikes. For this event, because supply chain management often requires second- and third-degree contacts, the risk was too high to give advance notice to all vendors. Our team worked closely with vendors days before the event, and for weeks following it, to monitor the availability of materials.

In preparation for placing orders for more than 35,000 projects, the Project Fulfillment team worked to clear all ordering queues. This team also worked with Finance to increase our credit limits by $13 million. This increase made it possible to order and ship materials for all of the fully-funded projects without delay. As a result of this team’s diligent planning, preparation, and re-prioritization, 87% of all projects funded on Best School Day (31,151 projects) were ordered and delivered within one week of the event.