How to Celebrate Back to School Month at Your Company [Free Downloadable Kit]

Pencils, notebooks, pens, and notecards – amongst several other supplies – are on the lengthy laundry list to prepare for August, Back to School Month. Approaching August, parents, students, and teachers experience a hectic rush of ensuring children’s success in learning, safety, and healthy habits at school. 

Why your company should celebrate Back to School Month

On top of the frenzy, preparing children to return to school can be stressful, especially for the thousands of schools serving low-income families. 

That’s why several nonprofits and partnered companies have jumped on the front lines to relieve the stress from parents, teachers, and schools by providing children with the various supplies, technologies, and support systems needed to ensure students’ shining futures. 

As Carl Sagan once said, “the visions we offer our children shape the future.” Luckily for you, we have 4 major ways your company can set children globally up for a successful school year through back-to-school workplace philanthropy initiatives that engage employees and your local community.

How your company can celebrate Back to School Month with workplace philanthropy

The following initiatives were curated by our team of social impact experts that execute thoughtful workplace philanthropy efforts for our customers every day. Some of these initiatives are easy enough to accomplish internally, but for others, you will need to lean on a social impact program or team. 

Don’t have a social impact program or team? Learn more about Percent Pledge powered customized social impact programs, a single source for donations, volunteering, charity vetting, & impact reports.

[1] Drives

The needed school supply list seems to grow bigger and bigger each year. Help stock classrooms to kick off a great start of the year for teachers and students.  

Supplies drive – fill backpacks with supplies and food for the weekends with Blessings in a Backpack. Or partner with Daymaker, where employees buy supplies for specific children. 

Classroom needs – team up with Donors Choose to provide teachers’ requested funding for needs to ensure they can bring their curriculum to life. 

Book drive – collect books (early and advanced) to donate to a local school, orphanage, or local library through a local organization or global ones, like  Bookwallah, Pangea Education, or Books for Africa.

[2] Sponsorships

Encourage employees, internal teams, or your whole company to sponsor a class, grade, school, playground, field trip, school garden, arts education or STEM program, Teacher Appreciation week breakfast or lunch, or any other unmet need. Partner with a local school district’s foundation or a local nonprofit partner to understand the needs in your community. 

[3] Volunteering

Give your time to help students thrive. 

Homework help lines – partner with a local public library to provide on-call help with students’ homework.

Read to students – Improve student’s literacy by reading to students, in-person or record yourself reading a book through a local affiliate of Community in Schools. 

Financial literacy education – partner with the Junior Achievement to help children K-12 learn financial literacy from a young age.

[4] Donations

A lot of education nonprofits and local school districts rely on donations to continue and improve their services. 

Gifting & matching donations – gift and/or match all employee donations to nonprofits helping the cause.

Corporate donations – donate to a nonprofit or a local school district’s affiliated foundation to support a particular district. 

Each of these types of donations can be easily made through the Percent Pledge Workplace Giving Platform.

Find a breakdown of each of these efforts and more for your company to make a positive impact this coming August by downloading our Back to School Kit. Again, if you need help pursuing these initiatives, learn more about Percent Pledge’s proven social impact program and team of experts, or ask us questions at contact@percentpledge.org.