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Supporting Schools Back Home

A school or community back home supported properly: a needs assessment with the principal, clean money handling, supply drives and shipments with duty relief, scholarships, and honest reports back to donors.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Supporting Schools Back Home, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

193

Starter tasks

🌴 Caribbean Life & Diaspora

Supporting Schools Back Home

Supporting a school or community back home: needs assessments, book and supply drives, scholarships, shipping donations and reporting back to donors.

  1. Choosing the school or community you will support
  2. First conversation with the principal
  3. School needs assessment with staff and parents
  4. Named receiver and sign-off at the school
  5. Checking the education ministry's rules on donations
  6. Deciding how to organise your support
  7. Donations bank account with two signatories
  8. Donor and pledge register
  9. One-year support plan agreed with the school
  10. Letter of agreement with the school
  11. Monthly call with the school contact
  12. Monthly donations bookkeeping
  13. Quarterly donor update
  14. Proof of delivery and receipts file
  15. Regular giving through standing orders
  16. Back-to-school supply cycle
  17. Annual report to donors and the school
  18. Group roles and handover file
  19. Collection point and storage for donated goods
  20. How the school system back home works
  21. Customs duty concessions for donated goods
  22. Reading the school's budget and running costs
  23. Writing an appeal people respond to
  24. Photos of children and safeguarding rules
  25. Small grants for school projects
  26. Choosing books children will read
  27. Cash, local purchase or shipping goods
  28. Choosing a shipper for donation consignments
  29. Account with a supplier near the school
  30. Laptops and tablets for the school
  31. Library corner or reading room set-up
  32. Breakfast or lunch programme support
  33. Building repair with staged payments
  34. Risk register for the support project
  35. Three indicators to show the support is working
  36. Annual book and supply drive
  37. Fundraising fete or dinner abroad
  38. Online crowdfunding appeal for one project
  39. Visiting the school on a trip home
  40. Sponsoring a prize at the school's prize-giving
  41. First donation shipment from packing to classroom
  42. Supporting your old school on limited time
  43. School support run by a church or community group
  44. Workplace matched giving for the school
  45. Helping the school recover after a hurricane or flood
  46. Supporting a rural or interior school
  47. Secondary school bursary design
  48. Fair selection panel for scholarships
  49. Following up scholarship holders each term
  50. Tax-effective giving for donors abroad

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Choosing the school or community you will support

Most people start with the school they went to, the primary school in their village or the one a cousin now teaches at, and that pull is a good reason. Before committing, compare two or three candidates on need, on whether there is a principal or community leader you can actually reach, and on whether anyone else abroad already supports them, so your effort fills a gap rather than doubling someone else's.

First tasks

  • List the schools back home you feel a tie to, with the parish, district or village
  • Ask family at home which of them are struggling most this year
  • Check whether an old scholars group or church already supports each school
  • Write down the school you chose and why in two sentences

First conversation with the principal

Principals back home are used to well-meaning calls from abroad that end in a box of things nobody asked for. A first conversation that asks before it offers, about the roll, the staff, what the government covers and what the school struggles to pay for, sets the tone for everything after and tells you whether the principal has the time and appetite to work with you.

First tasks

  • Ask a family member or teacher for an introduction to the principal
  • Send a short message introducing yourself and asking for a 30-minute call
  • Prepare five open questions about needs, funding and what has not worked before
  • Send your notes from the call to the principal to confirm them

School needs assessment with staff and parents

A principal's top three needs are a start, but teachers and the PTA (parent teacher association) often see gaps the office does not: a Standard 5 or Grade 6 class with no readers, a science lab with no working gas, children missing school for want of bus fare. A short structured assessment, filled in on the school's side, gives you a ranked list with rough costs that you can show donors and return to every year.

First tasks

  • Draft a one-page needs form with five headings and send it to the principal
  • Ask the principal to hand it out at a staff meeting and to the PTA chair
  • Ask the agent to merge the replies into one ranked list with rough costs
  • Send the ranked list back to the principal for correction

Make it yours.

Install Supporting Schools Back Home, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.