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The Allstate Foundation is supporting Community Service projects

Update: October 15, 2024: We are no longer accepting new submissions. We'll update this page if more funding becomes available. 

The Allstate Foundation is committed to empowering youth to serve and improve communities. As a part of this commitment, they’ve partnered with TIME for Kids to create themed community service content called Service Stars. Starting October 1st, you can receive  a one-time donation of $500 when you submit a project that helps your students serve their community beyond the classroom, inspired by one of the Service Stars missions.

If your project meets the criteria below, the one-time donation will appear once your project is approved and live on the site.

How to qualify:

  • Create a project that will be student-led and focuses on community service. Request resources that will be used to benefit the community beyond your classroom. Your project must define the community that you seek to serve and how your students’ service will benefit that community.
  • Request under $500 for your total project goal, including taxes, shipping, fees, and the suggested donation to support DonorsChoose. This is about $380 in materials. Your project essay must describe these resources and how they empower your students to serve others; specifically acts intended to benefit other people at school outside of the classroom and people outside of the school community in the surrounding area.
  • When creating your project, use the specific campaign code for a community service area listed below. 
  • Focus your project’s community service on one of these eight categories:

Mission 

Goal 

Campaign Code
Protect the Environment  Finding ways to keep our Earth clean, green, and beautiful. 

ALLSTATEPLANET
Boost Literacy Aiding literacy efforts in the community.  ALLSTATELITERACY
Speak Out  Raising awareness, educating others, or acting on issues that affect the community. ALLSTATESPEAK
Promote Wellness Helping someone or people who are feeling unwell, physically or mentally, or helping promote and encourage wellness within a community. ALLSTATEWELLNESS
Raise Money  Raising money for a cause. ALLSTATEMONEY
Spread Kindness Spreading kindness at home, school, or in the community. ALLSTATEKIND
Fight Hunger Combating food insecurity in the community. ALLSTATEHUNGER
Protect Animals Helping protect or care for animals in the community. ALLSTATEANIMAL

 

Your project's essay should:

  • Describe the student-led community service activity or initiative. This must be an action that your students will take to benefit others — specifically other students at school outside of the classroom (items may not exclusively be for students in the classroom) and people outside of the school community in the surrounding area.
    • For projects focused on the "Raise Money" mission, please specify the 501c3 nonprofit organization the money will go to.
  • Describe the community that will benefit. This must be the surrounding area (i.e, neighborhood, city, county) or the school community (i.e., the entire school, not exclusively your class).
  • Explain how the materials you’re requesting will help students lead the initiative or activity.

 

Looking for inspiration?

Example project ideas:

 

What won’t qualify:

  • Projects that don’t specify their community service according to the guidelines.
  • Projects containing resources that are not being directly used by students to lead a community service activity or initiative.
  • Projects containing resources for classroom needs that are not connected to community service (examples: classroom health items, food and drinks for the classroom, teacher supplies).  
  • Resources related to transportation or other costs associated with in-person events, e.g. cost of transportation to drop off materials to an external organization. (See our current guidelines around Class Trips and Visitors here.)

Frequently Asked Questions:

Click the buttons below to read the answers to each question, or use your spacebar after selecting your desired question.

Q: Can I submit multiple projects for this?

No. You can only submit one project for this campaign so ensure that you're choosing the correct campaign code that you wish to submit.

Q: How do I input the correct campaign code to my project?

You must input your chosen campaign code when you’re in the process of creating your project. Upon starting your project’s draft, on the “HI” page, click on the “Enter a campaign code” button. A pop-up window will appear with an empty field in which you can enter your campaign code. Click “OK” to save your input and now your project will be attributed to that specific campaign.

If you're already signed in to your teacher account, you can click the links in the table below to immediately start a draft with the associated campaign code. A teacher may only submit one project for this campaign.

Mission  Goal  Campaign Code
Protect the Environment  Finding ways to keep our Earth clean, green, and beautiful.  ALLSTATEPLANET
Boost Literacy Aiding literacy efforts in the community.  ALLSTATELITERACY
Speak Out  Raising awareness, educating others, or acting on issues that affect the community. ALLSTATESPEAK
Promote Wellness Helping someone or people who are feeling unwell, physically or mentally, or helping promote and encourage wellness within a community. ALLSTATEWELLNESS
Raise Money  Raising money for a cause. ALLSTATEMONEY
Spread Kindness Spreading kindness at home, school, or in the community. ALLSTATEKIND
Fight Hunger Combating food insecurity in the community. ALLSTATEHUNGER
Protect Animals Helping protect or care for animals in the community. ALLSTATEANIMAL

Q: What happens if my total project goal is over $500?

Your project will not receive the one-time donation from The Allstate Foundation. Anything over the total project goal will not qualify for the match. Shipping charges may vary and the suggested donation amount can't be removed from a project's total goal. While you cannot remove the suggested donation, donors can choose to opt-out of giving a portion of their donation to DonorsChoose. 

Q: Why are some projects approved faster than others?

Our team of volunteer screeners typically reviews projects within 2-3 business days. When our volunteer screeners are uncertain about a project or if your project is complicated, then they will send those projects to our staff screeners. During periods of high project submissions from teachers (like this back-to-school season), our staff has to process far more projects than normal, which slows us down beyond the 2-3 business day timeline. This discrepancy between volunteer and staff screeners may be the reason why your project is still being reviewed.

Q: How can I edit my project?

If your project has not received any donations, you can make any edits by returning your project to a draft status. You can do this by heading over to the Projects section of your account and clicking on the "Return project to draft" button underneath your project title. Once your project is in draft status, you can make any edits and resubmit it.  Then, it will be re-screened by our team and re-posted if eligible. Read more about editing your project.

With thanks to The Allstate Foundation

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