Exponential Scholars funds thousands of teacher projects through $2 million donation
As teachers across North Carolina finish setting up their classrooms for the new school year, they often spend their own money to fill in the gaps of what is needed for their students. Some teachers have shared their classroom needs with the public, adding donation requests to a site called DonorsChoose. Last month, nonprofit Exponential Scholars fulfilled every single open project request for North Carolina teachers on the site — a donation totaling more than $2 million.
One of the thousands of teachers that the Exponential Scholars’ donation helped was Dan McKey, a school librarian at Durant Road Elementary School in Raleigh, who has been in education for 45 years.
“I opened up my email and I saw three emails in a row that said, ‘Your project has been fully funded. Your project has been fully funded. Your project has been fully funded,'” McKey told EdNC. “I thought, what is going on here? And I looked, and it was true. I was so surprised and very excited.”
McKey said that his school had 19 live projects, and when he came to school on Aug. 24, they had zero. According to a press release, Exponential Scholars’ donation “covered 3,233 classroom projects requested by 2,466 teachers in more than 1,000 schools.” The total investment by Exponential Scholars was approximately $2.25 million.
“These teachers and media specialists and counselors, they know their kids, they know their schools, and they know their communities far better than I ever could,” Exponential Scholars President and CEO Holly May told EdNC. “And we just decided that rather than picking and choosing criteria, or reading a bunch and evaluating ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ we could just say yes to all of it.”
Previously, May worked to grow “innovative tech startups and companies in Silicon Valley,” but she said she entered the “world of education, nonprofits, and philanthropy” in her home state of North Carolina in 2024. In 2025, she started Exponential Scholars, a North Carolina nonprofit that has the goal of helping “high-potential students in underserved communities.”
“Growing up, I got identified as an academically gifted kid in rural Chatham County… and that opened a lot of doors for me,” said May. “So I want to create programs and resources and community around talented and high-potential students across the state,” she said, with a priority for underserved communities.
This summer, Exponential Scholars also launched the NC Idea Challenge, which invites students and school staff to submit two-minute videos explaining an idea they have to improve their community or school for the chance to win $1,000.
For May, watching the submission videos highlighted the need that is present across North Carolina schools. She became inspired to help the close to 2,500 teachers in her state who had submitted projects to the site for donations, turning the impulse behind the NC Idea Challenge into something more scaleable.
“I think teachers are incredible. I have teachers in my family, and obviously benefited from many years of being taught by incredible teachers,” said May. “And so I want to center this on celebrating and recognizing the incredible kind of unsung heroic work that our educators are doing.”
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When May started exploring DonorsChoose, a site where educators can post vetted, itemized lists of their classroom needs, she couldn’t stop. The asks from teachers weren’t big — the average project in North Carolina is about $650, many are under $500, and projects requesting materials worth over $2,500 are rare.
McKey said he has DonorsChoose for about the last nine years, currently serving as his school’s DonorsChoose ambassador. He said that the platform allows teachers “to connect with people that care about children and care about schools.”
Recent research has show than teachers in North Carolina spend, on average, over $1,600 out of pocket to supply their classrooms. Platforms like DonorsChoose help teachers find funding for those needs without reaching into their own wallets.
“Teachers spend their own money on their classrooms every year, and most of them never ask for help,” shared former math teacher and DonorsChoose CEO Alix Guerrier in the press release. “When they submit a request on DonorsChoose, they’re telling us exactly what their students need to learn. Exponential Scholars said yes to every one of those requests in North Carolina, meaning thousands of teachers start this school year with the tools to help their students thrive.”
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Exponential Scholars funded a wide variety of different types of projects. Here is an interactive way to see funded projects by district, county, or school.
“There was a biology class that did a bird watching lesson, and they were requesting binoculars for the class to be able to go go outside and and look for birds with binoculars,” said May.
Another teacher, after her first year teaching, May said, was tasked with reopening her school’s media center, and she got “some of the core supplies that she needed to reinvigorate that media center in her school.”
May told EdNC that the projects were grouped into 29 categories, with 51% of all projects falling under the following five categories:
- Literacy (595 projects)
- English Language Learning (295)
- Social Emotional Learning (288)
- Health and Wellness (252)
- Mathematics (240)
Supplies started coming in as early mid-August.
“I really enjoyed telling some of the teachers to check their email because I think they might have a project funded,” said McKey. “They get very excited, and then just a few days later, they get especially excited when boxes start coming in.”
McKey told EdNC that his school received everything from new books to Legos to new classroom rugs for children to sit on.
“So it was an amazing, amazing donation, and so I really want to thank Holly May and Exponential Scholars for that very, very generous gift, and I also want to thank DonorsChoose for all the wonderful things that they have done for me and for our school,” said McKey.
May said that she wants teachers to feel appreciation for the work that they do, bringing “energy and optimism” into the new school year. But she also hoped that some might feel more comfortable asking for help.
“If you’re proactive and you put yourself out there and you ask for some some help — in this case, it was the funding for these classroom projects and resources — but sometimes stars align, and you get what you ask for,” said May.
While this gift supporting NC teacher’s DonorsChoose projects was a one-time contribution, Exponential Scholar’s NC Idea Challenge is still accepting submissions, and May hopes that they will receive applications from each of the state’s 100 counties. You can apply here to be one of 500 winners selected on a rolling basis until Oct. 4.