We serve 99% low-income and minority students with a high quality, Christian education. Because our families do not have the capacity to pay for their child's education outright and our public funding is very limited, we rely on fundraising to make up the difference. Anedot is a valued partner in this endeavor. They are proactive in reaching out to make sure we are using the platform to our fullest advantage, and helping troubleshoot any issues that come up.
About Gardere Community Christian School
Gardere Community Christian School began as an after-school tutoring program in 2009 to serve children in the Gardere neighborhood.
The founder had taught for more than 30 years in New York City public inner city schools.
While driving through the Gardere area, she saw children everywhere and recognized it as a poverty-stricken area surrounded by more affluent neighborhoods. This led her to start the tutoring program.
At the time, the public schools serving the neighborhood were failing, and families living in poverty had no other options since they could not afford private school.
This prompted the idea to start a private Christian school and find a way to make it possible for any child to attend, regardless of income.
In 2011, the tutoring program became Gardere Community Christian School. The school’s goal is to make a high-quality Christian education available to every child in the Gardere community, regardless of their financial circumstances.
Today, 98% of students are low-income or poverty students.
The challenge: making fundraising accessible, flexible, and sustainable
Because most families at Gardere Community Christian School cannot afford to pay for education outright and public funding is limited, fundraising plays a critical role in sustaining the school’s mission.
Before adopting Anedot, the school faced several operational challenges that made fundraising more difficult than it needed to be.
In the early years, parents primarily paid in cash, and there was no reliable system for accepting credit cards or digital payments.
As donors began asking for more convenient ways to give, the school recognized the need for a modern donation platform that could support multiple campaigns, recurring gifts, and events while remaining cost-effective and easy to manage.
The school identified several key challenges:
- Needed convenient, secure ways for donors to give beyond cash
- Needed the ability to separate and manage multiple fundraising campaigns
- Needed infrastructure to support recurring donations such as the 120 Club
- Needed centralized tracking and reporting for donations, campaigns, and events
In the early years, our parents paid mostly cash, and even when we offered credit card options, they didn’t use them. I think that was the impetus that led them to looking for a donation platform that would meet the needs, and Anedot was the most cost effective.
The Anedot solution: simplifying fundraising and strengthening donor relationships
Gardere Community Christian School adopted Anedot as a cost-effective and easy-to-use platform that met the school’s fundraising needs.
The platform made it easier for donors to give conveniently and securely, including through credit cards and digital payments.
Anedot also enabled the school to manage multiple campaigns and funds with clarity.
Programs such as the 120 Club, which supports monthly donations, and Sponsor a Student, which allows donors to sponsor a student for a semester or full year, each have their own dedicated pages.
This structure guides donors directly to the initiatives they want to support and makes it easier to manage giving across programs.
Recurring donation support and donation upgrades gave the school more flexibility in how donors could contribute, while event fundraising tools allowed ticket sales, sponsorships, and donations to be managed within the same system.
Throughout implementation and ongoing use, Anedot’s proactive and responsive support team helped ensure the school was using the platform effectively and could troubleshoot issues quickly.
Key benefits:
- Action Pages that allow the school to create separate, campaign-specific pages for initiatives like the 120 Club and Sponsor a Student
- Recurring giving tools that support monthly donations and help provide consistent funding
- Upgrades that allow donors to increase one-time gifts or convert them into recurring contributions
- Flexible payment options that make it easy for donors to give securely using credit cards and digital payments
- Event fundraising tools that support ticket sales, sponsorships, and event donations within one system
- Data exporting that helps track donations, campaigns, and funds more efficiently
- Customer support that provides proactive outreach, troubleshooting, and personal assistance
I like the fact that you can set up the separate campaigns or funds. And it's not hard to do. That really helps a lot. We have several campaigns going on at all times. Being able to separate those out so that whenever people say, yes, I want to give to this campaign, they can go to that campaign page that tells them exactly what to do for that campaign. That really makes a difference.
The results
With Anedot in place, Convention of States Action gained a reliable, responsive partner that empowered the team to better serve donors, grow recurring revenue, and work more efficiently across the organization.
Donors benefited from faster answers, greater flexibility, and a smoother giving experience, while staff gained confidence in their fundraising infrastructure.
The organization successfully expanded its monthly donor program, improved efficiency across a high volume of fundraising pages, and strengthened internal controls around data and access.
Collaboration with Anedot on product improvements further reinforced the partnership and supported long-term fundraising growth.
Outcomes:
- Stronger donor trust supported by fast, responsive service
- Growth in recurring giving through easier transitions from one-time gifts
- Improved efficiency and consistency across fundraising pages
- Better control and flexibility through role-based access and CSV exports
- Increased confidence in long-term fundraising scalability
I know my Anedot representative by name and can call on her at any time. That's service! Thank you, Anedot.
What’s next
Gardere Community Christian School is excited to grow with Anedot.
They plan to expand student sponsorships, launch new campaigns like the Leadership Cup, and make ticketing and sponsorships easier by integrating them directly on the platform.
With Anedot’s reliable tools and responsive support, the school can strengthen donor connections, simplify giving, and continue providing high-quality Christian education to every child in the Gardere community.
