Frequently Asked Questions
Donations
Making a donation to Room to Read is quick and simple! You can donate online through our secure website. For other ways to give, including checks, wire transfers and other ways to give, please refer to giving information provided by each of our business office locations.
Yes! You can make a tax-efficient donation to Room to Read in several currencies through our website.
Room to Read has locally-recognized business offices around the world that accept offline donations in several currencies. Donations made to Room to Read are tax-efficient to the extent allowed by your country's local laws.
The most impactful way to support Room to Read is by contributing to our programs and operations through a gift to our greatest needs. Unrestricted gifts provide us with the crucial flexibility and security to ensure students have the holistic support they need to succeed. Specifically, your investment will allow us to:
- Scale rapidly and work where we are needed most.
- Provide the best programs possible through ongoing improvement.
- Be ready for the unexpected, such as a natural disaster or an economic recession.
Additionally, you can see if your employer will double or even triple your impact through their matching gift program. A matching gift program is designed to support nonprofits that a company’s employees are passionate about by matching donations made by their employees. See if your employer will match your gift here in the search bar at the top of this page.
We're excited to hear you're interested in supporting our work, thank you! To maximize your impact, we strongly encourage donors to contribute to our greatest needs rather than a specific program or country of operation. Unrestricted gifts allow us the crucial flexibility and security that is needed to ensure the excellence and growth of our programs.
By contributing to our greatest needs, you ensure that Room to Read has the ability to scale our work rapidly, improve our programs, and be ready for the unexpected.
We appreciate your interest in donating books to Room to Read and are more than happy to provide more information about our approach to distributing books. Unfortunately, we do not accept book donations under 25,000 books. Given the shipping costs, logistics and need for local language books, we have found that it is more impactful and cost-effective for Room to Read to create local language materials for readers in the countries where we work. Therefore, we partner with local writers and illustrators through our Quality Reading Materials program to create books designed for students’ reading skill levels.
If you would still like to donate books, Room to Read has formed a very successful relationship with an organization called Better World Books, which collects and resells used books to benefit our programs. They are well equipped to handle the logistics and make it incredibly easy for donors to send the books to them by paying for shipping! For more information, please visit their website at www.betterworldbooks.com and mention that Room to Read sent you. You can also contact them directly by emailing help@betterworldbooks.com.
Room to Read is unable to sell any books published through our book publishing work. The copyrights for these books are held in the countries where the books are produced and the international copyright regulations do not allow this.
You can start your personal fundraising campaign today. Once you’ve created your fundraiser, don’t forget to share it with your friends, family, and greater network. The more people you share your page with, the closer you move toward your goal!
Yes. Room to Read gladly accepts gifts of stock. Please refer to our remittance instructions for your nearest Room to Read business office.
Online donations are receipted via email. Your email tax receipt should arrive within five business days of your online donation. For offline donations, a tax receipt will be mailed to you within ten days of receiving your donation.
To request a replacement tax receipt, please contact donate@roomtoread.org.
Yes! We would be happy to send a printed acknowledgement card. Please email the following details to donate@roomtoread.org with the subject line “[First + Last Name] Request for Acknowledgement Card”
Include the following information in your email message:
- Donor’s full name
- Donation date
- Donation amount
- Recipient's full name as it should appear on envelope
- Acknowledgment type ("in honor of ___", etc.)
- Recipient's address
Please note that due to our limited capacity, we cannot guarantee that the card will be mailed within a specific time frame.
You can call 415-839-4305 and we can update your account information on our end. Please do not hesitate to reach out via email to donate@roomtoread.org or the phone number above if you have any questions and thank you again for your ongoing commitment to the children who benefit from our programs.
Through our community challenge grant and other processes, we aim to build projects that are sustainable and that encourage community investment and ownership. Our model makes it so that schools have the foundation to successfully operate years after it has been built. Therefore, we do not provide additional support to partner schools after completing our three years of support.
It is Room to Read’s philosophy not to establish a direct one-to-one relationships between our donors and individual students. There are a few reasons this has been our policy, including that we want the children in our programs to see that their local community can facilitate their expanded educational opportunities and the solutions to their problems can be found within their local resources.
You may recommend a gift to Room to Read from your donor-advised fund (DAF). A DAF is a centralized vehicle for charitable giving that makes it easy for donors to dedicate funds to support their favorite nonprofit organization. It also provides an operationally convenient and tax-efficient method for donors to manage their charitable giving.
With a DAF, charitably inclined individuals, families, and businesses make an irrevocable gift to a public charity that sponsors a donor-advised fund program, and may take an immediate tax deduction. Donors can then recommend grants over time to IRS-qualified 501(c)(3) public charities. DAFs also allow donors to approach their charitable giving thoughtfully by involving other family members or colleagues in their philanthropic decisions. Most DAFs accept donations of long-term appreciated securities and other assets, and donors can advise how the funds are invested, which could potentially allow tax-free growth, and could result in more money for your charity.
You can make a recommendation for a gift through your existing donor-advised fund by contacting your fund directly, or use our DAF Direct widget below to reach the online request page for the following DAFs:
- Fidelity Charitable
- Schwab Charitable
- BNY Mellon
Invest in children's education today.