The Butterfly Effect Grant
One small change, and the ripples go where they go.
$1,000 to one teacher.
Applications close September 15, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
At a glance
- The grant
- $1,000 to one teacher. No rules on how you spend it.
- Who can apply
- Teacher Resource Club members actively working in education.
- What you submit
- One photo of a Club resource, a short review, and one question answered. About 5 minutes.
- Closes
- September 15, 2026 · 11:59 PM ET
- Announcing winner
- October 5, 2026
- How it's decided
- Three judges score against a published rubric. Not a random drawing.
What It Is
Teachers spend their own money. Every year, on the things their students need, and often on getting through the month themselves.
This year, Teacher Butterflies is funding a $1,000 grant for one teacher. It's not a reimbursement and it's not a discount. It's $1,000, and what you do with it is your call. Classroom supplies, a field trip, groceries, a bill, that's yours to decide.
The grant is open to active Teacher Resource Club members. Every application is read and scored by an independent panel of judges. This is a judged grant, not a random drawing.
How to Apply
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Join the Teacher Resource Club
Open to anyone actively working in education. Members get 30,000+ pages of teacher resources, with new ones added weekly through 2026.
Join for $79/year Join for $10/month -
Share your favorite Club resource
One clear photo of a Teacher Resource Club resource in your classroom, plus a short review: why you love it, how you use it, and what you've seen it do for your students.
See the photo guidelines -
Answer one question
If you received $1,000 from this grant, how would you use it to support yourself, inside or outside the classroom?
Your Favorite Resource
Show us a Teacher Resource Club resource you love, and tell us why it works.
The photo
Take one photo of a Club resource in your classroom: on the wall, on a desk, in a center, wherever it lives. This is the part people will see, so it's worth two minutes of care.
- In focus. Blurry photos are hard to score and hard to share. Tap your screen to focus before you shoot.
- Good light. Natural light near a window beats overhead fluorescents. Shoot during the day if you can.
- Tidy frame. Clear the clutter just outside the shot. Straight-on angles look neat.
- The resource is the subject. We should be able to tell which Club resource it is.
Want a reference? Grace's Facebook photo albums at Teacher Butterflies on Facebook show the kind of clean, bright, simple styling that works well.
The review
Alongside the photo, tell us about the resource. Think of it as a five-star review written for another teacher, and this is where most of the points are:
- Which resource is it and why you love it
- The creative part: how you've adapted it, extended it, combined it with something else, or made it work for your particular students
- What you've seen it do for your students: growth, engagement, confidence, a moment that stuck with you
If your resource is classroom decor or something that isn't about measurable growth, tell us how it's shaped your classroom community instead: how it feels to be in the room, how students respond to it, what it's changed about your space. That counts just as much.
One Question
If you received $1,000 from this grant, how would you use it to support yourself, inside or outside the classroom?
This grant exists to support the teacher as a whole person, not just the classroom.
So if the answer is a classroom library, wonderful. If it's the gas money that gets you to work, that counts. If it's rent, groceries, a bill that's been sitting on the counter, that counts too, and we mean it.
There is no right answer here, and no answer that scores higher for being more classroom-focused. Write honestly about what $1,000 would actually change for you.
What you write here is never published. It's read by the judges and nobody else. If you're selected, we'll set up a short interview with you afterwards and you decide then what you're comfortable having shared.
You can record your answer instead of typing it. If speaking is easier than writing, and for a lot of us at the end of a school day it is, the form lets you record your answers out loud. It's scored exactly the same. We're listening for what you say, not how you write.
Key Dates
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Applications openAugust 15, 2026
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Applications closeSeptember 15, 2026 · 11:59 PM ET
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Announcing winnerOctober 5, 2026
Who Can Apply
- Legal resident of the U.S. or D.C., except AZ, CO, MD, NE, ND, and VT (see below)
- 18 years or older at the time of application
- Actively working in education: teachers, SPED, specialists, paraprofessionals, subs, student teachers, coaches, librarians, counselors, tutors, early intervention, homeschool educators, administrators, and more
- Active, paid Teacher Resource Club member as of September 15, 2026, and still active on the announcement date
- One application per person
- Photo must be your own, taken by you, of your own classroom, no stock or AI-generated images
Judges, sponsors, Teacher Butterflies employees and contractors, and their immediate families are not eligible. Void where prohibited. Full details in the Official Rules.
Why I'm doing this
Teacher Butterflies started with resources. I made things I wished I'd had, and I shared them, and somewhere along the way a few thousand teachers showed up.
But I've never thought resources were the whole point. You can download a hundred activities and still be the person buying tissues out of your own pocket in October. Still the person who spent her weekend laminating. Still the person nobody said thank you to.
So as this community grows, I want it to be about more than files. I want Teacher Butterflies to be a place where teachers come first, not as a slogan but as something you can actually point to.
This grant is the first thing I'm pointing to. It's $1,000, going to one teacher, with no rules about how it's spent. If that's a classroom library, wonderful. If it's groceries, that's just as good a use, and I mean that.
I can't fix how teachers are paid. I can't fix what districts don't fund. But I can take what this community has given me and hand some of it back, and I'd rather do that than not.
Thank you for being here. I hope you apply.
Grace
How Applications Are Judged
Every application is read and scored by three judges against a published rubric.
| What we score | What we're looking for | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Your resource photo | A clear, well-lit photo where we can tell which Club resource it is, and which follows the student-privacy rules. | 3 |
| Creative use in your teaching | This is the main event. Show us an inventive way you teach with the resource: how you've adapted it, extended it, combined it with something else, or made it work for your particular students. The kind of idea another teacher would want to steal. | 9 |
| Your answer about the $1,000 | How clearly you describe what the money would change for you. Honesty and specificity, not polish. | 3 |
| Total | 15 |
What we are not scoring: writing quality, vocabulary, grammar, or how "impressive" your classroom looks. Three rushed sentences that are specific and true will score higher than a polished paragraph that says nothing concrete.
No answer scores higher for being classroom-focused. A teacher who would spend the $1,000 on rent is scored exactly the same way as a teacher who would spend it on a reading corner.
Judges score every application against the rubric above. A judge who recognises an applicant does not score that application, and the remaining judges score it instead. Judges' decisions are final.
Meet the judges
Three judges read and score every eligible application. We're describing them by background rather than by name. Young CEO Squad's sponsorship helps fund this grant, and their representative is one of our judges.
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Young CEO SquadEntrepreneurship education, grades 3 to 8A representative of Young CEO Squad, whose hands on entrepreneurship kits turn a classroom into a small business incubator. They're running in 300+ classrooms.
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A retired educatorRetired educator · no financial interest in Teacher Butterflies
Thirty-six years in elementary and special education before retiring. She taught in severe and profound, resource, and self-contained settings, co-taught, taught general education, worked in early intervention as a preschool intervention specialist, and served as a coordinator, so she has seen just about every kind of classroom a teacher could be writing to us from.
She isn't paid for judging, has no ownership or financial interest in Teacher Butterflies, and scores the same published rubric as everyone else.
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A journalism graduateScoring judge · storytelling
Holds a Bachelor of Science with a major in journalism and graduated top of their class. A reader by training, which is a useful thing to be when the job is weighing what teachers have written. Once the recipient is chosen, they also help us tell that teacher's story well.
What Grace does
Grace checks every application against the eligibility requirements first: membership, the student-privacy rules, whether the form is complete. That's a checklist, not a judgment about quality. She does not choose the recipient. The three judges above do that.
If a lot of applications come in, there's one more step, and we want to be upfront about it. Three judges can only read so many applications properly, and we would rather they read fifty carefully than two hundred quickly. So if more than 50 eligible applications arrive, Grace scores every one of them against the same published rubric above, and the 50 highest-scoring applications go to the judges. Those scores are written down and kept. If 50 or fewer arrive, every single one goes to the judges.
Grace sees applicants' names and their answer to the photo-sharing question during the eligibility check, which is exactly why she isn't one of the three judges who decide. Those judges never see either. If their scores tie, Grace breaks the tie using the same rubric and writes down her reasoning before looking at who the applicants are.
More on how the panel works
We've chosen not to publish our judges' names. What we will tell you is exactly where each one stands: Young CEO Squad is a founding sponsor whose sponsorship helps fund this grant, and their representative is one of the three judges. Our retired educator is unpaid and has no ownership or financial interest in Teacher Butterflies. A judge who recognises an applicant does not score that application, and the remaining judges score it instead.
One thing we want to be clear about. Sharing the recipient's story is part of what this grant is for, and one of our judges brings a journalism background to help us tell it well. But that happens after the recipient is chosen. Nobody is scored on how good a story they would make. The rubric above is the whole of what decides who receives this grant.
How applications are reviewed, and where we do and don't use AI
Eligibility check
We use software, including AI tools, to sort applications for completeness: is the form filled out, is the applicant an active Club member, is a photo attached, does it meet our student-privacy requirements. This stage checks eligibility only. It does not score applications, rank them, or decide who wins, and it never removes anyone on its own. It flags applications for a person to look at.
Personal review
Grace reviews every flagged application herself and confirms any decision about eligibility. No application is disqualified without a person looking at it. She also reviews a sample of applications that passed automatically, to check the sorting is working.
Panel scoring
Eligible applications are sent to the panel of judges, who read and score each one against the published rubric. This stage is human only. AI is not used to score, rank, summarize, or select applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
The requirements are simple: you're an active Teacher Resource Club member, you're working with learners, and you're 18 or older in an eligible state. If you're not sure whether your role counts, email us and ask. We'd rather you asked than assumed you couldn't.
Asking has no effect on your score, and the judges are never told you asked. We want anyone working in education to have a real shot at this.
We aren't able to write to applicants individually, but if you'd like feedback on your application, email us within 30 days of the announcement and we'll write back.
One thing worth checking: make sure you're set to receive Teacher Butterflies emails, so the announcement reaches you.
Your Part One photo and resource review are different: the form asks whether we may share those. Saying no won't affect your chances, it forms no part of the rubric. But if you're selected, sharing them is a condition of the grant, so the "no" option really means "if I don't win, please don't use my review."
This matters if you win: because sharing your photo and review is a condition of the grant, a selected teacher whose district won't permit publication can't receive it, and we'd have to select an alternate. Please check your district's policy before you apply, we can't advise on individual districts.
If we receive more than that, Grace scores every eligible application against the same rubric published above, and the 50 highest-scoring applications go to the judges. We'd rather three judges read fifty applications carefully than two hundred in a hurry. Either way, the recipient is chosen by the judges, and every application is scored against the same published criteria.
Official Rules
Last updated: August 15, 2026
This is our first grant, what that means
We've never done this before. We've tried to think it through carefully, the rubric, the rules, the judging, all of it, but a first year always teaches you something, and we'd rather say that now than pretend otherwise.
What will not change during this round: the $1,000 amount, the September 15 deadline, the October 5 announcement, the scoring rubric, who is eligible, and how the recipient is chosen. Those are fixed. You are applying against these terms and we intend to honour them exactly as written.
If something does have to change, it would be for a legal or compliance reason, or because something genuinely outside our control made the plan impossible. In that case we would post it here as a dated addendum rather than quietly editing this page, and we would announce it to the community. We would not change the rules because we changed our minds.
Read the full Official Rules
1. The grant, sponsor, and funding
The Butterfly Effect Grant is administered by Teacher Butterflies. Questions: info@teacherbutterflies.com.
The grant is funded by Teacher Butterflies from sponsorship revenue received from Young CEO Squad, a founding sponsor. Young CEO Squad's relationship with Teacher Butterflies is that of a sponsor only: it holds no ownership interest, equity, or control in Teacher Butterflies and has no role in its operation. A representative of Young CEO Squad serves as one of the judges. Young CEO Squad does not administer this grant and does not select the recipient other than through that judge's scoring alongside the other judges.
2. Eligibility
Open to legal residents of the United States or the District of Columbia who are 18 years of age or older at the time of application and who are actively working in education.
We mean that broadly, and on purpose. It includes classroom teachers, special education teachers, specialists, paraprofessionals and instructional aides, substitutes, student teachers and pre-service teachers, instructional coaches, librarians and media specialists, counselors, tutors, early intervention and preschool staff, homeschool educators, administrators, and anyone else currently working with learners. If you work in education and you are an active Teacher Resource Club member, you can apply.
Residents of Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Vermont are not eligible. Those states restrict contests that require a purchase or payment to enter. Because entry to this grant requires a paid Teacher Resource Club membership, applications from those states cannot be accepted.
Applicants must be active, paid Teacher Resource Club members as of September 15, 2026, and must remain active members through the announcement date. A membership that is cancelled or refunded before the announcement voids the application.
Judges, sponsors, and their immediate family members and household members are not eligible. Employees and contractors of Teacher Butterflies and of any sponsor, and their immediate family and household members, are not eligible. Void where prohibited by law.
3. How to enter
Complete the official application form in full, including one original photograph showing a Teacher Butterflies or Teacher Resource Club resource in use in your classroom. One application per person. Incomplete, duplicate, or fraudulent applications may be disqualified without notice.
You may answer by voice instead of typing. The written sections of the application can be completed as a voice recording rather than typed text, for anyone who finds that easier. A spoken answer is scored exactly the same way as a typed one against the same rubric, we are scoring what you say, not how you write it.
Accessibility. If you need any adjustment to apply, a different format, extra time, help with the upload, a way around a part of the form that does not work for you, or anything else, email info@teacherbutterflies.com before the closing date and we will work it out with you. We would rather change how the application works than lose an applicant over it. Asking for an adjustment has no effect on how your application is scored, and judges are not told that you asked.
4. Photo requirements
The photograph must be original, taken by the applicant, and of the applicant's own classroom. Stock images and AI-generated images are not permitted. The photograph must show an identifiable Teacher Butterflies or Teacher Resource Club resource.
Photographs or application text containing students, student names, or student work will result in automatic disqualification.
5. Judging
Applications are first reviewed against the eligibility requirements. If more than 50 eligible applications are received, the Sponsor scores every eligible application against the published rubric and the 50 highest-scoring applications advance to the judging panel; those scores are recorded and retained. If 50 or fewer eligible applications are received, all advance. In either case the recipient is selected by the judging panel, not by the Sponsor.
Advancing applications are scored by a panel of three judges against the published rubric: the resource photo (3 points), the resource review (6 points), and the response to the grant question (6 points), for a total of 15 points. Each judge scores each application independently and scores are averaged. In the event of a tie, the Sponsor decides using the same published criteria and records the reasoning before the applicant's identity is reviewed. Judges' decisions are final and not subject to appeal.
This is a contest of skill. No element of the selection is determined by chance. There is no random drawing at any stage, including tie-breaks.
The recipient is announced on October 5, 2026 by email to the Teacher Butterflies community and publicly on this page. Because every applicant is a Teacher Resource Club member, all applicants receive that announcement. Teacher Butterflies does not contact applicants individually about the outcome. An applicant may request feedback on their application by emailing info@teacherbutterflies.com within 30 days of the announcement. Feedback is general and does not include individual judge scores, and does not reopen or alter the decision.
Judges' names are not published. Each judge's background and their relationship to Teacher Butterflies are described on this page. The panel comprises a representative of founding sponsor Young CEO Squad, a retired educator who is unpaid and holds no ownership or financial interest in Teacher Butterflies, and a journalism graduate. The founder of Teacher Butterflies checks eligibility and breaks ties but does not score applications and does not select the recipient. Judges score against the published rubric and do not score any application submitted by a person known to them, such applications are scored by the remaining judges.
Your answer to the photo-sharing question is removed before applications reach the judges and forms no part of the rubric. Saying no does not affect your score or your chances.
The recipient is determined solely by the published rubric. No consideration is given during scoring to how suitable an application would be for publicity, marketing, or storytelling purposes. Any work to tell the recipient's story takes place after selection.
Software, including AI tools, is used only to sort applications for completeness and eligibility. It does not score, rank, summarize, or select applications, and no application is disqualified without human confirmation.
6. The grant
One (1) Butterfly Effect Grant of $1,000 USD. There are no restrictions on how the grant may be used. No substitution or transfer of the prize is permitted except at the Sponsor's discretion.
7. Winner notification and obligations
The recipient will be contacted by email at the address provided on the application. The recipient must respond within seven (7) days of notification or an alternate recipient may be selected.
The recipient must be an active Teacher Resource Club member at the time of the announcement. If the recipient is later found ineligible for any reason, the Sponsor may select an alternate.
8. Taxes
The grant is $1,000 USD and is considered taxable income to the recipient. Before funds are released, the recipient must complete and return an IRS Form W-9. Teacher Butterflies will issue a Form 1099 for the amount awarded following the end of the tax year. Teacher Butterflies does not withhold taxes and cannot provide tax advice, recipients should consult a tax professional about their individual situation.
If the recipient does not return a completed W-9 within 14 days of notification, an alternate recipient may be selected.
A Form W-9 contains a Social Security or taxpayer identification number. Teacher Butterflies will provide a secure method for returning it and will not ask any recipient to send tax identification numbers by ordinary email or social media message.
Funds are delivered by Stripe, Venmo, or PayPal, as arranged with the recipient, within 30 days of Teacher Butterflies receiving a completed Form W-9.
9. Photo, review, and publicity
Your photo and review (Part One). On the application you choose whether Teaching with Grace and Teacher Butterflies may share your photo and your resource review on social media, the website, in emails and in other marketing, at any time, whether or not you are selected for the grant. Answering "No" does not affect your application or your chances in any way. The judges who score applications never see your answer.
If you are selected as the recipient. Sharing the Part One photo and resource review is a condition of receiving the grant. An applicant who answered "No" and is selected will be asked to change that answer to "Yes." An applicant who is not willing to do so cannot receive the grant, and an alternate recipient will be selected. In short: the "No" option means "if I don't win, please don't use my review."
Licence. Where an applicant consents, they grant Teaching with Grace and Teacher Butterflies a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to reproduce and display that photograph and resource review, whether or not the applicant is selected as the recipient. The applicant keeps ownership of the photograph. Consent may be withdrawn for future use by emailing info@teacherbutterflies.com; withdrawal applies going forward and does not require the recall of material already published or printed.
Your answer about the $1,000 (Part Two) is never published. It is used for judging only. If you are selected, Teacher Butterflies will arrange a short interview with you after the announcement, and you decide there what you are comfortable having shared. Nothing you wrote in Part Two is published without your agreement.
Announcement. If selected, you will be named in the announcement along with your grade level. If you would prefer to be announced without your name, tell us when we contact you.
10. Applicant responsibilities
Applicants are responsible for complying with their own school's and district's policies on photography, social media, and outside awards or gifts. Some districts restrict what employees may photograph on school property, and some require disclosure or approval before accepting an outside award. Applicants should check their district's policy before applying and before accepting the grant.
Teacher Butterflies is not able to advise on individual district policies and is not responsible for an applicant's compliance with them.
This matters if you are selected. Because sharing the Part One photo and review is a condition of receiving the grant, a selected applicant must be permitted by their school or district to have that photograph published. If a selected applicant's district policy does not allow it, the applicant cannot receive the grant and an alternate recipient will be selected. Please check your district's policy before you apply.
11. Data retention
Applications and photographs are retained by Teacher Butterflies for as long as they are needed for the administration and records of this grant. We do not set a fixed deletion date, and we would rather tell you that than promise a timeline we might not keep.
You can ask us to delete yours at any time. Email info@teacherbutterflies.com and we will delete your application and your photograph, whether or not the grant has been decided. If you have been selected as the recipient, we may need to keep the records required for tax reporting.
Applications and photographs are stored securely and are not shared with anyone outside Teacher Butterflies other than the judges. See our Privacy Policy for further detail.
12. Release, warranties, and limitation of liability
Your warranties. By applying, you represent and warrant that: the photograph you submit was taken by you and is your own original work; you own or have the right to grant the licence described in Section 9; the photograph and your application do not infringe the copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights of any person; the photograph contains no students, student names, or student work; and your participation does not violate any policy of your school, district, or employer.
Indemnification. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Teacher Butterflies, its owner, its judges, its sponsors including Young CEO Squad, and their respective officers, employees, contractors, and immediate family members (together, the "Released Parties") from any claim, demand, loss, or expense, including reasonable legal fees, arising out of any breach of the warranties above.
Release. By applying, you release the Released Parties from any and all claims, damages, losses, and liability of any kind arising out of or connected with: your participation in this grant; the submission or use of your photograph, review, or application; the awarding, receipt, possession, or use of the grant funds; any tax liability arising from the grant; and any action taken by your school, district, or employer in connection with your participation. This release applies to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Released Parties are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages of any kind. Where liability cannot lawfully be excluded, the total aggregate liability of the Released Parties to any applicant, arising from any cause and on any theory of liability, will not exceed one thousand US dollars ($1,000).
No warranty. This grant is offered on an "as is" basis. Teacher Butterflies makes no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding this grant or the grant funds.
Matters outside our control. The Released Parties are not responsible for: applications that are late, lost, incomplete, misdirected, corrupted, or not received for any reason; failure or interruption of any website, form, internet connection, email service, or payment provider; typographical or technical errors in these rules or any grant materials; or any circumstance beyond their reasonable control that prevents the grant running as planned.
Independent promotion. This grant is not sponsored, endorsed, or administered by, and is not associated with, Instagram, Meta, Facebook, TikTok, Circle, Jotform, or any other platform or service used to promote or administer it. No claim may be brought against any such platform in connection with this grant.
Some jurisdictions do not permit the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so parts of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these rules excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.
13. General conditions
The recipient will be announced on October 5, 2026. Teacher Butterflies reserves the right to extend the application deadline, and will announce any extension publicly on this page before the original closing date. Teacher Butterflies reserves the right to modify, suspend, or cancel the grant if it cannot be run as planned. These Official Rules are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
These Official Rules form the agreement between each applicant and Teacher Butterflies. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full effect.