I am a lifelong Peanuts fan. When I was a kid, my Mamaw had several Peanuts paperbacks on her shelf that, despite having basically committed to memory, I would sit and read for hours every time I visited her home. It’s on my bucket list to visit the Charles M. Schulz Museum in California, and someday I’ll own some original Schulz artwork (the Red Baron is high on my list.)
A part of my own childhood Peanuts book collection included a series of books called Snoopy’s Facts & Fun. They were books with an educational focus on varying topics – seasons, planes, houses, farms, and so on. They featured Peanuts characters illustrating various aspects of science (‘facts’), and since they were the characters we all knew and loved, well, fun!
Look, I was a nerdy kid. That comes with its hits and misses, but one way it has served me well is that I continue to be a voracious consumer of data. Facts. Statistics. I love learning things I didn’t know, and – heaven help me – sometimes I can even translate those into improvements in the daily lives of myself and the people I love.
Like E-rate! In case you were not aware, Funds For Learning has created the most comprehensive E-rate data analysis tool on the planet: E-rate Manager®. It makes finding any bit of E-rate data, from a “top ten” list of funding requests since 1998 all the way to the invoice deadline for a specific FRN, accessible in just a few clicks. To wit, here are some E-rate Facts & Fun I found by browsing around for just a few minutes this morning:
- In Funding Year 2022, there are 70 funding requests which were approved for $100 or less and have also had disbursements. This includes one FRN with a pre-discount amount of $1.09, a requested amount of $0.44, and a disbursement of $0.41.
- Since 1998, there have been 264 funding commitments over $10 million. The largest single FRN on record right now is a 2001 commitment for just over $159 million.
- 2 million funding requests have been filed since Funding Year 1998. In total, the program has disbursed more than $52 billion aimed directly at enabling knowledge seekers like me get high-speed access to data and information.
Which E-rate facts are meaningful to you? Maybe you need to know if you have form deadlines looming? Are you a service provider looking for business opportunities? Perhaps your school board would like to know how much E-rate has benefit your district since the start of the program? E-rate Manager® can help you find all this information and more. Funds For Learning’s goal is to help all E-rate stakeholders reduce stress, save time, and increase success. For more information about E-rate data analytics, E-rate Manager, or other ways we can help you succeed, please do not hesitate to contact us.
