25 years · 50,000+ schools · 100,000+ educators

National, multi-year programs that brands fund and schools choose to run.

Zim Cares builds the programs that reach America's students through the only channel they actually trust: their classrooms. For 25 years, the world's most careful brands have worked with us to reach students, educators, and families at national scale, with measurable results for students and for the business.

25+
Years building education programs
50K+
Schools reached nationwide
100K+
Educator relationships nationwide
200M+
Resources delivered to students
Why this works

Schools choose our programs. That's the asset.

America's schools are careful gatekeepers, and rightly so. They decline programs that feel commercial. They adopt programs that genuinely help students. For 25 years, Zim Cares has built programs educators choose, and that choice is what makes the brand relationship they carry so valuable.

01

Student benefit first, always.

Every program is educator-reviewed before it reaches a classroom. If it doesn't help students, it doesn't ship. That discipline is the reason we've been invited back for 25 years.

02

Educators opt in, every time.

No mandates, no pressure, no district arm-twisting. Schools participate because the program works for their students, and educator endorsement earned that way cannot be bought.

03

Measured across four tiers.

Student Impact. Reach. Brand Lift. Business Outcome. Every program is designed to deliver against all four, because brand partners have to defend the investment to more than one team.

How we measure

Four ways every program has to work.

Other partners measure one thing. We measure four, because a multi-year program has to justify itself to the educator, the brand marketing team, the media team, and the finance team. We design every program to hold up in all four rooms.

01
For Educators & Purpose

Student Impact

Did students actually learn, grow, or change? We measure the thing the classroom is for. If students don't benefit, nothing else matters.

02
For Media & Comms

Reach

Schools, classrooms, students, and families reached, in an educational context, not a scroll-by feed. Qualified exposure, measured and reported.

03
For Brand Marketing

Brand Lift

Measurable change in awareness, favorability, and consideration among exposed audiences, built through the most trusted channel in a family's life.

04
For Finance & Sales

Business Outcome

Sales lift, customer acquisition, category share, retail leverage, co-designed with the brand's own data team so it lands on the P&L.

We start with Student Impact because nothing else works without it. Educators won't renew programs that don't help kids. Without renewal, there is no Reach, no Lift, and no Outcome to measure.

Our work

Three programs. 25 years of proof. One way of working.

Together, they prove what a multi-year Zim Cares program delivers for a brand partner over time.

Scale.
Durability.
Depth.
U.S. Army & Army National Guard
10,000 high schools · 10M+ students a year · Multi-year

Helping America's students think seriously about life after high school.

Every fall, millions of high school seniors make the biggest decision of their young lives with the least information. College gets the oxygen in counseling offices. Trades, workforce entry, and service frequently don't.

The U.S. Army and Army National Guard needed a way to close that information gap, not with a recruiting pitch but with genuine career education students and their families could trust. They needed to reach every stakeholder who shapes a teenager's decision: the student, the parent, and the career counselor. And they needed to do it inside a channel educators are protective of, for good reason.

Zim Cares built the ecosystem that made it possible, and ran it at national scale, for multiple years running.

Schools reached
10,000 high schools
Students per year
10M+ annually
Stakeholders
Students · Parents · Counselors
Duration
Multiple years, sustained

What the program delivered

  • Books delivered into classrooms with structured content on Army service, pathways, roles, education benefits, and what enlistment actually involves.
  • Counselor education materials equipping career and college counselors to speak credibly about Army pathways alongside college, trades, and workforce options.
  • Parent education materials demystifying military service. A parent's informed confidence is often the deciding factor in a student's decision.
  • Classroom and hallway posters with integrated Business Reply Cards, turning passive awareness into measurable student-driven sign-ups for information sessions.
  • Ambient school presence through tissue boxes and supporting placements, keeping the program present in students' daily environment.
  • Ad Council partnership with boostup.org tying the in-school work to a national positive-awareness narrative about graduation and student potential.

Results across all four tiers

Student Impact

Students at 10,000 schools gained structured information about military service as a post-graduation option, filling a real gap in career education at the age when information matters most.

Reach

10,000 high schools nationwide. Over 10 million students per year. Multi-stakeholder reach to parents and counselors. Sustained across multiple years.

Brand Lift

Informed, positive awareness of the Army and National Guard as a serious option, amplified by the Ad Council / boostup.org partnership educators actively supported.

Business Outcome

Increased enrollment. Measurable BRC-driven sign-ups for information sessions. A sustained pipeline of informed candidates entering the Army's consideration funnel.

A one-year version of this program would have reached a single graduating class and disappeared. The multi-year commitment turned the Army from "a brand doing recruiting" into "a trusted career option counselors mention every year."

Counselor habits are formed through repetition. Parent familiarity builds across multiple graduating classes. That institutional memory, built in 10,000 American high schools, is the actual asset. It cannot be built in a single year at any budget.

Brands that trust us with their most important audience.

A partial list of partners who have run programs with Zim Cares over our 25 years in education.

Entertainment & Media
The Walt Disney Company Warner Bros. Universal Pictures Sony Pictures Entertainment Paramount Pictures 20th Century Studios Fox Studios MGM Summit Entertainment The CW Network Sesame Workshop Nintendo
Financial Services & Technology
JPMorgan Chase U.S. Bank Microsoft Verizon U.S. Cellular
Retail & Consumer Brands
Walmart The Home Depot Macy's
Toys & Play
Spin Master Moose Toys LEGO Mattel Crayola
Sports & Fitness / Apparel
Nike Adidas The North Face
CPG & Personal Care
Unilever / Dove Johnson & Johnson Herbalife
Government & Civic
United States Army Army National Guard United States Air Force United States Marine Corps Ad Council
How a partnership works

From first conversation to year three.

Every Zim Cares program is built the same way. Co-designed with the brand partner and educator advisors, launched at pilot scale, measured across all four tiers, and scaled into multi-year presence. The programs that compound are the ones that matter.

01

Co-design with your team.

We build the program with your purpose, brand, and product team, alongside our educator advisors, so it serves students first and brand objectives alongside.

02

Launch at pilot scale.

First-year launch in the right number of schools to prove it works. Typically a pilot cohort, with opt-in participation and baseline measurement captured from day one.

03

Measure & report across four tiers.

Student Impact, Reach, Brand Lift, and Business Outcome, delivered as a report your team can take to the CMO, the CFO, and the purpose committee.

04

Scale into multi-year presence.

Year two expands. Year three deepens. By year five, the program is a line item educators plan around, and a channel your competitors can't buy their way into.

Our promise

Built on principles schools can trust.

These aren't rules we work around. They're the reason schools choose our programs, and the reason brand partners get real, durable value when they invest through us.

Always free for schools

Brand investment funds the program. Schools never pay.

Always educator's choice

Completely voluntary. Opt in because it works for students.

Student benefit first

Every program educator-reviewed. If it doesn't help students, it doesn't ship.

Student data stays with schools

COPPA & FERPA compliant. Student info is never shared with brand partners. Ever.

Educators shape programs

Teacher input drives design. Educators are partners, not recipients.

Let's build a program that's still running in year five.

25 years of programs educators chose. Let's design one for your brand, and for the students it should serve.

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Educator looking for free classroom programs?
For educators

Free programs your students will actually remember.

Zim Cares partners with trusted organizations to provide free classroom programs, posters, activities, contests, and student engagement tools. Register once. Receive invitations when new programs match your grade level.

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Because of your programs, our school set a new accelerated reading record! We have never had so many students excited about checking out a book from our library. Thank you for all your support!
Nancy Zettle, 4th Grade Teacher
I always look for fun arts and crafts projects for my students because that's how children express themselves best. The programs Zim Cares sends our school allow our students to learn from the best resources.
Toni Bekker, Art Teacher

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