I've met with titans of Silicon Valley because they're investing in our national expansion. I've had lunch with Claire Danes because she sees DonorsChoose.org as the best way to help students in public schools. I would never, ever rub shoulders with such people if I had followed the typical career path in investment banking or whatever.
Charles Best
Acknowledging someone is an act of altruism in the first place, so converting that act of altruism into a pizza party or company fleece jacket or a gift card is fine, but it's not in keeping with spirit in which it all began.
We are so humbled and grateful to Google for their devotion to our teachers and students.
It's hard to enlist the support of people you don't know, but it's critical to growing your career, finding new customers, and building out your team.
My colleagues and I were always having the same conversation in the teachers lunchroom about books we wanted our students to read, a field trip we knew would really bring a subject matter to life... And most of us would go into our own pockets to buy just paper and pencils.
I believe if we can crowdsource educational solutions to teachers on the front lines, who often know their kids better than anyone, we will unearth and generate better-targeted, smarter ideas.
To take on the jobs of tomorrow, students must become more than good test takers. They need to become makers who design, sketch, build, and prototype. And their classrooms will need more than a chalkboard and a set of textbooks.
My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy paper and pencils, and often we couldn't get the resources that would excite our students about learning.
At DonorsChoose.org, we believe that teachers are unsung heroes.
Whether you're raising money for a cause, a personal need, or a project, most crowdfunding sites center on you hitting up people you already know. These sites make it easier to tap your social network for funds, but only the most compelling cases inspire support from strangers.
I was a social studies teacher at a high school in the Bronx for five years.
We love that our platform allows people to give.
I've been a fan of bass fishing for as long as I can remember.
Ideally, DonorsChoose.org wouldn't be necessary for basic supplies, but I hope we'll always be a platform for teachers to request resources that would bring the learning experience of their students to the next level.
DonorsChoose was conceived at a Bronx public high school where I taught social studies for five years. In the teachers' lunch room, my colleagues and I often lamented a problem that drained learning from students and creativity from teachers: a lack of funding for essential materials and for the activities that bring subject matter to life.
If we can show the world that there are students in all sorts of communities who don't have the material they need for a great education, that will be the first major step to doing something about it.
We all remember special days at school, whether it was going on a field trip, doing a science experiment, or performing in a school play.
Teachers are heroes.
We reflect on our successes and failures at monthly staff meetings.
In the sixth grade, I planned to start my own business making custom fishing lures.
Arianna Huffington is one of the greatest champions of this idea - that anyone can make a difference.
Whenever there are changes to school budgets, we know teachers feel it first.
An art project, a hands-on science experiment, or a special field trip can transcend textbooks and flash cards. No one knows this better than those teaching students with autism.
We aren't prescribing anything. We're not claiming to be the experts. We aren't advocating for or against any program. We are going to create a platform that says very explicitly what it is that teachers experience in their classrooms.
We think there's nothing like sunlight to mobilize and energize citizens to demand change of their elected officials.
It just felt wrong that the kids I was teaching didn't have the same access to materials that I did when I was a student.
If you track your organization's creativity by the number of brainstorms on your calendar, you're missing out. It's more important to capture those unplanned sparks of inspiration that so often come when we're cooking dinner, taking a shower, or commuting to work.
No matter the circumstances, teachers show up each day ready to give their students every opportunity possible, and they never give up.
I was lucky enough to go to boarding school for my high school years, and I had all the resources that I possibly could needed - squash courts and every book you ever would have wanted, every art supply.
Within a single school, teachers often encounter differences in poverty levels, parent involvement, and student readiness.
We've heard people say that teachers have no business going rogue and trying to select their own books, technology, and classes - and citizens have no business deciding what is worthy. We believe in teachers. We believe in the wisdom of the crowd.
DonorsChoose enables teachers not just to go public with learning needs in classrooms but also to unleash their imaginations about the best ideas to help students learn.
You have to wade through tons of 'no's' to get one 'yes,' and you can't let it go to your head when you get that yes.
The most incredible businesses are started by entrepreneurs who relentlessly pursue their passion, but passion works best with a thoughtful, ambitious-yet-grounded business plan.
At DonorsChoose.org, we've seen what technology can do for a classroom. We make it easy for teachers to request the materials they need most for their classrooms and for donors to make a meaningful contribution to education.
If anything, we hope that DonorsChoose.org is going to be a prompt, a nudge in the side of the public school system to improve and to start delivering these materials and experiences that students need and to make it easier for teachers to innovate.
Donorschoose.org is the one place where somebody with $10 gets the same level of impact and feedback from the recipients that Bill Gates gets when he's making a million-dollar gift.
After 14 years of running DonorsChoose.org as someone who had never written a line of code, I did do a three-month night school course. After all these years, I could at least speak some of the same vocabulary and have a first-hand appreciation for what my colleagues on the engineering team are doing.
Every day, teachers across the country excite their students with new opportunities and experiences.
Students can't dream big when classrooms lack books, microscopes, and robotics kits - or even paper, pencils, and paste.
We've established a free marketplace of teacher ideas and donor interests.
I'd listened to my colleagues in the teachers' lunchroom. I could tell they were passionate, fired-up people who had great ideas for strategies and projects to help kids learn better. They just didn't have the resources. I was frustrated, but I also knew it was a frustration felt by teachers all over the city.
America's best teachers are always looking for new ways to bring learning to life.
I think it's the strength of the idea that's made Donors Choose work, not me. I mean, I'm determined, and I work hard, but so does everyone else.
Students who learn to collaborate and negotiate - on Capitol Hill, in the board room, in everyday life - will outperform peers who have higher test scores.
Donors are sick of writing that $200 check to the Red Cross and not knowing whether it goes for the executive director's salary or the office rent.
Our brains are designed to solve some of our most complex problems when we're distracted by routine habits.
Our ideological dilemmas won't ever be solved by machines.
We make friends with people we admire, including those you might consider competitors, like charity: water, Kiva, and Global Giving. We get on a call with them and exchange ideas.
If you just believe in our democracy, and you want an informed electorate, public schools are in your interest, and I think our country is dependent on public schools, whether or not you personally have a kid in the public school system.
