|
|
By Daphra
Thursday,
Nov 19, 2009 at 4:55pm
In his updated book, “Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World” Matthew Bishop, American Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief of The Economist, and his co-author Michael Green, discuss how private money can help solve even the most difficult public problems. In the wake of last year’s global economic turmoil, he notes that the fiscal fallout of 2008 will scale back public budgets and government ambitions for at least a generation. Instead, Bishop suggests, government is being replaced by new players in the field of giving: private foundations and innovative non-profits.
In this new release, Bishop argues that online giving marketplaces, like DonorsChoose.org, GlobalGiving and Kiva, are quickly revolutionizing the realm of Philanthropcapitalism. In Chapter 13 of his book “We are all Philanthropcapitalists Now,” he notes that organizations like these are the ultimate agents of change in “mass philanthropy” since they have successfully democratized giving, allowing every global citizen to be a philanthropist. He writes “through sophisticated aggregation of their individual philanthropic decisions, these sites will also allow “microphilanthrocapitalists” with only a few dollars to give to achieve some of the ‘hyper-agency’ of a Bill Gates or George Soros, including by acting more effectively as a community and by forming new sorts of partnerships with the mega-philanthropists themselves”
This is the heart of the new approach to solving social problems that he believes is needed, based on creative partnerships between business, nonprofits and government. He writes, “A group of wealthy entrepreneurs and business leaders is increasingly taking the initiative in creating these innovative new solutions. Rejecting the idea that business is about short-term profits, damn the consequences to society and the environment, these philanthrocapitalists think the winners from our economic system should give back and that business can do well by doing good.”
We are honored to be included in the company of such great organizations in the book and are humbled by Matt Bishop’s recognition of how DonorsChoose.org is enabling everyday individuals to become philanthrocapitalists.
Interested in learning more about the book and how DonorsChoose.org fits into Bishop’s argument? Check out his website Philanthrocapitalism.net. The book is now available in paperback.
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Katie
Wednesday,
Nov 18, 2009 at 8:29pm
Support Baltimore Mustaches here!
Baltimore is at it again. Last night, gentlemen across the city gathered at The Reserve to shave their faces clean and start growing Mustaches for Baltimore Kids.
One of the reasons why we love Baltimore so much is because they seem to get more excited than any other city about their Mustaches for Kids “Growing Season”.
Check out Liz Bowie’s article in the Baltimore Sun.
And, check out this amazing email below from our Mustache hero, Dr. Andres Alonso, the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools. He is absolutely the best:
From: Andres A. Alonso, Ed.D [mailto:Partners@bcps.k12.md.us]
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 5:44 PM
Subject: Mustaches for Kids
November 17, 2009
Dear City Schools Partners and Friends,
Sometimes, someone has an idea so simple, so full of goodness and common sense that you just have to stop and wonder, “How did somebody not think of it before?”
One such idea, which I first learned about last year from Bob Heck, a member of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, is the spark of genius of the great organization, DonorsChoose.org.
We know that our teachers have extraordinary creativity, and that the discretionary funds they receive for classroom projects don’t begin to do that creativity justice. So DonorsChoose.org had the idea to bring together worthy projects proposed by teachers—incredibly creative and unique—and the contributions of the general public—both great and small. Then DonorsChoose.org had another bright idea: to combine this pairing of projects and donors with a Mustaches for Kids (M4K) Challenge, in which “growers” from across the United States and Canada grow mustaches to raise money for kids.
So last year, City Schools teachers and I participated in the M4K challenge and collectively raised $24,500 from 310 sponsors for classroom projects requested by our teachers through Donorschoose.org. We ranked 5th out of 30-plus participating cities—behind Chicago ($29,356), Charlotte ($64,843), San Francisco ($78,389) and New York ($80,901). This year I’d like us to do even better. Yes, of course I’d like to beat New York. But more importantly, I’d really like to see us raise more money for our kids.
So this evening I am going home to shave and for the second straight year I will be briefly sporting my naturally handsome and youthful, clean-shaven face. Be assured, the real me will be back before winter sets in. But right now, the City Schools teachers who are joining me in this challenge and I need your help. Please sponsor my mustache—or, if you absolutely must, the mustache of a fellow City Schools grower—and fund a classroom project requested by a City Schools teacher through DonorsChoose.org.
Click here, and then click the name of your favorite grower. This takes you to a page where you can choose from a list of projects needing sponsors, and all you need to do is choose one and make a donation. DonorsChoose.org takes care of the rest. It sends your money to the project you choose, it keeps tally of how much we as a school system raise overall, and it tracks how we rank among the competition. And because this allows us to raise money from across the country for Baltimore City’s classrooms, I urge you to share this message with all of your colleagues, family and friends.
Between now and mid-December a number of members of the City Schools family and I will be coaxing and preening our whiskers to raise money for classroom projects across the city, and we want you in on the fun! Watch our stubble grow, and yes, teasing is fair game—as long as you give…
Thank you. And thank you for all you do to support our kids and our schools.
Sincerely,
Andrés A. Alonso, Ed.D.
CEO, Baltimore City Public Schools
Mailing Address:
Baltimore City Public Schools
200 East North Ave
Baltimore, MD 21202
US
Support Baltimore Mustaches here!
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Daphra
Wednesday,
at 12:19pm
Huffington Post employees recently teamed up with DonorsChoose.org, volunteering their time to process Donor Thank-You Packages at our NYC headquarters for a memorable afternoon! The team, composed of various departments, helped put together and screen student thank-you notes. They got so into it that by the end they were reading student letters to each other and sharing reminiscing about the notes they wrote to their family members during their childhood.
Not only was this an incredibly humorous group of volunteers who make the experience entertaining, they got so into the feedback process that they didn’t want to leave. Luckily for us, Huffington Post is teaming up with DonorsChoose.org again in the near future to support classrooms.
On the topic of the Huffington Post, the site is highlighting “Game Changers” across various fields. Huff Post’s Game Changers celebrates 100 innovators, visionaries, and leaders in 10 categories who are harnessing the power of new media to reshape their fields and change the world. Our own founder, Charles Best, has been selected as one of the Top 10 Game Changers in the realm of philanthropy. Help him become an ultimate Game Changer by voting on the Huff Po site.
THANK YOU Huffington Post for your time and energy!
If your company is interested in volunteering in our NYC office, contact Associate Director, Yaritza Olmeda, at yaritza (at) DonorsChoose (dot) org.
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Candice
Wednesday,
Nov 11, 2009 at 7:53pm
HP is teaming up with DonorsChoose.org again to support classrooms. When you purchase any HP product through the Create Change program between now and January 31st, HP will contribute 4% of the purchase to the charity of your choice, including DonorsChoose.org. That adds up to a lot of critical classroom materials for students!
So, as you think about buying upcoming holiday gifts, replacing ink cartridges (or if you are just looking for a cool new laptop for yourself), consider making your purchase on the HP Create Change site and giving back to schools! And don’t forget to tell your friends about this offer – there is even a spiffy widget that you can use to share this program with your friends, colleagues and family. Thanks so much HP for helping students and teachers get the resources they need to succeed!
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Julie
Tuesday,
Nov 10, 2009 at 4:18pm
Thanks to the California Community Foundation and the FEDCO Charitable Foundation, DonorsChoose.org has a “Double Your Impact” offer for K-12 teachers in the following districts: ABC/Cerritos, Culver City, Norwalk-La Mirada or Pasadena Unified. The match offer is valid for hands-on, classroom projects or field trips requests for under $500 in resources that will help bring learning to life!
For this opportunity, we are looking for projects that include engaging and creative experiential learning activities, such as a hands-on math or science projects. Your project should increase student academic achievement in one of four areas: language arts, math, science or social studies and your essay should make these benefits clear. Priority will be given to projects that incorporate experiential learning that is linked to class curriculum or integrates community-related topics. Please note, NO requests for computer hardware or cameras will be considered.
Any project posted to DonorsChoose.org that meets these criteria will receive 50% funding via this offer once other donors choose to join in and fund the rest of the project. Funding will be spent on a first come, first served basis until the grants are spent out.
The FEDCO Charitable Foundation was created when the FEDCO chain of stores closed in 1999. More than $7 million was used to establish the FEDCO Charitable Foundation at CCF. CCF awards FEDCO Teacher Grants each year to fund hands-on, classroom projects or field trips that help bring learning to life. Grants range from $500 to $1,000 and support teachers of students in grades kindergarten through 12 in Cerritos, Culver City, Norwalk-La Mirada, Pasadena and Los Angeles Unified school districts.
CCF is L.A.’s foundation. It has been around since 1915 and has about $1 billion in assets. As the 53rd largest foundation in the nation, CCF grants out the second biggest proportion of its assets – 17 percent – among U.S. foundations. In fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, CCF granted $191 million as investments in the future of local communities. The foundation is known as one of L.A.’s most innovative investors in permanent, low-income housing and the biggest supporter of individual artists in the region. CCF is the largest scholarship fund manager in L.A., managing more than 150 scholarship funds worth $85 million, and it is a national leader in increasing services for returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. CCF holds more than 1,600 funds. To learn more, visit calfund.org.
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Candice
Monday,
Nov 9, 2009 at 4:20pm
From November 12th through 15th, GAP stores (Old Navy, The GAP, Baby GAP, and Banana Republic) will be offering their customers the chance to make a difference for public schools – just by going shopping! During these dates, use this coupon to receive 30% off at all GAP stores: http://www.gapinc.com/giveandget/donorschoose/. You’ll then get to allocate 5% of what you spend to help public school teachers at DonorsChoose.org. Tell your friends and family! (Don’t forget to print the coupon before you shop!)
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Julie
Monday,
at 2:22pm
We’re thrilled to announce that Southern California teachers will once again be the recipients of proceeds from this year’s Dancescape (the tenth annual!) event on November 14th in Beverly Hills at the Aqua Restaurant & Lounge. This all-night event will feature more than 25 dance performances, with all proceeds donated to dance, art, and music projects posted on DonorsChoose.org. See projects that will benefit.
Dancescape features some of the top talent in the Los Angeles dance world from jazz to salsa to bollywood and everything in between. Previous shows have included Mandy Moore from the Fox Television show “So You Think You Can Dance,” finalists from “America’s Got Talent,” members of the Hysterica, MyoKyo, and blue13 dance companies, and professional dancers fresh from tours with megastars like Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.
Confirmed acts include:
Andrea Ruiz * Alyssa Marrin * Benjamin Allen * bluethirTEEN dance co.
Boom Kat Dance Company * Brandi Krieger * Brockus Project Dance Company
The Broken Roses * Butter * Charlene Rose Dance Company * Dare to Dance
Efunk Dance Company * Emily Morrow * Everybody Dance * Fanatix Dance Co. *
FLiRT Dance Company * GCS Company * Ginger Broussard
Jackie Watson * Jacquelyn Sutkowi * Kayla Marin * Kersten Todey *
Kruciaal Element * LA Unbound * Live 2 Dance * Luigi Gonzalez
Mandy Moore * Mike Williams * MNR Dance Factory
The Pretenders Studio * Pretty In Pink * Rob Levy & Kelly Richardson
Stella McKenzie * Taft High School Dance Department * Tessandra Chavez
W Entertainment * Xpose Dance Company * The Zahira Dancers
For more information about this year’s event, please visit: http://www.cheshiremoon.org/
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Candice
Friday,
Nov 6, 2009 at 7:33pm
We are thrilled to be partnering with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation again this school year to bring math and science resources to classrooms in the Bay Area. Last year, the Foundation helped to fund over sixty compelling math and science projects, impacting more than 3,000 students! During the 2009-2010 school year, the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation is happy to fund classroom projects that provide robust learning experiences for K-12 public school students.
As science folks themselves, the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation truly understands the need to provide rigorous and meaningful learning experiences to students. The Foundation believes that a nation’s strength in the fields of math, science and engineering enables its capacity to perform, enhances its opportunities for innovation and leads to a better quality of life for society as a whole. To further this mission, the Foundation will provide partial or complete funding for math and science projects in which the teacher describes how the requested materials will enhance the curriculum or provide a way for the students to meet required standards. So, if you are a science or math teacher in Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Clara or San Mateo County with some great ideas for your classroom, submit your project at www.donorschoose.org/teachers. Make sure to include the words “curriculum” or “standards” in your project for funding consideration.
Thanks so much to the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation for partnering with DonorsChoose.org to bring science and math learning to life!
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Daphra
Wednesday,
Nov 4, 2009 at 12:37pm
Barclays Capital employees recently teamed up with DonorsChoose.org, volunteering their time to process teacher thank you packages at our NYC headquarters for a memorable afternoon! The team helped put together and screen feedback packages. They got so into it that by the end they were reading student letters to each other and sharing especially cute or funny thank you notes.The group had so much fun that they volunteered not just once, but twice.
THANK YOU Barclays Capital for your time and energy!
If your company is interested in volunteering in our NYC office, contact Associate Director, Yaritza Olmeda, at yaritza (at) DonorsChoose (dot) org.
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
By Daphra
Tuesday,
Nov 3, 2009 at 5:46pm
During the month of October, hundreds of bloggers, teachers, and twitterers devoted their time (and various methods of persuasion) to help inspire over $637,336 in donations to classroom projects via the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge Social Media Challenge, reaching over 116,437 public school students in need of essential learning materials. 4,545 of their readers, fans, friends, and followers helped galvanize the challenge by supporting public schools across the country in such a significant way. We’ve shattered all previous year’s Blogger Challenges thanks to the hardwork of every participant, teacher and citizen philanthropist, along with a $250,000 match offer from HP (read more, here).
Winners: By raising $314,208, mobilizing 1,121 readers and reaching 51,905 students, Sarah Bunting and the Tomato Nation community were the overall winners of this competition. They even toppled the all-time record raised by one Giving Page set in last year’s challenge when they raised over $111,000. This is truly a testament to how deeply they care about public schools and how effective Sarah has been at inspiring the entire Tomato Nation community. We urge you to take a look at the blog posts, comments and video from the past month to see how they were able to mobilize so effectively. Her “Bet Red” Giving Page, an extension of her casino-royale “Bunting’s 13″ theme, also had the most donors; 25% to be exact. Kudos to TomatoNation.com. We look forward to seeing the Tomato costume make its way to Atlantic City where it will undoubtedly bet red!
The other big winner of the Social Media Challenge were our Teachers, who threw their hat into the ring under the “We Teach. Those Who Don’t, GIVE!” Leaderboard. Teachers from all over the country banded together, under this awesome slogan, and helped raise $110,131 for their classrooms. Perhaps most telling about their success is that almost half of the donors of the Social Media Challenge were inspired by one of these teachers. There were a total of 2,401 donors to just this leaderboard!
Other winners in each of the Social Media Challenge leaderboards, include:
By Dollars Raised:
By Donors Mobilized:
- Seed Media ScienceBlogs: This community of ScienceBlogs collectively mobilized 267 donors. Leading the pack? Dr. Isis’s Sacred Temple!
- Tech Blogs: Venture Capital/Tech Blogger, Fred Wilson (A VC), inspired 213 individuals to give to his campaign.
- Gawker: Gawker’s properties mobilized 84 donors, proving they could put their money where their mouth is
- Twitter: Twitter, though a first-time community, entered the fray and were led by Livia. She engaged 52 of her followers in the Social Media Challenge.
We also would like to recognize all of the Social Media Challenge participants and a few communities who joined us in the Challenge for the first time this year. They include: Ariba, Stack Overflow, Seattle 2.0, Mashable, Dr. Pal, Geobloggers, Christina’s LIS, Twitter, Biz Stone, Livia Stone, SocialBrite, The Intersection, 80beats, Gawker Media, Brooklyn Schools, The Nature Blog Network, SB Nation, Serious Eats, Nosh with Me, innonate, David Berkowitz, Kim Molodofsky, Yvonne Michelle, the Colorado Blogging Community, the Twitter 140 Conference, Performance Magazine, Greentech, and the entire BlogHer community!
Interested in creating your own Giving Page and starting your own mini ‘challenge?’ Check out this section of our website!
Finally, if you want to keep up with the participants, our sponsor HP, or with us on Twitter, please click on the respective links.
THANKS!
If you enjoyed this post, you can subscribe to receive new posts via email or RSS!
|
|
