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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!

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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:

• Fred Wilson:$37,957
• Livia Stone: $18,422
• Craig Newmark: $12,091
• Cosmic Variance: $11,525
• Geobloggers Gives Kids the Earth: $8,660
• Making a difference for Michigan Children: $7,994

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!

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In the last four weeks, bloggers, twitterers and their 4,327 friends/fans/followers have helped raised $585,691 for DonorsChoose.org classrooms in need of essential resources. With only 24 hours left in the Social Media Challenge, several of the participants need your help getting to the finish line. A few are even offering up some incentives to hit their goals:

• An anonymous donor has pledged to donate an additional $20,000 to TomatoNation.com, if they hit $280k (they just need a few more dollars). Support them, here.
• Fred Wilson has personally invited any citizen philanthropist who makes a donation to his Giving Page to meet him in person next week. Support him, here.
• ScienceBlog(ger), Professor Orzel, is offering up a puppet show and an advance copy of his book. Support him, here.
• BlogHer, the largest community of women bloggers, is targeting local cities in their fundraising. The Seattle Chapter is looking for some help in these final hours. The incentive? BlogHer, Mona, will “spray you with glitter.” Support any of their chapters, here.
• Liva, who sits atop our Twitter leaderboard, is offering up cupcakes to folks in the Bay Area who help fund the last few projects on her page. Support her, here. Mmm… her cupcakes look yummy!

Coincidentally, the Social Media Challenge ends on Halloween so even if none of these incentives suit your fancy, let’s give these classrooms a special TREAT! Click HERE to donate to ANY of the Challenge supporters.

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This weekend, the Bloggers, Twitterers and Teachers quietly hit a significant milestone in the Social Media Challenge, our month-long competition to raise awareness and funds for public schools. Together, they’ve raised $300,000 in just 26 days. Re-call that last year bloggers single-handedly raised $270,000. Thanks to an amazing match offer from HP we hope to cross the finish line (this Saturday, October 31st) strong.

How are they stacking up?

• The Bet Red Team (TomatoNation.com ) is showing their true colors, a committed and fearless bunch, they’ve raised $132,725 and have mobilized 965 citizen philanthropists!
• Collectively, DonorsChoose.org Teachers (We Teach. Those who don’t, GIVE!) have raised $76,185, engaging 1,956 supporters.
• Next up, Fred Wilson (A VC) holds it down for the Tech Bloggers. His community has raised $17,247!
• Rounding out the pack, a Twitterer, Livia! Using 140-character missives, she’s raised $9,824 through her followers!

With 5 more days left to the competition, it’s not over yet. There are thousands of classrooms and students in need of your help. Please support ANY of the Social Media Challenge participants who are blogging and tweeting their way to the finish! CLICK HERE to check out the Challenge.

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We know Charles as our fearless leader and founder of DonorsChoose.org.  But he will now be remembered among the elite group of business’s young rising stars—Fortune’s “40 under 40″ list. Charles is listed alongside the founders of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other young innovators, value creators, and agents of change across sectors. Learn about Charles’ background, missed career opportunity, and more online.

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