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DonorsChoose.org and Freedom Writers - Amazing!

By Hylan Monday, May 12, 2008 at 3:00pm

Amazing partnerships are at the heart of all effective change-based nonprofit work! DonorsChoose.org has just struck up one such partnership; we are thrilled to announce that we are working with the Freedom Writers Foundation! I know you are asking yourself: “What in the world took so long?” Given how closely aligned our missions are, that is a great question. There is no excuse except that we have all been busy. Freedom Writers’ Executive Director, Faye Walsh, reached out to us last month and asked the same question – “what has taken us so long?” We both lamented that we hadn’t met before the movie! Oh well, it has literally been a love-fest between our organizations since then!

I assume that if you are on our site, you already know all about the incredible story of Erin Gruwell and the Freedom Writers. Further, you have probably seen Hilary Swank in the movie. In fact, if you are on our site, you probably embody the entrepreneurial spirit of the Freedom Writers. I won’t go into detail here, but if you don’t know about this group, check out their site at www.freedomwritersfoundation.org.

I spent this past Saturday morning with 150 teachers from all around the country who were participating in the Freedom Writers Institute. The morning was amazing (there is that word again). I followed Peter Thum, the founder of Ethos water. Peter talked to teachers about his journey and about the entrepreneurial spirit that made his dream a reality.

Quick side note- big “shout out” to Pierre Omidyar – he was an initial investor in Ethos Water and was responsible for what Thum calls the company’s “breakthrough!” As you know, Pierre Omidyar was there for us at our “breakthrough” this past September. Obviously, Mr. Omidyar recognizes great organizations when he sees them.

Anyway, I worked my way to the front of the hotel ballroom as Peter was answering the last question (a teacher was asking about raising money to bring her class to Africa – of course, I wondered if she had ever heard of DonorsChoose.org). Erin Gruwell raced over to me and gave me a big hug (who knew such a tiny person could give such a huge bear hug?). Finally, I was up and when Erin said: “please welcome Tee Hubbard from DonorsChoose.org,” the room erupted- literally! I couldn’t believe the reception we received. In retrospect, OF COURSE these folks knew all about us!! Needless to say, the presentation was a breeze - I was preaching to the converted for goodness sakes! By the way, I spoke to the incredibly motivated teacher who is bringing her class to Africa and she was two steps ahead of me – look for her proposal on our site soon.

I can’t express how excited I am about the notion of working with Erin, Faye and the rest of the teachers who work with the Freedom Writers Foundation. I think we are going do ground-breaking things together.

Finally, one personal note – working with these teachers this past weekend reminded me of a thought that I have been having since I started working here 2 ½ years ago. Every time I meet teachers who use DonorsChoose.org, I am always blown away not only by their commitment to their students but by their commitment to excellence. I wish I had a resource like DonorsChoose.org available to me when I was teacher.

Freedom Writers, the movie:

Real freedom writers:

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Teachers in the Southwest discover the power of their networks…

By Hylan Tuesday, Apr 22, 2008 at 9:32am

It started with a small idea in our office. Our colleague, Julie, posed the question: “what would happen if we challenged all of the teachers in the Southwest region to tell their network of friends and family that for one day only, DonorsChoose.org will match any donation they make to these teachers’ projects?” Great question, Julie, but… there was one problem – it was April 3^rd and we had to do this before April 11^th or run the risk of having the Operations team put a bounty out on our heads. So, Julie – ALWAYS up for a challenge – put out the word to our teachers! And….. OUR TEACHERS RESPONDED. On April 10^th, over 100 teachers participated in the challenge and they were able to generate over $24,000 in individual contributions (a total of $48,000 including the matching funds). AMAZING!

Needless to say, we were thrilled with the results of this campaign. However, we were even more excited by the response from our teachers. One teacher wrote: “Thank you so much! I see that the campaign did the trick and that my project is fully funded… Thanks so much for your work on behalf of our schools- I smiled all day.”

We hope that these teachers (and all of the teachers who saw how successful this campaign was) got to see – first hand- what some of our most successful teachers do as a matter of course! And, we hope that they continue to engage their networks to help get future proposals funded (teachers are often surprised by how happy people in their network are to help their classroom). Moreover, we hope that the donors who participated in this campaign got to see that they CAN make a huge difference in the classroom of their friend or family member.

This one-day campaign represented a core part of our mission- ordinary teachers and donors coming together to make an extraordinary difference.

Way to go!

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DonorsChoose.org delivers materials to Utah school via Pony Express

By Hylan Monday, Apr 14, 2008 at 11:30am

Ok, maybe it wasn’t exactly the Pony Express, but how many of our students can say that they had their DonorsChoose.org materials delivered via Stagecoach? Well, the students at Lincoln Elementary School in Salt Lake City can –courtesy of Wells Fargo and the George S. & Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation (our leadership partners in Utah).

On March 18^th, DonorsChoose.org held its first media event in Utah to celebrate the fact that DonorsChoose.org is available to every public school teacher in Utah and that individuals in 41 states have come together to donate over $100,000 to almost 10,000 Utah students. The DonorsChoose.org team (including Charles Best, Founder & CEO), Spencer Eccles, Lisa Eccles, several members of the George S. & Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation staff, the Wells Fargo team along with Joanne Milner, SL Mayor’s Educational Liaison and Mike Williams, Director SL School District Education Foundation, were all in attendance.

Media turnout was impressive – the event was picked up on every major television station in Salt Lake City (CBS, NBC & ABC) as well as the local NPR station and a few Spanish language channels (Charles even did an entire interview in Spanish) and we were also covered in several local newspapers, including the Deseret News.

Wells Fargo had one of its beautiful stagecoaches (pictured below) shipped in for this event and let students at Lincoln Elementary (along with a few adults) take a ride. Media captured Charles Best delivering resources to Ms. Paul’s classroom via stage coach. Charles then made a presentation to the classroom and the media outlets present. Ms. Paul and her students demonstrated how they have been using the many resources they have received through DonorsChoose.org and they discussed the impact that DonorsChoose.org has already had on their classroom and school. Finally, the event was capped off with Lisa Eccles and Charles Best handing students boxes of resources purchased via DonorsChoose.org.

The only disappointment was that Charles didn’t have cowboy boots and we couldn’t get him to yell “yee-haw” while riding the stagecoach. Oh well, I guess you can take the boy out of NY…..”