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 significantway. 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:
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!
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:
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!
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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In the words of our intrepid M4K leader Mitch “Nurstache” Goldman, “Is your upper lip feeling charitable?” If your answer is “YES,” we want you AND your upper lip to help us rock students’ world this year as part of the 2009/2010 Mustaches for Kids Nationwide Challenge.
Mustaches for Kids?
Mustaches for Kids is a volunteer-run organization started in Los Angeles in 1999 to do good and have fun by growing Mustaches for children’s charities. Similar to a charity walkathon, for which participants collect donations per mile, “Growers” raise pledges for every day they cultivate mustaches over one month. Last year, hundreds of these Growers in 22 cities across the country engaged over 6,000 individuals to give over $320,000 in resources to students in high-need classrooms through DonorsChoose.org. Check out last year’s results.
It’s BACK!
What better way to stoke a mustache fire on the upper lip than a little old fashioned competition? DonorsChoose.org will again host an online competition between Mustaches for Kids chapters to see which city, company and college can grow the sweetest ‘staches and raise the most cash for students in need. The competition kicks off on November 5th with the New York City chapter’s Shaving Day, and the winning chapters will be crowned March 1st.
2. If you see your city, create a Giving Page and join your city’s Giving Group. Then email m4k (at) donorschoose (dot) org and we will connect you with the chapter organizer so you can join in the weekly ‘stachenanigans.
3. If you do NOT see your city, start a chapter. Email m4k (at) donorschoose (dot) org and we’ll help you get up and running. Also, check out the resources section below for a one-pager and starter kit, with lots more detail.
**If you’re more of a mustache-one-man show and want to Grow it alone, create a Giving Page and join the “Unaffiliated Growers Giving Group**
Remember, when you’re Growing for Kids, Grow like a champion.
Yahoo!, a long-time partner of DonorsChoose.org, is inviting everyone to share your creative singing voices by customizing and uploading your own Yahoo! Yodel. That’s right, the catchy Yahoo! trademark, which is part song, part celebration shout, is ready for you to modify, mix and simply make your own—in the Yahoo! Yodel Studio.
And, if you are lucky enough to be in the Big Apple on Tuesday, October 13, Yahoo! will be in Times Square to help New Yorkers unleash their inner rock star with a little help from Randy Jackson, LeAnn Rimes, Rob Cavallo, Kimberly Caldwell, Ryan Leslie, Pete Wentz and Jewel.
In return for submitting your own Yodel by 10/31/2009, Yahoo! will immediately provide you with a $10 DonorsChoose.org electronic Giving Card to help fund the classroom project of your choice on DonorsChoose.org. To learn how you can take advantage of this offer (and possible internet stardom), visit yodelstudio.yahoo.com.
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Every year during the Social Media Challenge, our month-long initiative to help raise awareness and $$ for public schools across the country, we interact with a whole host of folks using the power of emerging media to do good. There are the usual suspects like the Science Bloggers, who band together with a ton of fortitude and wit to fundraise, the Tech Bloggers, who are a particularly innovative lot when it comes to the methods they employ (see Kara Swisher’s kids), but most recently we’ve welcomed a whole slew of new participants. We hope to ’spotlight’ on a few of the new-comers (and old-timers) who are helping to make a difference this October.
First up, TWITTER!
This past year, Twitter has become one of the fastest growing online communities. Celebs, publications and even non-profits, like us, have all caught on to the craze. This October, Twitterers have harnessed their power and influence to do good by participating in the Social Media Challenge. A few standout participants:
The comedian-thinker…
Baratunde Thurston- a self-described “Comedian, Vigilante Pundit, Co-Founder Jack & Jill Politics, Web Editor at The Onion, and TV Host (Future Of…) with the Popular Science Channel.” Quite a mouthful! Currently a Fort Greene native, he’s out to support public schools in New York. Donate to his page, here.
The husband and wife duo duking it out to see whose more philanthropic…
Biz, co-founder of Twitter and his wife, Livia, a wildlife rehabber. What makes them awesome? The two are independently fundraising; Biz for literacy projects and Livia for projects throughout California. We try to stay impartial during the Social Media Challenge, but from the looks of things, Livia is holding it down for Cali, hard! Check out their Giving Pages, here (Biz) and here (Livia), as well as Biz’ twitter-rific Twitter Blog post “Join the Philanthropic Challenge.”
and finally, an awesome DonorsChoose.org supporter…
Anna Karplus, an everyday Twitter user (@nanstar), threw her hat in the ring to help out SoCal public schools and she’s already raised a whopping $500 in 5 days. Living proof that any person can help make a difference in the Social Media Challenge. Support her projects, here.
While we’re on the topic of Twitter, DonorsChoose.org has been actively using it as a tool to interact with our donors and teachers. Follow us @DonorsChoose…
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It’s not just the bloggers, twitterers and online media folks who get all riled up about the Social Media Challenge. Our staff has been drinking the lycopene kool-aid and seems to have a case of the TomatoNation.com.
Channeling Sarah Bunting and co. are our Operations Team mates (left to right): Abby F. (Customer Service Associate), Allyson G. (Office Manager) and Karina L. (Feedback Team Associate). How do you show your Social Media Challenge colors?
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On August 31, SONIC kicked off their new Limeades for Learning program by making surprise visits to schools in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Dallas and Fort Worth. SONIC staff and executives arrived unbeknownst to teachers to award large checks representing full funding of classroom projects posted by SONIC teachers.
Neil Kellogg, an Oklahoma City music teacher was one of the lucky teachers whose request for a portable digital recorder was funded during the SONIC school visits. “We’ve done some podcasts before using older technology, and this is going to make it a lot easier for the teachers to put something together quickly and get it on our Web site for people to see and hear,” Kellogg said.
Limeades for Learning allows drink buyers to vote on DonorsChoose.org teacher projects online using a special code. Sonic will spend $500,000 over the next five weeks to fund the top vote-getters.
The surprise school visits received a ton of positive media – a few stories and media clips highlighting the visits can be found below:
Now more than ever, public school teachers are digging into their pockets to provide back to school supplies for their students. When they can dig no deeper, students go without.
That’s why today, DonorsChoose.org is launching America’s Back to School Challenge, through September 15th.
The concept is simple. We have a broad network of supporters across the country. If we all give locally — to high poverty schools in our own state — as a nation, we can be a true force for students in every corner of America as they head back to school.
To join the Challenge, visitwww.donorschoose.org/back-to-school. Then select your state, and give any amount to a classroom project. Don’t let students in your state fall behind!
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Adam Lambert, “American Idol’s” eighth season runner-up, will support high-need public school classrooms on DonorsChoose.org. Watch this YouTube video of Adam asking his fans to join the cause and support arts and music projects on DonorsChoose.org.
“My fans have been so amazing in their support that I would love for them to contribute to something I believe in,” said Adam Lambert. “Every kid deserves a great education and access to the materials and experiences that make it possible. I’m so thrilled to team up with DonorsChoose.org and encourage my fans to support arts and music projects in classrooms.”
