Crate and Barrel, the first ever GivingCard partner of DonorsChoose.org, recently completed its fifth GivingCard campaign, which put $25.00 DonorsChoose.org GivingCards in the e-mail inboxes of their customers across the country. The results of this campaign are staggering, with over 347,000 students positively impacted and more than 14,500 projects brought to life, resulting in 434,000+ hours of classroom instruction!Since 2006, the Crate and Barrel GivingCard partnership has allowed the company to partner with their customers in support of public education. Many Crate and Barrel staff have their own personal connections to the classroom. Crate and Barrel CEO, Barbara Turf, was a fifth grade mathematics teacher when she first began working at Crate and Barrel stores during her holiday and summer breaks. In fact, many of Crate and Barrel’s executives started out as teachers, which is probably why the company is known for doing such a great job educating its employees and customers about its products. As Turf commented, “we know from experience that without funding, many teachers would have to spend their own money to provide their students with even the most basic of supplies, not to mention the materials needed for projects that encourage creative discovery.”The feedback from Crate and Barrel GivingCard redeemers has been overwhelmingly positive. In addition to adding over $20,000 of their own funds, Crate and Barrel customers tweeted about the campaign and posted comments to their Facebook pages and blogs. A sampling of customer feedback is provided below:• “Wow, I just got the best email campaign ever. It was from Crate & Barrel - they sent a $25 voucher to redeem at DonorsChoose.org. So cool.”• “This weekend I had an email in my inbox from Crate and Barrel offering me the opportunity to donate to a project of my choosing - paid for by C&B. ….I found (to my delight) an opportunity to contribute to something very real, very concrete and very much in my own back yard…My thanks goes to Crate and Barrel for this wonderful gift to me and to the students in that classroom…”• “Crate and Barrel sent me a code to donate to my project of choice at DonorsChoose.org. This is seriously fantastic. Way to go Crate!”• “Excited to have received and used a DonorsChoose.org GivingCard from Crate & Barrel in my email inbox. Nice, C&B, very nice!”• “Joy! Crate and Barrel GAVE me $25 to donate at DonorsChoose.org and I gave it locally”• “Love Crate and Barrel, they just sent me an email with a $25 gift certificate to use at DonorsChoose & support a classroom. So cool.”• “Crate&Barrel's new outreach: gift card for donation to donorschoose.org - lets recipient participate in giving process. Clever idea.”DonorsChoose.org and teachers and students across the country would like to thank Crate and Barrel and its customers for their ongoing support of public school teachers and students!
