Our name is not great. It doesn't evoke anything about school or teachers. It doesn't roll off the tongue or stick in your head.
After 14 years of running DonorsChoose.org as someone who had never written a line of code, I did do a three-month night school course. After all these years, I could at least speak some of the same vocabulary and have a first-hand appreciation for what my colleagues on the engineering team are doing.
I saw first-hand that all schools are not created equal, and the students shouldn't have to go without all of the materials that they need for a great education.
Hardworking, passionate teachers know their students' needs better than anyone else in the school environment. If we can tap into their needs, we can unleash smarter solutions and empower those people on the front lines.
We believe in the wisdom of the front lines.
People on the front lines have the best ideas for how to improve things.
I'd listened to my colleagues in the teachers' lunchroom. I could tell they were passionate, fired-up people who had great ideas for strategies and projects to help kids learn better. They just didn't have the resources. I was frustrated, but I also knew it was a frustration felt by teachers all over the city.
We're thrilled to be a part of PNC's longstanding commitment to early childhood learning. Their generosity will help us expand the DonorsChoose.org platform to serve Head Start classrooms nationwide, ensuring that many more pre-K teachers have resources they need to give their students a solid educational foundation.
Our partnership with Dick's Sports Matter program aligns perfectly with our mission to address inequity in schools nationwide.
A really large number of teachers contact us offline testifying how valuable iPads are for their students.
Laptops are important, but before you spend a million dollars per school providing one laptop per child... won't you please spend $5,000 per school equipping every classroom with a document camera?
We think there's nothing like sunlight to mobilize and energize citizens to demand change of their elected officials.
We reflect on our successes and failures at monthly staff meetings.
Every day, teachers across the country excite their students with new opportunities and experiences.
Why is it that, when we want to think outside the proverbial box, we often put ourselves in one? We gather our team in a conference room, plaster the walls with sticky paper, and wait for the ideas to flow in a stream of marker scribbles. How often has your quest for innovation peaked at renovation - new dressing on old ideas?
Learning is a critical part of our mission and organizational culture.
Public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit to violins for a school recital to microscope slides for a biology class.
My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy paper and pencils, and often we couldn't get the resources that would excite our students about learning.
My colleagues and I were always having the same conversation in the teachers lunchroom about books we wanted our students to read, a field trip we knew would really bring a subject matter to life... And most of us would go into our own pockets to buy just paper and pencils.
My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy, paper, and pencils. I just figured there are people out there who would want to help teachers like us if they could see exactly where their money was going.
