And Crate and Barrel isn’t the only one rising to the occasion. “Our customers are the ones who should be credited with making this campaign for schools in need a huge success,” says Crate and Barrel CEO, Barbara Turf. Customers were tasked with the daunting job of selecting the projects that would receive the funds from their $25.00 GivingCard. As one donor commented, “it’s impossible to stop after funding just one project when there are 1,000s of compelling projects that need our support.”  And many Crate and Barrel customers didn’t stop at just one project. Over the past four years, Crate and Barrel customers have contributed an addition $360,000 of their own funds to classrooms in need.

We would like to thank Crate and Barrel and their customers for their continued support of public schools!

The Bearville Outfitters Cards are a new offering from Build-A-Bear Workshop for customers to use at Buildabearville.com.  Buildabearville.com is a new online virtual world where customers of all ages can create an online character, interact with others, participate in games and quests, and learn about giving back to the community.  The virtual world is free to participate in, but customers can purchase Bearville Outfitters Virtual Stuff Game Cards to get rides, clothing, furniture, and a house for their online avatar.

Check out the press release for more information.  DonorsChoose.org is proud to continue partnering with Build-A-Bear Workshop and thankful for their commitment to helping children learn.

Be sure to visit a Build-A-Bear Workshop store (or their website) to purchase a Bearville Outfitters Virtual Stuff Game Card and select DonorsChoose.org as your favorite charity!

A group of Ms. A’s awesome students won the first-place prize, each receiving a Flip Ultra video camera of his own. (Check out their winning entry here: http://vimeo.com/4281016.)

Thanks, Ms. A, for being willing to request the resources your students need to thrive in the classroom, and thanks also to the donors who made her students’ win possible!

This school year, 95% of the 87 schools in the district have submitted a classroom request at DonorsChoose.org, and over 80% have been fully funded.  Seventy-six percent of SLPS teachers who submitted a project have been fully funded (which is higher than our national average of 66%), and over 400 teachers registered to use DonorsChoose.org for the first time.

Over 6,000 SLPS students have benefitted from over 8,000 hours of instruction, and donations in excess of $190,000 were provided from citizen philanthropists across the nation.  Local business leaders (most prominently  Maxine Clark, CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop and new DonorsChoose.org National Advisory Board member) also participated in funding projects and spreading the word to more teachers in the city.  We are so excited that SLPS students are having greater educational opportunities thanks to our wonderful donors, and we look forward to continued support of the district in the years to come.

Wachovia employees recently teamed up with DonorsChoose.org, volunteering their time to process teacher thank you packages at our NYC headquarters for a memorable afternoon!

Wachovia, one of the largest providers of financial services in the United States, offers a broad range of asset management, wealth management and corporate and investment banking services to clients nationally.

Wachovia is dedicated to improving education and strengthening their surrounding neighborhoods by giving back to their communities. In fact, Wachovia’s paid time away for community service policy gives every employee a few paid hours a month to volunteer. Last year, Wachovia employees logged more than 600,000 hours of volunteer community service!

THANK YOU Wachovia for your time and energy! It was much appreciated!

If your company is interested in volunteering in our NYC office, contact Northeast Associate Director, Yaritza Olmeda, at yaritza(at) DonorsChoose (dot) org.

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!

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:
•    In partnership with the Vice President, develop and implement a regional strategy for engaging corporate and foundation partners through DonorsChoose.org managed giving programs
•    Prospect, cultivate, execute, and evaluate corporate partnerships to score branded marketing campaigns ensuring the highest levels of customer service
•    Identify, cultivate and solicit high net worth individual donors via in-person meetings and/or events
•    Independently structure, analyze and manipulate DonorsChoose.org data for grants, media requests, reports etc.
•    Continuously track all contacts, leads, notes, and funding opportunities in our CRM database,  SalesForce.com
•    Collaborate across regional and national teams to share best practices and inform the systems and
processes that will influence the future of DonorsChoose.org

Qualifications:
•    A minimum of 3, with 5 or more preferred years of fundraising, marketing, sales and/or management experience with demonstrated success reaching or exceeding aggressive goals; familiarity with the philanthropic landscape in Seattle and San Francisco is strongly preferred
•    Team player with a strong passion for the mission and vision of DonorsChoose.org
•    Comfortable with a wide range of tasks ranging from strategic planning to tactical execution and implementation
•    Entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to work in a self-directed environment required
•    Excellent written and verbal communication skills and strong customer-service orientation
•    Detail-oriented and organized, with the ability to coordinate multiple projects simultaneously
•    Desire to work in a fast-paced, startup-like environment with aggressive growth plans
•    Travel (up to 50%) is required
•    Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required; advanced degree preferred

Compensation:
DonorsChoose.org offers a competitive salary with excellent benefits, which include health, dental, and vision coverage; a non-contributing 401K plan; and 5 weeks paid vacation plus national holidays.

To Apply:
Please email a resume and thoughtful cover letter, outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position and stating how you heard about this opportunity, both in Word format.  Address application to Carolina Martin at Carolina@donorschoose.org subject line “West Deputy Director Position”.  Preference will be given to applications received by Friday, June 19, 2009.

Own the 1967 Pontiac Firebird seen in the 2003 blockbuster, The Matrix Reloaded. Next time you pull up at the light and get a few stares, it could be because you are driving the muscle car from the ultimate action movie trilogy, the Matrix. Available for auction at ebay.com/matrix.

The Firebird was donated to DonorsChoose.org by the vehicle’s owner, Matrix trilogy co-writer and director Andy Wachowski. Wachowski who has previously supported DonorsChoose.org, generously offered for vehicle auction proceeds to be directed towards classroom projects.

One lucky winner will drive around in style in this mint condition 1967 black Pontiac Firebird. “Niobe’s (Jada Pinkett Smith) muscle car was cast to contrast Morpheus’(Laurence Fishburne) boxy “suicide door” Lincoln and its principle scenes took place in our ode to My Dinner with Andre, the car chase scene. Originally there were three stunt cars used in the filming of Reloaded, two of which were totaled,” says Andy Wachowski. “This is a priceless opportunity to own a piece of cinematic history and provide much needed resources for classrooms on DonorsChoose.org.”

The auction is live now through June 21 at ebay.com/matrix. Managed by auction management firm, Auction Cause.

“With President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, there is much debate about what this selection would mean for the future of United States law. As debate continues and the Senate confirmation process moves forward, young students across the country have the opportunity to follow the historical process firsthand. Moreover, teachers now have a unique opportunity as well — provided they have the resources available to support their curriculum.”

See the rest of the article on the Huffington Post….

Walnut Glen Academy fifth graders got the chance to share their museum for the entire school and parents last week, and invited Mr. Alexis and his sponsors to witness the impact his mustache made on the students.

The museum filled the entire gym and students dressed in elaborate costumes performed skits centered around the Lewis & Clark expedition. Subjects included excerpts from Lewis’ journals, the Louisiana Purchase, food they ate on the trail, animals they discovered, Native Americas they encountered and even lesser-known people who played a crucial role in the expedition.

Click here to view the “Lewis and Clark” project.

Click here to learn more about Mustaches For Kids.