We’re thrilled to announce that Southern California teachers will once again be the recipients of proceeds from this year’s Dancescape (the tenth annual!) event on November 14^th in Beverly Hills at the Aqua Restaurant & Lounge. This all-night event will feature more than 25 dance performances, with all proceeds donated to dance, art, and music projects posted on DonorsChoose.org. See projects that will benefit.

Dancescape features some of the top talent in the Los Angeles dance world from jazz to salsa to bollywood and everything in between. Previous shows have included Mandy Moore from the Fox Television show “So You Think You Can Dance,” finalists from “America’s Got Talent,” members of the Hysterica, MyoKyo, and blue13 dance companies, and professional dancers fresh from tours with megastars like Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.

Confirmed acts include:

Andrea Ruiz * Alyssa Marrin *  Benjamin Allen  *  bluethirTEEN dance co.

Boom Kat Dance Company *  Brandi Krieger  *   Brockus Project Dance Company

The Broken Roses *  Butter  *  Charlene Rose Dance Company  *  Dare to Dance

Efunk Dance Company *  Emily Morrow *  Everybody Dance *  Fanatix Dance Co. *

FLiRT Dance Company *  GCS Company *   Ginger Broussard

Jackie Watson  *  Jacquelyn Sutkowi  *  Kayla Marin  *    Kersten Todey *

Kruciaal Element *  LA Unbound *  Live 2 Dance  *  Luigi Gonzalez

Mandy Moore *  Mike Williams  *  MNR Dance Factory

The Pretenders Studio *  Pretty In Pink *  Rob Levy & Kelly Richardson

Stella McKenzie *  Taft High School Dance Department  *  Tessandra Chavez

W Entertainment  *  Xpose Dance Company *  The Zahira Dancers

For more information about this year’s event, please visit: http://www.cheshiremoon.org/

We are thrilled to be partnering with the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation again this school year to bring math and science resources to classrooms in the Bay Area. Last year, the Foundation helped to fund over sixty compelling math and science projects, impacting more than 3,000 students! During the 2009-2010 school year, the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation is happy to fund classroom projects that provide robust learning experiences for K-12 public school students.

As science folks themselves, the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation truly understands the need to provide rigorous and meaningful learning experiences to students. The Foundation believes that a nation’s strength in the fields of math, science and engineering enables its capacity to perform, enhances its opportunities for innovation and leads to a better quality of life for society as a whole. To further this mission, the Foundation will provide partial or complete funding for math and science projects in which the teacher describes how the requested materials will enhance the curriculum or provide a way for the students to meet required standards. So, if you are a science or math teacher in Contra Costa, Alameda, San Francisco, Santa Clara or San Mateo County with some great ideas for your classroom, submit your project at www.donorschoose.org/teachers. Make sure to include the words “curriculum” or “standards” in your project for funding consideration.

Thanks so much to the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation for partnering with DonorsChoose.org to bring science and math learning to life!

THANK YOU Barclays Capital for your time and energy!

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

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 significant way. 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:

By Dollars Raised:

• Fred Wilson:$37,957
• Livia Stone: $18,422
• Craig Newmark: $12,091
• Cosmic Variance: $11,525
• Geobloggers Gives Kids the Earth: $8,660
• Making a difference for Michigan Children: $7,994

By Donors Mobilized:

• Seed Media ScienceBlogs: This community of ScienceBlogs collectively mobilized 267 donors. Leading the pack? Dr. Isis’s Sacred Temple!
• 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!

Finally, if you want to keep up with the participants, our sponsor HP, or with us on Twitter, please click on the respective links.

THANKS!

• An anonymous donor has pledged to donate an additional $20,000 to TomatoNation.com, if they hit $280k (they just need a few more dollars). Support them, here.
• Fred Wilson has personally invited any citizen philanthropist who makes a donation to his Giving Page to meet him in person next week. Support him, here.
• ScienceBlog(ger), Professor Orzel, is offering up a puppet show and an advance copy of his book. Support him, here.
• 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.

With hours remaining (until 6 PM EST Friday), DonorsChoose.org is in 2nd place in Best Buy’s @15 campaign, thanks to your help after our kickoff post.  The standings:

KIPP:                                         6%
Project Ready:                       10%
DonorsChoose.org:             22% - that’s $55K for projects. Help us get to $100K+!
Pacer Center:                         62%

Each teen you help engage equates to potentially hundreds of dollars for students in need. Please take a minute of your time today to engage one teen. The impact could be a fully funded project!

Contact middle and high school teachers you know, family, colleagues, social groups, friends with teenage kids, etc. All the tools you need are below.

Thanks for your help!

Tools to Spread the Word

Email You Can Copy and Paste
Friends,

Do you know any teenagers who could spare 1 minute to help students in need? If so, those teens could help direct Best Buy’s corporate giving to classroom needs in low-income communities. The campaign ends on Friday, October 30, at 6 PM EST, but taking a minute of your time today to engage one team could mean a fully funded classroom project that gives students the resources they need to learn!

What I need you to ask teens you know to do:

Step 1: Take a second to click here (http://bit.ly/at15r) to register at Best Buy’s at15 site by 5 PM on Oct 30. The prize: 1500 points.

Step 2: Check your email to activate your at15 account, and then go here (http://www.at15.com/user) to log in with your user name.

Step 3: Click here (http://bit.ly/dcpts) and then allocate all of your points to DonorsChoose.org.

Step 4: Encourage all the teens you know to do the same! (You can forward this email or use the Facebook / MySpace posts below to spread the word!)

It’s that easy! Best Buy will donate a portion of $250,000 to DonorsChoose.org based on the number of points it gets.  DonorsChoose.org will use every dollar to fund classroom projects for students in need.

Thanks so much for your help!

Facebook / MySpace
2 days left! Know a teenager? Ask them to give a min today to help students! Register at http://bit.ly/at15r and then give points to DonorsChoose.org. Help turn Best Buy’s cash into classroom materials for high-need schools.

Twitter
Know teens? They can win $ for needy schools by registering & giving pts to DonorsChoose.org http://bit.ly/dcpts Pls RT!

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!
• Collectively, DonorsChoose.org Teachers (We Teach. Those who don’t, GIVE!) have raised $76,185, engaging 1,956 supporters.
• 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.

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 5^th with the New York City chapter’s Shaving Day, and the winning chapters will be crowned March 1^st.

We had you at Mustache…

1.   Check out www.donorschoose.org/m4k and see if there’s a chapter in your city.

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.

The DonorsChoose.org ‘Stache Brigade

Email:  m4k (at) donorschoose (dot) org

Twitter: Follow Mitch “Nurstache” Goldman

Facebook: Join M4K Nationwide Challenge Group

Mustache Resources

Mustaches for Kids Nationwide Challenge One-Pager

Mustaches for Kids Grower Starter Kit (how to set up your Grower Page, start spreading the word)

Mustaches for Kids Grower Starter Kit – COLLEGE EDITION

Mustaches for Kids National One-Pager – COLLEGE EDITION