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Have you reached out to teens or friends who know any teenagers yet? Time’s running out to engage them!

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!

We know Charles as our fearless leader and founder of DonorsChoose.org.  But he will now be remembered among the elite group of business’s young rising stars—Fortune’s “40 under 40″ list. Charles is listed alongside the founders of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other young innovators, value creators, and agents of change across sectors. Learn about Charles’ background, missed career opportunity, and more online.

We are thrilled that HP is sponsoring the DonorsChoose.org Social Media Challenge and helping dedicated bloggers and twitterers improve classroom experiences.

To kick off the Challenge, HP supported every single Giving Page with a $50 donation to a classroom project. This contribution really jump-started the contest and inspired other donors to join in the fun.

Next week, we will distribute the remaining $200,000 of HP’s contribution to all Social Media Challenge Giving Pages.  But this time, the participant’s share will be calculated based on the percentage he or she raises by Sunday, October 25, 2009.

Tens of thousands of dollars for classroom resources are up for grabs, so if you are participating in the Challenge this year, keep those blog posts, tweets and status updates coming! Or support your favorite blogger or twitterer here!

POSITION ANNOUNCEMENT: Associate Director

ORGANIZATION: DonorsChoose.org

LOCATION:  San Francisco, CA

Organizational Overview:  DonorsChoose.org is a simple way to fulfill needs and foster innovation in public schools.  At this nonprofit website, public school teachers submit their best ideas for materials and experiences that their students need to learn—everything from a classroom library, to basketballs, to a field trip to the zoo.

Any individual can search by areas of interest, learn about classroom needs, and fund the projects they find most compelling.  All donors then hear back from the classrooms they chose to help.

Since its inception, citizen philanthropists from 50 states and 10 countries have funded more than 88,000 classroom projects at DonorsChoose.org, channeling over $35 million of resources to students in low-income communities.  Recognition of DonorsChoose.org includes the Nonprofit Innovation Award given by Stanford Business School and Amazon.com; the Fast Company Social Capitalist Award; a Global Technology Laureate from the TECH Museum of Innovation; and selection by Ashoka.  Major supporters include eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Yahoo! co-founder David Filo, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

Position Overview:  The West Region Associate Director will take an active role in expanding DonorsChoose.org across a 14-state region.  S/he is responsible for cultivating new and existing individual, corporate, and foundation supporters, as well as developing and executing strategies for district outreach and teacher engagement.  Reporting directly to the West Region Vice President, the Associate Director position is a unique opportunity to be a part of an innovative, fun, high-profile, and rapidly growing organization that is changing the face of philanthropy and the lives of students from low income families

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, board meetings, 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:

·          3 – 6 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

·          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

·          Some travel (up to 30%) 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 upload 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 and addressed to Carolina Martin at http://jobs.cgcareers.org/application.aspx?id=1453 .  Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

DonorsChoose.org is an equal opportunity employer committed to

identifying and developing the skills and leadership of people from diverse backgrounds.

Save the earth and win an expenses-paid trip for your class to the Disneyland® Resort with Disney’s Planet Challenge! Disney’s Planet Challenge is a fun, free and highly-acclaimed project-based environmental competition for 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade classrooms across the United States. This year Disney has partnered with DonorsChoose.org to spread the news to teachers AND help you get the resources you need to do a hands-on project to help the environment.

Thanks to Disney’s Planet Challenge, DonorsChoose.org is offering a “Double Your Impact” challenge for all 4th, 5th, and 6th grade eligible environmental class projects under $650 in materials submitted before November 1st. Any project posted to DonorsChoose.org that meets these criteria will receive 50% funding via this offer once other donors choose to join in and fund the rest of the project. So get creative and think of classroom projects that encourage students to think and act environmentally at school and at home. Click here for examples of some cool hands-on environmental projects.

Additionally, any teacher that is registered for Disney’s Planet Challenge and submits a qualifying  environmental project to DonorsChoose.org by November 1st will receive full funding by 12/18/2009. For more information on Disney’s Planet Challenge click here.

To participate in Disney’s Planet Challenge, teachers must register at Disney’s Planet Challenge website by December 18, 2009. Then, in addition to the regular DonorsChoose.org thank you process, teachers will be asked to complete this project with your class and submit the results to Disney by February 26, 2010. If your project wins this contest, you will earn a class trip for 3 days to Disneyland or 56 other prizes.

Teachers, submit your environmental project today to take advantage of this funding!