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As many DonorsChoose.org fans in Southern California know there has been a lot of buzz  recently because of the Wasserman Foundation campaign.  Our partnership was launched to help fulfill classroom needs, foster innovation in education, and create a new corps of micro-philanthropists in Los Angeles. Our goals were lofty, and we set aside two years to accomplish them. Due to unprecedented support and participation from the Los Angeles Community, we accomplished these goals in just 12 weeks.

Take a look at the amazing impact this has had in Los Angeles Unified School District:

• More than 9,400 teachers have posted projects
• 9,500 classroom projects have been fully funded in (this is 19% of all California projects ever funded through DonorsChoose.org!)
• 773 Schools had projects fully funded (nearly 75% of all schools in Los Angeles)
• 146,614 Angelenos used their gift cards to support a local classroom
• 356,309 students’ education have been enriched by the materials and experiences this partnership has enabled

“I am heartened by the amazing outpouring of support that our community has shown for our teachers and children,”  said Superintendent of LAUSD, John Deasy.  “Although the initial $4 million Wasserman investment in this campaign has been spent, I encourage all teachers to continue to post to DonorsChooseLA.org and I call on all Angelenos to continue to support our teachers through donations of any amount.  This is only the beginning of the endless possibilities of ways we can help our teachers and improve education in LA.”

Our own founder, Charles Best agrees, “This partnership is historic, representing the strongest participation we have seen in the eleven years we’ve been around. We are deeply appreciative that the leadership of the Wasserman Foundation agreed to shift all of their resources into one school year to make sure the maximum number of teachers were funded immediately.”

We hope our partnership will continue and grow the connection between Angelenos and the needs of their schools, and support will continue for the more than 5,000 Los Angeles projects that are will in need of funding.

About Wasserman Foundation

The Wasserman Foundation is a private family foundation based in Los Angeles.  The Foundation, created by Edie and Lew Wasserman in 1952, provides grants to organizations in the following areas:  education, health, arts & culture, and global initiatives.  For more information, please visit www.wassermanfoundation.org.

Many of you have noticed our exciting partnership with OO.com, a Next Jump company. Through this partnership, Next Jump is supporting critical technology projects on DonorsChoose.org and inspiring the next generation of engineers. As you may have also noticed, this partnership has evolved since it first launched in November, leading to many exciting changes on www.OO.com/SA500Kids.

As a pioneering technology company, Next Jump is continuously creating, tweaking, and innovating. In the words of their Founder and CEO, Charlie Kim, “We have a culture of innovation, and the ability to experiment is key in our investments.” These investments include SA500 Kids and Shop Save Give on OO.com.

This philosophy and approach explain an upcoming change that will impact the way voting works on www.OO.com/SA500Kids. To make sure our teachers and their supporters know what to expect, we’ve published full campaign details in our Help Center, along with information about this upcoming voting change. We’ll continue to add details to that page as we learn more, so stay tuned!

We’re grateful for the passion that DonorsChoose.org teachers and the Next Jump team display to bring technology into more public school classrooms across the country.

Great news teachers and donors! Disney’s Planet Challenge is partnering with DonorsChoose.org for the THIRD year in a row to support teachers submitting hands-on classroom projects aimed at helping the environment. Disney’s Planet Challenge is a fun, free and highly-acclaimed project-based environmental competition for 3^rd-8^th grade classrooms across the US, and to date they have funded over $650,000 in classroom projects focused on the environment!

Thanks to Disney’s Planet Challenge, 3^rd through 8^th grade teachers who submit an eligible classroom project to DonorsChoose.org will receive “Double Your Impact” funding! This means that hands-on environmental projects, costing $1000 or less (including all fees and the optional donation), submitted to DonorsChoose.org no later than December 1^st will receive 50% funding from Disney Planet Challenge, once other donors choose to fund the rest of the project.

Additionally, teachers that register for Disney’s Planet Challenge by December 18^th and submit a qualifying project to DonorsChoose.org will receive full project funding! How awesome is that?!

To participate in Disney’s Planet Challenge, teachers must register here by December 18, 2011. 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 16, 2012. Teachers will receive an incredible experience while students turn into dedicated caretakers of the Earth!

Visit DonorsChoose.org/teachers to submit your DonorsChoose.org project today!

DonorsChoose.org is excited to announce a fantastic new partnership with Horace Mann, an insurance and financial services company that works with teachers across the country and, much like us, was “Founded by Educators for Educators.”  Starting today, Horace Mann kicks off a national $250,000 Double Your Impact (DYI) funding opportunity focused on schools served by their agents.

To see if your school is included, please visit www.horacemann.com/teacher-lounge/donorschoose/school-availability/.  Schools have been hand-selected by Horace Mann based on their location relative to Horace Mann agents.  DonorsChoose.org and its staff do not control which schools are included in this opportunity.

Please note – to qualify for the DYI, a project’s total cost (including all fees and the optional doantion) must be $400 or less, and it must be submitted no earlier than February 1^st.

In conjunction with this sizeable funding opportunity, Horace Mann is also providing its agents with gift cards that they can use in their neck of the woods to help teachers make their classroom dreams a reality.  In total, Horace Mann has committed over half a million dollars to support students and teachers in need this spring, and we’re thrilled for their tremendous support in both funding classroom projects and helping spread the word about DonorsChoose.org to teachers across the nation.

To learn more about Horace Mann and all the financial and insurance solutions they provide teachers, please visit www.horacemann.com.

We are thrilled to announce today that we have received a tremendous and unexpected gift of $1,304,300 from the Claire Giannini Fund!  The donation will be used specifically to fully fund all 2,233  school projects in California, currently live on DonorsChoose.org.  In addition to fulfilling all California-based projects, the Claire Giannini Fund, located in San Francisco, is making a second grant of $100,000 to bring urgent projects from other states on the DonorsChoose.org site to under $99, with the hope that it inspires widespread donor support in bringing these projects to fruition.

This gift of over $1.3 million in funding will immediately impact 67,000 children in California with the vital resources they need to thrive in their classrooms.  We are so grateful for this chance to help so many teachers and students begin their next school year with the materials they need to  succeed and truly enjoy learning.

We are humbled and truly appreciate the generosity of the Claire Giannini Fund!

Check out a sampling of the amazing projects that are being brought to life.

Read more about the origin of this partnership and the incredible Claire Giannini Fund in the press release and see answers to frequently asked questions about this unique initiative!