new york city key people charles best founder revenue 77 873 828 1 number of employees 88 2 website donorschoose.org donorschoose.org is a united states based 501 c 3 nonprofit organization that allows individuals to donate directly to public school classroom projects . founded in 2000 by former public school teacher charles best donorschoose.org was among the first civic crowdfunding platforms of its kind . 3 the organization has been given charity navigator s highest rating every year since 2005 . 4 contents 1 history 2 background 3 eligibility 4 press 5 references 6 external links history edit donorschoose.org was founded in 2000 5 by charles best a social studies teacher at wings academy in the bronx . charles and his colleagues often spent their own money on school supplies for their students and discussed materials they wished they could afford in the teachers lunchroom . charles envisioned a platform for individuals to connect directly with classrooms in need providing materials requested by teachers . with the help of his students he built the first version of the site in his classroom and invited colleagues to post material requests . charles anonymously funded the first 10 project requests to demonstrate the effectiveness of the site . in 2003 the oprah winfrey show featured charles best in a segment on innovative teachers which aired on june 20 . 6 traffic generated from the show crashed the site but viewers donated 250 000 to classroom projects . the sustained exposure from the oprah winfrey show allowed donorschoose.org to expand from the new york city region to key metropolitan areas across the country . in 2006 following the destruction of hurricanes katrina and rita the site opened to public school teachers in louisiana mississippi alabama and texas . in 2007 the site opened to every public school in the united states . 7 as of september 2016 donors have contributed over 400 million to fund more than 750 000 classroom projects posted on the site reaching 19 million students in public schools across the united states . real time impact statistics are available on the donorschoose.org impact page 8 and open source classroom data is offered to developers . 9 background edit donorschoose.org enables teachers to request materials and resources for their classrooms and makes these project requests available to individual donors through its website . donors can give 1 or more to projects that interest them which are searchable by school name teacher name location school subject material and keywords . donorschoose.org then purchases necessary supplies and ships them directly to the schools . every project contains a line item budget and a description of the project . all donors receive photographs of the project taking place in the classroom and a letter from the teacher . donors who contribute 50 or more to a project also receive hand written thank you notes from students . 10 the operations of donorschoose.org are 100 % supported by an optional 15 % donation to overhead teacher outreach maintenance and build out of the donorschoose.org website . 85 % of individual donors opt to include this donation . 11 eligibility edit donorschoose.org is open to all public and public charter schools in the united states as well as ged and pre k programs run by public school systems . 12 all front line educators are eligible to create accounts on the site and submit project requests . this includes teachers librarians guidance counselors school nurses and full time teachers who also act as coaches all must work directly with students for 75 % or more of their time . 13 those who are not eligible include principals administrators pta members teachers assistants student teachers substitutes part time teachers after school teachers or staff developers . press edit donorschoose.org appeared in a doonesbury strip on september 9 2007 . 14 it was mentioned in an interview with craig newmark on the october 18 2007 episode of the colbert report 15 and again on march 19 2008 september 27 2011 16 and december 13 2012 as a recipient of host stephen colbert s super pac americans for a better tomorrow tomorrow . 17 charles best spoke at the first annual forbes 400 summit on philanthropy in june 2012 . 18 in may 2013 donorschoose.org mobilized donations in support of educators in moore oklahoma whose schools were devastated by an ef5 tornado . cbs featured donorschoose.org as a trusted organization assisting the relief effort in oklahoma . 19 fast company featured donorschoose.org as one of its most innovative companies in 2011 . donorschoose.org was the first charity to be given this distinction . 20 in february 2014 donorschoose.org was listed in the top 10 most innovative companies and the organization was featured as february s cover story . 21 references edit donorschoose.org form 990 2015 donorschoose.org about kickstarting utopia crowdfunding lets you route around the man greg beato reason.com . february 2014 . charity navigator rating donorschoose.org donorschoose.org our story imdb the oprah winfrey show . episode list 2003 donorschoose.org our story donorschoose.org impact donorschoose.org open datasets overview donorschoose.org how it works donorschoose.org impact donorschoose.org what kinds of schools does donorschoose.org serve donorschoose.org am i eligible to set up an account and submit a project doonesbury september 9 2007 colbert report october 18 2007 colbert report march 19 2008 colbert report december 13 2012 donorschoose s charles best pioneering citizen philanthropy forbes sept. 17 2012 how to help those hit by the oklahoma tornado cbs news may 23 2013 most innovative companies 2011 fast company nov. 30 2011 beyond school supplies how donorschoose is crowdsourcing real education reform fast company february 2014 external links edit donorschoose.org website charitynavigator analysis of donorschoose.org retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title donorschoose & 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