Top Bloggers Compete in Support of Public Schools

DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge Sets Off Philanthropic Clash of the Titans

Google, Yahoo!, Six Apart, and Federated Media To Give Awards

NEW YORK, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Bloggers big and small, including top sites such as Engadget and TechCrunch, challenged their readers today to fund classroom projects in high-need public schools. Google, Yahoo!, Six Apart, and Federated Media will give awards to the bloggers who inspire the most generosity between now and the end of the month.

Powering this "Blogger Challenge" is DonorsChoose.org, an acclaimed nonprofit website where teachers post projects to fulfill student needs, and donors from all walks of life can choose the projects they want to support.

At DonorsChoose.org, bloggers have created challenge pages listing their favorite classroom projects and urging their blog readers to donate to those projects. Engadget and TechCrunch, the #1 and #3 blogs on the Web, have set up challenge pages featuring technology requests such as "Teaching Literacy Through Podcasts" ($390) and "Laptop For Learning" ($925).

Lockhart Steele, former Managing Editor of Gawker Media, has also tossed his hat into the ring. "We aim to show that Curbed, Eater, and Racked readers are some of the most engaged and generous of any blog readers out there," Steele said. In keeping with the focus of his three blogs, he has opened a challenge page on DonorsChoose.org featuring food- and neighborhood-focused projects such as "Learning Nutrition Through Play" ($119) and "Neighborhood Ethnography Using MP3 Players" ($1,076).

Other notable bloggers who have joined the competition include Fred Wilson of aVC.com, Kara Swisher of BoomTown fame, Anil Dash, ApartmentTherapy, Overheard in New York, Gear Live, and Timothy Ferriss, the #1 NY Times bestselling author.

DonorsChoose.org displays "leader boards" ranking the generosity each blogger has inspired from his/her readers. During a beta launch of the platform, Sarah Bunting of TomatoNation.com leapt to the top of the leader boards after offering to shave her head if readers funded all $30,000 of classroom projects on her challenge page. Her readers rose to the challenge, and the resulting head shave was viewed 80,000 times on YouTube. Now, she is challenging her readers to fund $40,000 of classroom projects and will, in return, wear a tomato costume for an entire day, including at 30 Rockefeller Center, where she works.

Google will give an award to the bloggers who generate the most financial support for public school classrooms in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. Yahoo! will award the bloggers who engage the greatest number of readers, and Jerry Yang, the company's

co-founder and CEO, will take the winning blogger out to lunch.

"The DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge could inspire the blogosphere to help hundreds of thousands of students from low-income communities," said Yang. "This challenge represents a great union of citizen journalists and citizen philanthropists. Yahoo! is excited to see which bloggers can engage the most readers in improving our public schools."

Six Apart will award the bloggers who reach the greatest number of students. "I'm thrilled to see the blogosphere showing its true colors by supporting students through DonorsChoose.org," said Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist at Six Apart and one of the earliest bloggers. "The communities around LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad, and Movable Type have always been generous, so it's natural for us to award the bloggers who help the most kids."

Federated Media will award the bloggers who come up with the most creative incentives for readers to give. "Federated Media is proud to be part of the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge," said John Battelle, founder and CEO of FM and a founder of Wired Magazine. "We're happy to introduce our creative authors to the innovators at DonorsChoose.org, and we look forward to the results of these charitable conversations."

Many of the bloggers participating in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge have small but engaged readerships.

"My readers care a lot about science education, and DonorsChoose.org lets them help real kids in public school classrooms in a way that feels very immediate and personal," said Janet Stemwedel of Adventures in Ethics and Science, one of 15 members of the ScienceBlogs community who have set up challenge pages to fund math and science classroom projects. "Succeeding in the Blogger Challenge is less about how many readers you have and more about the relationship you have with those readers. Even without big traffic, a blog with caring and committed readers can make a huge difference for kids."

About DonorsChoose.org

DonorsChoose.org liberates every public school teacher to be a change maker, and enables every citizen to be a philanthropist. At this not-for-profit 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 area of interest, learn about classroom needs, and choose to fund the project that she/he finds most compelling. Every donor hears back from the classroom they chose to help. At DonorsChoose.org, someone giving $10 enjoys the same choice, impact, and vivid feedback that -- until now -- have been reserved for millionaire benefactors.

DonorsChoose.org was founded in 2000 by a social studies teacher in the Bronx. Since its inception, citizen philanthropists from all 50 states and 10 countries have funded more than 30,000 classroom projects at DonorsChoose.org, channeling over $13.2 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.

Contact: Charlotte Weiskittel, 212-239-3615 x 220, charlotte@donorschoose.org