Top 50 Charles Best Quotes

I think there are really are some public schools, incredibly successful public schools, that are inculcating a real educational ethic in their students.

I think philanthropy is so much more in keeping with spirit of shouting someone out than a material reward.

No matter the circumstances, teachers show up each day ready to give their students every opportunity possible, and they never give up.

People not only want to support public schools, but people warm to this idea of being a philanthropist, even if they might have only have $5 to spare.

Our only political stance is this: listen to these teachers.

Hardworking, passionate teachers know their students’ needs better than anyone else in the school environment. If we can tap into their needs, we can unleash smarter solutions and empower those people on the front lines.

Our name is not great. It doesn’t evoke anything about school or teachers. It doesn’t roll off the tongue or stick in your head.

One thing that gets missed a lot is that DonorsChoose is merely a place where teachers post wish lists. That doesn’t do justice to the level of innovation that we see taking place on our site.

Arianna Huffington is one of the greatest champions of this idea – that anyone can make a difference.

We will employ almost every strategy and hustle in any possible way to recruit top engineers to our team.

We reflect on our successes and failures at monthly staff meetings.

For my 9th birthday, my only wish was to eat like a farmer boy. I had devoured ‘The Little House on the Prairie‘ book series and wanted to be like Almanzo Wilder, the protagonist of ‘Farmer Boy,’ one of the later installments in the ‘Little House’ series.

I was a social studies teacher at a high school in the Bronx for five years.

In the sixth grade, I planned to start my own business making custom fishing lures.

It just felt wrong that the kids I was teaching didn’t have the same access to materials that I did when I was a student.

Students can’t dream big when classrooms lack books, microscopes, and robotics kits – or even paper, pencils, and paste.

We think there’s nothing like sunlight to mobilize and energize citizens to demand change of their elected officials.

DonorsChoose enables teachers not just to go public with learning needs in classrooms but also to unleash their imaginations about the best ideas to help students learn.

I’d love DonorsChoose.org to become a place where teachers can post innovative, out-of-the-box projects that they can’t get funding for traditionally.

I had really good relationship with my students; it definitely took me a few months before I had my students’ respect.

Whether you’re raising money for a cause, a personal need, or a project, most crowdfunding sites center on you hitting up people you already know. These sites make it easier to tap your social network for funds, but only the most compelling cases inspire support from strangers.

Donors are sick of writing that $200 check to the Red Cross and not knowing whether it goes for the executive director‘s salary or the office rent.

If you just believe in our democracy, and you want an informed electorate, public schools are in your interest, and I think our country is dependent on public schools, whether or not you personally have a kid in the public school system.

To get DonorsChoose.org to scale, we first need to increase the viral appeal of our website.

You have to wade through tons of ‘no’s’ to get one ‘yes,’ and you can’t let it go to your head when you get that yes.

Imagine someone with $10 finding a classroom project that speaks to them personally, seeing where their money is going, and realizing that they don’t need to be a millionaire to make a difference.

If we can show the world that there are students in all sorts of communities who don’t have the material they need for a great education, that will be the first major step to doing something about it.

Acknowledging someone is an act of altruism in the first place, so converting that act of altruism into a pizza party or company fleece jacket or a gift card is fine, but it’s not in keeping with spirit in which it all began.

Whether you’re saying ‘thank you‘ to friends, family members, customers, or a hiring manager who interviewed you for a job, the case in favor of gratitude is both altruistic and pragmatic.

It’s hard to enlist the support of people you don’t know, but it’s critical to growing your career, finding new customers, and building out your team.

One question we’ll ask is, ‘Who are you grateful for,’ and a surprising number of people can’t name anyone beyond their mother.

At DonorsChoose.org, we believe that classroom teachers often know their students better than anybody else in the system and that their front-line experience gives them a special kind of wisdom.

People on the front lines have the best ideas for how to improve things.

America‘s best teachers are always looking for new ways to bring learning to life.

If you track your organization’s creativity by the number of brainstorms on your calendar, you’re missing out. It’s more important to capture those unplanned sparks of inspiration that so often come when we’re cooking dinner, taking a shower, or commuting to work.

Our partnership with Dick’s Sports Matter program aligns perfectly with our mission to address inequity in schools nationwide.

I saw first-hand that all schools are not created equal, and the students shouldn’t have to go without all of the materials that they need for a great education.

We’ve heard people say that teachers have no business going rogue and trying to select their own books, technology, and classes – and citizens have no business deciding what is worthy. We believe in teachers. We believe in the wisdom of the crowd.

I created DonorsChoose by putting pencil to paper – literally – and sketching out each screen of the web site and how it would work. Then I paid a programmer from Poland $1,500 to turn my sketches and common-sense rules into a functioning website.

Committed teachers know their students’ needs better than anyone in the system. Traditionally, however, teachers have little control over the purchase of student materials.

KIPP schools would be just a shining example of schools where students aren’t just given homework and taught imaginative ways, but they’re really brought into a culture of education.

Teachers know how to improve education, but they are a voice that is consistently overlooked or ignored.

Learning is a critical part of our mission and organizational culture.

At DonorsChoose.org, you can give as little as $1 and get the same level of choice, transparency, and feedback that is traditionally reserved for someone who gives millions. We call it citizen philanthropy.

We believe in the wisdom of the front lines.

We all remember special days at school, whether it was going on a field trip, doing a science experiment, or performing in a school play.

An art project, a hands-on science experiment, or a special field trip can transcend textbooks and flash cards. No one knows this better than those teaching students with autism.

If anything, we hope that DonorsChoose.org is going to be a prompt, a nudge in the side of the public school system to improve and to start delivering these materials and experiences that students need and to make it easier for teachers to innovate.

I was lucky enough to go to boarding school for my high school years, and I had all the resources that I possibly could needed – squash courts and every book you ever would have wanted, every art supply.

We are so humbled and grateful to Google for their devotion to our teachers and students.