Quotes from Charles Best

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.

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

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

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.

My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy, paper, and pencils. I just figured there are people out there who would want to help teachers like us if they could see exactly where their money was going.

My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy paper and pencils, and often we couldn't get the resources that would excite our students about learning.

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

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.

Whenever there are changes to school budgets, we know teachers feel it first.

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

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

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

Why is it that, when we want to think outside the proverbial box, we often put ourselves in one? We gather our team in a conference room, plaster the walls with sticky paper, and wait for the ideas to flow in a stream of marker scribbles. How often has your quest for innovation peaked at renovation - new dressing on old ideas?

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.

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

When I began teaching, my colleagues and I quickly realized that our students didn't have access to the same resources we had growing up. We knew there were supplies and resources that could help our students, but our school district simply couldn't afford them.

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've long believed teachers know best what their students need to succeed, and that includes the creation of healthy, supportive school communities.

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

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.

We aren't prescribing anything. We're not claiming to be the experts. We aren't advocating for or against any program. We are going to create a platform that says very explicitly what it is that teachers experience in their classrooms.

We love that our platform allows people to give.

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.

We make friends with people we admire, including those you might consider competitors, like charity: water, Kiva, and Global Giving. We get on a call with them and exchange ideas.