It's been a long competition.  But in the end, your voice counted.  You let the world know that that where a child goes to school should not determine the range of educational opportunities available to her.  You stood up for a new model of giving, in which anybody can be a philanthropist.  You voiced your confidence that educational inequality can be chipped away by individual citizens, one gift, project, and opportunity at a time.

Winning this grant is a great honor.  But of course, our work is just beginning.  Over the coming weeks, we'll be expanding to new schools across the United States.  We'll be rolling out new features on the website that will empower even more individual donors, educators, and students.  And, of course, we'll continue to implement your unique visions and help you share your passions in low-income schools and classrooms across the country.

No grant announcement involving The Generation Project would be complete without our newest tradition--an awesome picture of Chicago first graders enjoying a donor's gift of play money. (The gift helped teach these students about real-world uses for addition and subtraction).  They're excited about money.  We're excited about money.  And we're even more excited because we know this money is going to make a tremendous difference for vibrant, bright, and hilarious kids like these.