Voting in Round Two of the Chase Community Giving challenge on Facebook drew to a close last night, and the winners were announced early this morning. Unfortunately, The Generation Project was not among the top six vote-getters, but our hats go off to the winners--whose worthy charitable missions range from building schools in Uganda, to suicide prevention in America, to ending domestic violence in Turkey. Kudos to these charities on their great work and their amazing campaigns.
We owe a tremendous "thank you" to everybody who voted for us throughout this competition. In Round One, your support allowed us to outlast over 500,000 other charities to win a $25,000 grant and make it to the final round. In Round Two, nearly 17,500 of you voted for us, because you believe that poverty should not restrict educational opportunity, and because you believe that anybody can be a philanthropist.
An extra big "thank you" goes out to the students on college campuses across the country who worked tirelessly to campaign for The Generation Project. Our team during the competition included 194 committed students on over 100 campuses across America, who crafted and carried out grassroots campaign strategies. It was so inspiring to see these young leaders--the future philanthropists of the world--work so hard for our cause because of their belief that poverty should not restrict educational opportunity.
We're proud of how our team conducted our Chase campaign. We spent a total of $50 on the campaign--to rent a microphone for the filming of our promotional video. (The video itself was done pro bono, by the incredible Maicol Chavez). The success of our campaign was based solely around the power of our idea, and the power of our grassroots campaigns.
So, a big thank you goes out to all of our supporters. From our team at Spelman and Morehouse Colleges, who put together this amazing video in support of our cause:
...to the Hope College mascot, who voted for us at a station set up by our Hope team..
...to
MC Hammer, who dropped a
tweet in support of The Generation Project during the final days of voting...
...we thank you.
What's next? Well, we didn't win $1 million--but our work goes on. We're going to use our $25,000 Chase grant to start serving low-income schools in two new regions--New Orleans and the Bay Area. Very soon, we'll also be launching our upgraded website, loaded with features that should allow for regular, meaningful interaction between donors and teachers. We're going to continue to build on the momentum this contest has created, and grow our campus initiative nationwide. And, of course, we'll continue to implement your vision for the future, in the form of opportunities you design for children growing up in poverty.
Again, on behalf of The Generation Project team, thank you.