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

My colleagues and I were always having the same conversation in the teachers lunchroom about books we wanted our students to read, a field trip we knew would really bring a subject matter to life... And most of us would go into our own pockets to buy just paper and pencils.

Public school teachers from every corner of America post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. Requests range from pencils for a poetry writing unit to violins for a school recital to microscope slides for a biology class.

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

Every day, teachers across the country excite their students with new opportunities and experiences.

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.

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.

Donorschoose.org is the one place where somebody with $10 gets the same level of impact and feedback from the recipients that Bill Gates gets when he's making a million-dollar gift.

The most incredible businesses are started by entrepreneurs who relentlessly pursue their passion, but passion works best with a thoughtful, ambitious-yet-grounded business plan.

Our mission is to help students in need and to democratize philanthropy.

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

Within a single school, teachers often encounter differences in poverty levels, parent involvement, and student readiness.

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.

I get my share of 'cold' requests via LinkedIn from people who are launching non-profit or for-profit ventures and who request a meeting to get my input or help. I wish I could say yes to all of them, but given limited bandwidth, I say yes to the subset who've written a compelling description of their work and who are underrepresented.

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

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.

Well, just as in the quality of public schools, there is massive disparity and the compensation given to the public school teachers.

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.

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.

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.

To take on the jobs of tomorrow, students must become more than good test takers. They need to become makers who design, sketch, build, and prototype. And their classrooms will need more than a chalkboard and a set of textbooks.

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.

Students who learn to collaborate and negotiate - on Capitol Hill, in the board room, in everyday life - will outperform peers who have higher test scores.

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

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.

I've been a fan of bass fishing for as long as I can remember.

Access to sports is an important part of a well-rounded education, and it takes committed communities and companies like Dick's to make a real difference in kids' lives.

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

We really are based on this idea that teachers have all this pent-up classroom expertise and that if we could just empower them to come up with micro-solutions, they're going to come up with smarter ideas than anybody would at the top.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Our ideological dilemmas won't ever be solved by machines.

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?

Our brains are designed to solve some of our most complex problems when we're distracted by routine habits.

At DonorsChoose.org, we believe that teachers are unsung heroes.

DonorsChoose was conceived at a Bronx public high school where I taught social studies for five years. In the teachers' lunch room, my colleagues and I often lamented a problem that drained learning from students and creativity from teachers: a lack of funding for essential materials and for the activities that bring subject matter to life.

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.

At DonorsChoose.org, we've seen what technology can do for a classroom. We make it easy for teachers to request the materials they need most for their classrooms and for donors to make a meaningful contribution to education.

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

Teachers are heroes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I'm not tech savvy at all.

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.

I've met with titans of Silicon Valley because they're investing in our national expansion. I've had lunch with Claire Danes because she sees DonorsChoose.org as the best way to help students in public schools. I would never, ever rub shoulders with such people if I had followed the typical career path in investment banking or whatever.