We’re thrilled to tell you that One Degree won the Echoing Green Fellowship! We were one of 20 organizations chosen out of 3,508 applicants to receive this prestigious social entrepreneurship award!
I speak for myself and my team when I say that we are humbled and excited by the recognization from Echoing Green. When I got the phone call, I just couldn’t believe it and was deeply moved. The first thing I thought of was the support and energy you all have poured into One Degree.
Over the last two years, together, we have planted seeds that are now starting to emerge from the ground. From the first $5,000 we raised together last December to the myriad competitions we entered earlier this year, you have played an important part — whether it was sending positive energy, making a donation or hunkering down and working on the business plan. It took a lot of disciplined, heartfelt work to get to this critical point.
The Echoing Green Fellowship propels us forward significantly. Not only does Echoing Green provide seed funding ($80,000), but this competitive award gives One Degree the valuable credibility we need to do our work. With this fellowship also comes immense responsibility. The national spotlight is on us. We have an obligation and the opportunity to see that the One Degree vision becomes a reality.
We are just getting started, and we can’t rest now. We’ve got a lot of work to do to ensure that our pilot year (program launches this fall) is a success, and this is what we need you, our amazing Founding Connectors, to do:
- Get the word out. Tell people what One Degree is doing. Tweet the news on your favorite social networks. Feel free to send them this blog post () or the official Echoing Green one (http://ht.ly/boL0z).
- Join one of our committees. If you can give a couple of hours a week or a set amount of time to help with projects, sign up by email!
- Connect us to your friends/colleagues in the Bay Area. We’re looking for talented folks, like you, in the Bay to join us! Can you connect us to one person who can help?
We’re looking forward to starting this new chapter with your support. Thanks again.
Onward and upward!
Rey
Rey Faustino
CEO + Founder
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ABOUT ONE DEGREE
One Degree connects kids & families to poverty-fighting resources. We are mobilizing trained volunteers to operate resource desks in low-income public schools. This makes schools the focal point of the community and helps families navigate through the complex web of social services. Furthermore, we’re developing a web and mobile app that’s like a Yelp for nonprofits, which holds all the information about community programs in one place. Imagine millions of people being able to access, rate, review and get information about their local resources, like food banks, employment services and afterschool programs. We hope to make families the drivers of social change. One Degree is a 2012 winner of the Echoing Green Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship.