Oct. 1, 2009 (Business Wire) -- Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq:ARBA), the leading spend management solutions provider, is gearing up to make a difference. The company today announced its participation in the DonorsChoose.org Social Media Challenge, a unique charity event in which the Blogosphere’s elite will compete to solicit donations from their online communities to support critical educational projects across the nation’s schools.
“The DonorsChoose.org Social Media Challenge is a fun way to involve online communities in bringing classroom wishes to life,” said Jonathan Evans, Vendor Relations Director, DonorsChoose.org. “It’s a friendly but fierce competition to find out which bloggers have the most engaged and generous readership to drive support for school projects that benefit students from low-income neighborhoods around the country.”
Ariba has long recognized the value of building online communities. In 1999, the company launched the Ariba Network to help buyers and suppliers around the world connect and do business more efficiently. In 2003, it began tapping social media outlets to fuel even greater collaboration among people and organizations, starting a blog, SupplyExcellence.com, creating LinkedIn Groups and establishing a presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
“The Internet has completely revolutionized the way that people and businesses connect and communicate,” said Justin Fogarty, manager, online communities, Ariba. “At Ariba, we’ve built a strong network of online communities through which professionals from around the world freely share insights, information and best practices to advance their own objectives and those of their peers. We’re now challenging these communities to extend their support to one of our nation’s most critical objectives – the education of our children – and a worthy charitable organization – DonorsChoose.org.”
An online charity that makes it easy for anyone to help students in need, DonorsChoose.org enables public school teachers from every corner of America to post classroom project requests, from pencils for a poetry writing class to violins for a school recital. Donors can search requests and give any amount to projects that speak to them. Once a project reaches its funding goal, DonorsChoose.org delivers the materials to the school, and donors hear back from the classroom in the form of thank-you notes and photos.
Throughout the month of October, members of Ariba’s various communities can donate to classroom projects at DonorsChoose.org by visiting the Ariba DonorsChoose.org Social Media Challenge site, where participants can also ask Ariba to feature specific projects or areas of interest.
