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April 11, 2005
Better than a bake sale
A neat idea for democratizing the support of micro-causes: DonorsChoose.org.
Cash-strapped schoolteachers can appeal to people outside their districts for funding student-learning projects. Since DonorChoose is web-based (and non-profit), that means an exponentially larger pool of contributors (and probably better-focused fundraising arguments).
For contributors -- whom DonorsChoose calls "citizen philanthropists" -- it means funding specific projects or teachers in their area, rather than supporting a program and the overhead of an umbrella organization.
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Thanks to a reference by Katherine Stone, from Decent Marketing, I was introduced to Donors Choose at the end of last year. I funded a photography project for a school in the Bronx, which allowed the class to purchase SLR cameras. I didn't just get a generic thank you note -- I also received photos from the class taken the moment they got their cameras, also taking photos, accompanied by thank yous from the class itself. Very fulfilling, and I'm now a BIG TIME evangelist of the organization!
Michele, wow -- talk about building a relationship... Love it! Any other evangelists for DonorsChoose?
This may be a way to both balance the scales for schools punished by the property tax = funding scheme of many municipalities. Creativity is all over the place; in fact, I learned more about technology working with schools in Northern Wisconsin than I did working in corporate America in Chicago.
With multimedia becoming more affordable than ever, the improving graphic capacity enabled by processing speeds, with media savviness on the rise, the average class of 13-year-olds in the Bronx or South Dakota can truly raise the bar in self-avocacy.
Could this be a future way for schools, public radio stations and other non-profits to conduct their fundraising for projects and capital campaigns?
It certainly makes the non-profit fundraising process more transparent and market-driven, which presents interesting and wholesale-change scenarios.
I've been giving to Donors Choose for years. It is one of the most satisfying charities. We love getting the dozens of thank you letters from the students at the end of the semester. It's a rare feeling that you made a difference to real people, not some anonymous fund.
