Education

While channel surfing this evening, I caught an interview on MSNBC with Charles Best, a high school teacher in the Bronx and the founder of DonorsChoose.

From the How it Works page of the DonorsChoose website:

The DonorsChoose model of citizen philanthropy begins with a teacher who wants to provide his or her students with an activity that school funds would not cover. At this website, the teacher can describe a student project and list the materials needed to make it possible.

DonorsChoose.org is not a bulletin board where teachers can directly post their proposals, however. Before accepting a proposal, DonorsChoose staff and volunteers verify the teacher's identity; confirm the existence of requested materials; negotiate discounts and attach a cost to the proposal; and, finally, review the proposed student project. If anything is unclear, staff email follow-up questions to the teacher.

Next, civic-minded individuals can browse teachers' submissions. A donor can make a tax-deductible contribution that fully or partially funds a chosen proposal.