The Weekly Good: DonorsChoose And ?Big Hairy Audacious? Goals To Help Teachers

[Note: This is a weekly series. If your company is doing something amazing to help a charitable cause or doing some good in your community, please reach out.] Sometimes, the right people are in the right place at the right time. For DonorsChoose.org, all of this came true. In 2003, Oprah Winfrey mentioned the non-profit on her show, calling it a “revolutionary charity”, and her viewers donated $250k to benefit projects in classrooms around the world. Yes, DonorsChoose.org is all about helping people help teachers, who of course help teach our students. Being a teacher isn’t the easiest job in the world, and for many reasons, it’s difficult to perform all of the tasks that you want to do to teach our youth in the right way. I spoke to DonorsChoose founder, Charles Best, about where the idea came from, what they’ve accomplished thus far, and what we can expect in the future. How did you come up with the idea for DonorsChoose? In 2000, as a New York City public school teacher, I spent a lot of time in the teacher?s lunchroom, talking with fellow teachers about the books they wanted their students to read, the art projects they wanted their classroom to do, and the field trips they wanted their students to take. They didn?t have the funding to do these things, so I founded DonorsChoose.org out of my classroom. In 2007, DonorsChose.org expanded to serve every public school teacher in the U.S. How do you explain DonorsChoose to people, to grab their attention? With DonorsChoose.org, anyone 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 that citizen philanthropy. Can you provide us with some real stories and stats on what you’ve accomplished thus far? We strongly believe in transparency ? that people should be able to see exactly how every dollar is spent. The impact page of our website provide information at the national and state levels about what types of projects are being funded, how many students have been impacted, dollars raised, projects funded and more. Check out the progress we’ve made in helping schools impacted by Hurricane Sandy. What have you done differently that helped your program get off of the ground? We believe teachers know best what their students really need, and we’ve dedicated a lot

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