Edutopia - April/May 2008 - (Page 41)

oCharles Best Connecting dollars to classrooms D onorsChoose.org, a system that connects educators in need of classroom supplies with folks who want to donate them, is a teacher’s dream—literally. Charles Best, founder and CEO of the wildly successful Web site, is a former teacher, and his leap from classroom to (nonpro⇒t) corporation is an inspiring tale. It all started one day when Best was teaching social studies in the Bronx, New York. During lunch he was talking with fellow teachers. “My colleagues and I were having a conversation about spending our own money on copy paper and pencils, and not being able to give our students the books that we wanted them to read or do an art project, for lack of art supplies,” he recalls.” The teachers had great ideas for ⇒eld trips and projects “that would really bring learning to life,” Best says, but they lacked funding. Their only option was to supply the money themselves, which they often did. As teachers everywhere know, the dilemma Best and his colleagues faced wasn’t—isn’t— unique. Teachers often dig into their own pocket to the tune of several hundred dollars a year to make sure their students have the classroom supplies they need. In 2003, a nationwide survey by the National School Supply and Equipment Association found that teachers spent an average of $589 of their own money on supplies in 2001, up from $448 in 1999. Current estimates of the average annual out-of-pocket spending by teachers range from $500 per year to $1,200. That conversation convinced Best there was a better way, and DonorsChoose.org was born. As of February, the organization has processed $22 million worth of donations to projects. “That’s about $20 million in resources delivered,” Best says. The Web site maintains a daily accounting that provides other impressive statistics: By midFebruary, the organization had attracted 60,279 donors, funded 45,175 classroom projects, and provided classroom support to 1,026,189 students. Like many good ideas, the simplicity of the DonorsChoose.org system is key to its success. It works like this: A teacher submits a proposal for a class project, or perhaps a class ⇒eld trip. What Best calls “citizen philanthropists” go to the Web site and choose a project they’d like to fund from the list of proposals. Donors can fund all or part of a project. DonorsChoose.org acts as the pass-through organization, using a donor’s money to buy books, for example, and then making sure they’re delivered to the teacher. The site also makes it possible for donors to learn, directly from the recipient, the status of the projects they favor. In one recent case, a high school teacher in Newark, New Jersey, needed $188 to buy her students “30 nutrition cards for making healthy choices and ink/toner so they can print out the information they ⇒nd.” The site indicated that $100 had already been donated and $88 was still needed. A big green button located next to the proposal made donating as easy as a few mouse clicks. In 2000, when Best founded the organization, he thought he could run it and continue to teach school. “For four and a half years, I was teaching by day and doing DonorsChoose.org nights and weekends,” he says. But by his ⇒fth year of teaching it became clear that he couldn’t do a good job at both. “If I wasn’t going to be able to be a great teacher, I ought to do DonorsChoose.org full time.” And that’s what he’s been doing ever since. Does he have a favorite DonorsChoose.org story? Best recalls a conversation he had once with a magazine writer who thought he wouldn’t ⇒nd anything on the site he’d be interested in funding. “He told me he was most interested in saving the salmon in the Paci⇒c Northwest,” Best says. The former teacher saw that as a challenge and did a keyword search for “salmon” at DonorsChoose.org. Best didn’t ⇒nd one salmon-related classroom project; he found ⇒ve. The ⇒rst project, he says, was a proposal from a teacher on an Alaskan island; the nearest store was forty-⇒ve minutes away—by airplane. As a class project, her students, all native Alaskans, recorded folktales, written stories, and collected recipes featuring salmon and blueberries, “which their parents still subsisted on to a great degree,” Best says. “They wanted to print their work in color and share it with the outside world, and they needed a color printer.” Needless to say, that classroom got its printer. The range of projects and challenges DonorsChoose.org and Best wrestle with every day is enormous, so his response to a final question seems especially apt. “Do you miss teaching?” “I do,” Best says. “I still hope to go back one day and be a wrestling coach. That’s one dream that I always had and never got to fulfill.” EDUTOPIA.ORG EDUTOPIA 41 http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://DonorsChoose.org http://EDUTOPIA.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Edutopia - April 2008

Edutopia - April 2008 Contents Up Front Feedback Dispatches Sage Advice Ask Ellen Head of the Class Cool Schools Design Reinventing the Big test The Daring Dozen Heart & Soul Pop Quiz: Jack Prelutsky

Edutopia - April 2008

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