"Donors Choose" projects in the Lehigh Valley

As some of you know, Stephen Colbert sang on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon after the two successfully raised money for the Donors Choose charity. (You can watch the clip here.) Donors Choose is an online charity that connects donors with classrooms in need; teachers post a project they would like to see funded for their students and donors can give any amount to contribute toward the project of their choice, or let the staff at DonorsChoose.org select the project.

Similarly to Kickstarter.com for start-ups, these projects come with a deadline, so they only move forward if they are fully funded before a given date; however, a difference with Kickstarter.com is that the donor's credit card gets charged when the donor make his gift - he will be contacted if the project does not get funded so that he can reassign his money to another project or let the staff choose. (More information on what happens to donors' money when a project doesn't get funded is available here.)

Donors Choose lists several projects in the Allentown/Bethlehem area, some currently open for funding and others completed projects. I had never heard of Donors Choose before but am not surprised that some of the local public schools in high-poverty or moderate-poverty areas are turning to creative ways of offering their students a better education, given the current economic climate and looming budget cuts. In other schools, parents might be able to donate supplies or give money for the classroom library, but the parents of high-poverty children do not have money, the school district apparently does not have money either, and yet these children deserve a chance.

Here are some of the local projects currently open for fundraising, in no specific order (many more Lehigh Valley projects are listed on the website - some seem more critical than others, below are a few that caught my attention):

• "Reads that Grab Minds and Don't Let Go" for classroom at Louis Dieruff High School, Allentown (Literary/Books-Essential), 1 donor ($25), $753 to go. Expires August 22, 2011.
• "Technology in Teaching" for classroom at Roosevelt Elementary School, Allentown (Technology/Enrichment), 1 donor ($25), $975 to go. Expires June 13, 2011.
• "Marvelous Mathematicians Need Materials" for classroom at Roosevelt Elementary School, Allentown (Mathematics/Essential), 1 donor ($25), $750 to go. Expires June 11, 2011.
• "Science Whizzes in Training" for classroom at Roosevelt Elementary School, Allentown (Science Supplies/Essential), 0 donor, $332 to go. Expires August 10, 2011.

I wish the local media publicized these projects more so that Lehigh Valley residents would help them get funded by contributing very modest amounts - just a couple dozen people spending $25 in tax-deductible donations would help local kids in need (Donors Choose is a 501(c)3 charity and has received a four-star rating - the highest rating available - by Charity Navigator). Unfortunately, if you look up specific local projects that recently got funded, you will notice they received little help from individual donors and instead were funded through the very generous support of Townsend Press, educational publisher of reading, vocabulary and writing textbooks for the school and college markets.

For instance, the "Edgy Reads" project of a teacher at Louis Dieruff High School got funded through $96 in individual donations and a $383.89 gift from Townsend Press. (This includes the recommended 15% donation to Donors Choose, the staff of which checks the costs involved with each project, buys the equipment, gets it delivered if the project ends up being funded, gathers thank-you cards from students and sends them along to eligible donors. You can find the itemized list of expenses, including the actual books the teacher planned to buy, by scrolling to the bottom of the page.) While TownsendPress.com deserves many kudos, this is not sustainable.

I'll take this opportunity to express my profound admiration of someone named Pat in Coopersburg, who single-handedly funded the "Manifest Destiny: Literature Circle Expansion" project of the same teacher, Mr B, of Louis Dieruff High School, at the quite impressive cost of $697.71 - there are definitely some unsung heroes out there. Mr B has had a total of 4 projects funded so far through Donors Choose thanks to 24 donors, and I hope his success inspires other teachers in high-poverty schools to try this as a potential avenue for funding. Surely there are other local teachers in need of new equipment or books for their students.

Comments

[LVtransplant]

It may be an idea ahead of its time in this region.

Out of curiosity, I checked on the status of the four local projects. Of the four you pointed out, only one has been funded, and it was by a corporation (Merck). (Somewhat unrelated, the class teacher posted a few notes of thanks on the project page; her grammar and spelling mistakes made my skin crawl.)

I wonder how these programs are promoted in the region. I sent your blog post to the MCall when you first posted, but did not see anything about it. How is Donors Choose helping these enterprising teachers promote their initiatives? Is this idea ahead of its time here?

[Aurelie Thiele]

Hi Megan,

Thanks for commenting! Sorry for the delay in posting your comment. (I was traveling was away from the Internet for a few days.)

I think that as Donors Choose becomes more popular, donors will become more discriminating between projects. It would be great if there was some pre-selection made at the school level before a project is posted, so that a project reflects what a school deems most important at this time for the whole student body. Maybe it would help achieve a greater involvement from the broader community.