Donors Choose Personalization

One of the coolest charities out there is undoubtedly DonorsChoose. My brother, who works in education, referred this charity to me last December, when I was asking friends if they knew of any great charities other than the classics where I could donate.

Here's the quick description of Donors Choose from their website:

DonorsChoose.org is a simple way to provide students in need with resources that our public schools often lack. At this not-for-profit web site, teachers submit project proposals for materials or experiences their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals, whom we call Citizen Philanthropists, choose projects to fund.

This charity is personalized on many levels. Teachers write the descriptions of their needs and choose the perfect project for their classroom that needs funding. Instead of a central school district bureacracy trying to create line items, the funding requests come from those closest to the problem -- teachers themselves. Second, donors can choose a cause that is personal to them. I'm sort of a news junkie, so I funded a request by a teacher to buy Time For Kids for all of her students to get them involved with current events. Finally, the students write personal, hand-written thank you notes to donors. This kind of authentic, personal feedback creates a real bond between donor and classroom.

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures blogged today about DonorsChoose.org, and linked to a cool "contest" where a company called Zemanta will give a reward to whatever charity is most blogged about. This post goes out to DonorsChoose.

[This blog post is part of Zemanta's "Blogging For a Cause" campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.]