At the end of 2011, my wife Jen and I decided we would give of either our time or our money at least once per week in 2012. We decided to donate at least two hours of our time or at least $25 each week. As we began the new year, many of our friends were interested in our new commitment, and so I decided to write about the organizations we work with and the experiences we have. The stories told here are meant to shed some light on volunteering - the kind of work that is out there, and the clientele that is served, and to provide information about who is making a difference out there, and what you can do to help. Please come back often and share our experiences as we move through our giving year.

Also, we are always looking for new organizations to work with, groups that are doing good work and could use either our hands or our money. If you know of a volunteer opportunity or worthy cause, please leave it in a comment. Thanks for your help!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Week 8 - DonorsChoose.org

This week Jen and I found ourselves with no place to volunteer, so we went looking for a good cause worthy of a donation.  The site we chose was one I actually came across while reading the comics page.  In a Sunday Doonesbury comic, the characters mentioned a site called DonorsChoose.org, and also gave a code that would earn a matching donation.  I decided to look into it.

It turns out that DonorsChoose.org is a site where teachers from all over the country ask for things that would benefit their students but that they cannot afford to buy with their yearly budgets.  The requests are classified as projects, because the materials listed are usually centered around a particular learning goal or unit.  In a quick perusal of the site, I saw requests for books, white boards, a new carpet - all kinds of things.  You can sort the requests by geographical location, from state to city, to specific schools.  You can also sort by subject area, so you can give to kids learning about something you care about in a place you care about.  There are also search categories for the kind of school (charter, magnet, Montessori) and various other criteria.  Like Kiva loans, you can make a small donation that is grouped together with others to eventually be able to purchase the items that have been requested.

One of the best things about the site is that there are a number of organizations, from corporations to foundations that will match the donation you make.  You need to have a code to activate the match when you check out, but they are not too hard to find.  I used the code "Zonker" (a character from Doonesbury) that I saw on the comics page.  In a quick search, I also found "REAL SIMPLE" and "SPARK" as codes that would get 100% matching.  You can also do a search on the site itself, in the help center area.  I searched "matching" and got a bunch of articles about current matching offers that were available.

The other thing that I liked about the site was that it lists the challenges facing the schools that are making the requests.  In particular, it highlights schools that are in areas of high poverty rates so that you can focus donations where they are most needed.

After looking around a little and getting a feel for the site, we decided to support a teacher here in Chicago who was trying to bring Shakespeare into her classroom.  She is trying to buy a classroom set of three different versions of Macbeth, including the original, a plain speech version, and a comic book version.  Her idea is to bring the story to the kids at whatever level they can perceive it, and then help them understand more of the depth and poetry of the play as they become more familiar with it.  You can see the teacher's description HERE.

Obviously, both teaching and Shakespeare hit close to home for us, and we were moved to be able to help out with both in one swipe, and double our donation through matching to boot.  This site offers a huge range of possible giving, and all of it to help kids get more out of their education.  It also help teachers bring more resources to bear, and hopefully makes the very hard job they do a little easier.

If you would like to donate, check out their website:

DonorsChoose.org

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