Time once again (slightly late, actually) for our annual DonorsChoose fundraising challenge. It’s a great program. Public school teachers around the U.S. ask for small amounts of money for their classrooms, and the donor — that’s you — gets to pick exactly how much you give, and to what project. It will break your heart to hear about elementary-school kids in high-poverty areas who need a few bucks to buy whiteboards or calculators. But these basic tools can make a huge difference in inspiring someone to get excited about math and science. Check out some of these projects:
and see if you aren’t moved to throw a few bucks their way.
As before, we are part of a larger Science Bloggers Challenge. A little friendly competition is good for the soul, and for the donating. Now, in the past, the readers here at Cosmic Variance have done incredibly well in donating — over $12,000 last year! Not sure how that happened, honestly. You guys are good. Can we possibly do even better?
One thing that will help is that your donations are leveraged. The folks at Hewlett Packard have agreed to match any donation up to $50,000. (Not that we would object if you chose to give more, but it’s not strictly necessary.) So every dollar you give is two dollars of impact.
And who know? Maybe there will be gifts for people who are especially generous. We’re not above bribery. Any ideas for what would constitute a good bribe?
Also! If any other bloggers want to put up a post encouraging their readers to donate at our page, we will be very happy to link back to them with assorted compliments. Heck, we’ll even link to tweeters.
October 12th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Phil Plait, Sean Carroll, Sean Carroll, Ron Simon, David Roberts and others. David Roberts said: RT @BadAstronomer: RT @seanmcarroll: Throw a few bucks to help kids in public schools learn math and science: http://is.gd/fZkh3 There m … [...]
October 13th, 2010 at 1:18 am
[...] which discouraged me, so I decided to point to other challenges. But my fellow Discover blogger Dr. Sean Carroll has stepped up to the plate, so I decided to buck up and move forward. To the left under my [...]
October 13th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Sean – from everyone here at DonorsChoose.org, thanks so much for throwing your hat in the ring! We’re so excited to have you involved in delivering materials to so many classrooms!
October 13th, 2010 at 11:00 am
I get the impression that it’s traditional to dance like a monkey for your audience.
October 13th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Excellent suggestion. I nominate one of my co-bloggers. Doesn’t matter which one.
November 11th, 2010 at 1:45 am
[...] http://www.donorschoose.org/ [2]: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance [3]: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/10/12/donorschoose-challenge-2010/ [4]: [...]