Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Donors Choose Challenge

I've always loved Donors Choose, since it is quintessential net: take the middle man (er..person) out of fundraising.

Today I got a note from Michael Stein, a nonprofit tech consultant who is committed to raising funds for San Francisco schools. Good for him. Here's his challenge page. You can see what kind of things Michael's challenge will go to. I urge you to check it out, and if you have an affinity with kids, with San Francisco, or with public education, think about a donation.

As the father of three kids who attended underfunded public schools, and the husband of a 35 year public school special ed teacher, I can go on for about 20,000 pages about how much more we need to focus on focused public education funding. Just throwing money at schools isn't the answer, even though they are seriously underfunded on the public priority scale. Focus is the key and Donors Choose is a great way to get at that issue.

One of my favorite all time bumper stickers is this:
"It will be a great day when the schools get all the money they need and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier."

But since policy makers in government don't truly get this, it's up to us as individuals to try to help where we can.....

Hmm. Sounds like a lot of the nonprofit sector.

You go, Michael.

No comments: