Mrs. Auger, an elementary school teacher at Luis Munoz Marin in Bridgeport, CT, had a dream to instill the excitement of reading to her students both in and outside of the classroom. She hoped to accomplish this by providing students with a subscription to Time for Kids, which would allow them to read current events and expose them to news around the country and world. The low-income school district, however, could not provide the materials she sought. Despite this, Mrs. Auger and her students received the full $182 donation needed for their subscriptions through Donorschoose.org.
DonorsChoose is a non-profit organization that allows public school teachers raise funds for classroom projects with a simple post to the website. Once the post is vetted to ensure a legitimate educational value, a donor has the power to decide which classroom he or she identifies with and donate an amount of their choosing. When a project is fully funded, DonorsChoose gathers supplies and delivers them straight to the school providing students with the resources necessary to excel.
This is all thanks to Charles Best, founder and CFO of DonorsChoose.org. Best started his career as a history teacher at Wings Academy in the Bronx just after graduating from Yale University. He discussed the disadvantages that his classroom faced due to the school district’s limited funds and discovered that “not all schools are created equal.”
He and his colleagues often found themselves paying out of pocket for classroom necessities, which is not uncommon in public schools. Teachers around the United States pay nearly $1.6 billion of their own earnings annually for classroom resources. After many conversations about potential yet unfunded projects, Best developed the idea to start a website that allowed educators to post projects, hoping that donations would be made on their behalf.
Best’s simple idea transformed into the nation-wide, revolutionary website DonorsChoose.org. The website has reached nearly 2/3 of all public schools, aiding 14 million students and raising more than $322 million dollars.
Fairfield University was fortunate enough to host Mr. Best at an Open Visions Forum yesterday, where he spoke of DonorsChoose’s mission, beginnings, and hopes for the future.
DonorsChoose was founded in 2000, and though he did not receive immediate success, Best says that he never felt discouraged. He attributes his mentality to a simple task from his childhood: woodworking. He says that understanding how the pieces fit together and developing solutions to problems “on the fly” prepared him for product development. Before crowd funding was even a word, Best found a way to circumvent the system and, in his words, “create a new marketplace where gatekeepers don’t stand in your way.”
Though the website’s popularity can in part be attributed to celebrity endorsements from Oprah Winfrey, Zac Efron and Stephen Colbert among many others, the success of DonorsChoose itself mainly derives from the passion of the teachers and generosity of the donors.
Some critics say that DonorsChoose is just a band-aid solution to a failing education system, addressing symptoms and not causes. Best believes that DonorsChoose creates a vehicle that can change the system itself, and it has the potential to do even more. DonorsChoose helps introduce young entrepreneurs and thinkers directly, opens data for research to discover trends, and initiated a teacher reward system that “speaks to their hearts rather than their wallets.”
DonorsChoose sheds an optimistic light on our education system and reinforces positive values that are sometimes overlooked in today’s society. The potential for change that this website has created goes far beyond a strong marketing strategy and successful fundraising, it’s a movement that is inspiring people nationwide. As for aspiring entrepreneurs and students who have a dream to one day make a difference in the world, Best encourages them by noting “how much easier it’s becoming to bring good ideas to life.”
Now so many teachers like Mrs. Auger can do things they never thought possible. We were fortunate enough to fully fund Mrs. Auger’s project and strongly encourage everyone to donate to this incredible organization “where anyone with $5 can be a philanthropist.”
We would like to thank Mr. Best for taking the time to come to Fairfield and speak with us, Dr. Philip Eliasoph and Mr. Chris Kaplan for giving us the opportunity to speak with Mr. Best, and the Leslie J. Quick Center for making this all possible.