"Out of the blue, in the middle of a recession, the phone rang. What would it cost, the caller asked the founder of DonorsChoose.org, to fund every California teacher's wish list posted on the Web site? The founder, Charles Best, thought perhaps the female caller would hang up when he tossed out his best guess: "Something over $1 million," he told her. A day later, Hilda Yao, executive director of the Claire Giannini Fund mailed a check of more than $1.3 million to cover the entire California wish list, 2,233 projects in all, with an extra $100,000 tossed in to help pay for other teacher needs across the country. (DonorsChoose: previously on MeFi) [more inside]
posted by zarq on Sep 3, 2010 - 82 comments

American Express's highly publicized Members Project has come to an end. A novel idea: Cardmembers nominated and voted for charities--and the nominee with the most votes won $2 mil. The winner? Children's Safe Drinking Water, a nonprofit that works with nonprofits to battle the public health crisis of contaminated drinking water in third-world countries by distributing water purification kits. Why on earth would anyone call foul on this? Bear with me here. [more inside]
posted by cowboy_sally on Aug 10, 2007 - 30 comments

Donors Choose "Public school teachers use Donors Choose to propose resources for their students. Concerned individuals like you can then select a proposal to fund."
posted by FunkyHelix on Mar 22, 2004 - 14 comments