Donorschoose.org

Back in February I wrote a post about a project called ALL FOR GOOD that aggregates volunteer opportunities from many popular volunteer sites and I expressed my opinion on how great the service is.

Today I'd like to point out another great site (www.donorschoose.org) which allows people to easily give to specific school projects that teachers pitch on the site.  Last year this site raised $17,000,000 for projects.

The business model of the site is brilliant and directly in contrast to what I see many United Ways doing.

• They allow people who need the money to compete in the marketplace of ideas to win your support.
• They give the donor complete freedom in picking what projects would be best to support.  They don't tell the donor to give the money to them and allow their organization to allocate their gift to those projects that are most deserving and will make the biggest impact (although they will do that for you if you want).  
• When you donate to a project you receive feedback from the charity and the school classroom that received your gift on how they used it.

This site is great and I suggest you check it out.