February 12, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
DonorsChoose.org, the online education charity, found a way to spur a flurry of donations that will pay for 700 classroom projects posted on its Web site by schoolteachers.
DonorsChoose picked 700 classroom projects that involved American history or civics. and used a portion of a $1-million grant it had received from the Pershing Square Foundation to pay for all but $100 or less of the cost of each project. Then it offered individuals the chance make a project possible by making the last payment on it.
Calling the offer a “Presidents’ Day Sale worth caring about,” DonorsChoose started to promote its “philanthropic sale” on Thursday, planning to offer it throughout the coming weekend. But, within 24 hours, donors had paid for all of the projects.
Charles Best, founder of DonorsChoose, says that he and his colleagues came up with the approach after the Pershing Square Foundation challenges his organization to devise a new way to use the grant to spur philanthropy. One motivation, he says, was to persuade donors to contribute at times other than the holiday giving season in November and December.
Another impetus was the slow economy. In hard times, Mr. Best says, “more people want to do something charitable, but they have less money to spare. This was a way of enabling someone to make a big impact with a small gift.”
Mr. Best says that DonorsChoose will use the remainder of the grant from the Pershing Square Foundation to have four more similar philanthropic sales, each around a different theme. In May, for example, in honor of Memorial Day, it will select projects from schools that serve military families.
