TIME Magazine
Voices of the Volunteers
Four volunteers, and the founder of Teach for America, talk about what motivates them, and what they have learned
Making a Difference at Home
Inspired by their work abroad, Peace Corps volunteers return to the U.S. as teachers, bringing the lessons they learned to the kids who need them most
How Others Serve
Abroad, civilian service ranges from diplomacy to firefighting
Teach for America
Top college graduates spend two years teaching at the worst American schools through Teach For America. Here's a look at other groups and organizations that were inspired by TFA
Harlem Children's Zone Project
Harlem Children's Zone Project links social-service programs together tightly to prevent at-risk children from falling through the cracks. Here's a look at other organizations inspired by this program
Ashoka
Ashoka developed the concept of "social entrepreneurship" or investing in social change like a business and demanding measurable results. Here's a look at organizations inspired by Ashoka
VolunteerMatch
VolunteerMatch has made more than 3 million referrals to socially responsible Web surfers. Some 52,000 nonprofit organizations recruit help through the site. Here's a look at organizations inspired by VolunteerMatch
Saving One Life At a Time
Six million children—and even more adults—die unnecessarily every year. Good people all over the world are doing their best to save them. You can too
In Case of Emergency...
While his New Orleans emergency room took on water, a doctor set up a refuge elsewhere for about 50 critically ill Katrina patients
The Voice of Compassion
Offstage, opera legend Placido Domingo is a one-man charity band
A Shoe That Fits So Many Souls
For each pair of Toms sold, the company gives one away to a child in need
Certain Charity
Former lawyer Cameron Gray gets food to the poor and personally documents delivery for the donors
The Good Samaritans
Melinda Gates, Bono and Bill Gates: three people on a global mission to end poverty, disease—and indifference
Dynamic Duo
United in outrage, Bob Geldof and Richard Curtis organized the Live 8 concerts to get the world to heed their calls for action on African poverty
Here's What You Do
Four leaders whose communities were devastated by natural disasters share their experiences and counsel with their counterparts on the Gulf Coast
Exceptional Healing
Pediatrician Leena Kaartinen has made a career of helping people in dangerous locales
Secret Sharers
A duty-free-shopping mogul gave away more than $2 billion to educational and human-rights causes over almost two decades—all of it anonymously
Learning the Art of Giving
How a Bangalore-based social activist and journalist became a self-taught philanthropist, building two foundations from the ground up
It's Raining Pencils
A rookie teacher in New York City has created an online charity that allows donors to search teacher requests and fund the projects they like best
Run for their lives
Serge and nicole roetheli traveled around the world enduring snakebites and toothache — all for charity
Givers Who Mean Business
It's being called "private equity for the poor" and "a market-based approach to giving"—the Acumen Fund is a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries build businesses
To the Rescue
A businessman turned professional samaritan risks his life to save victims of terror and tragedy
It's Raining Pencils
By AMANDA BOWER
Posted Feb. 27, 2005 In the cramped, windowless staff lunchroom at Wings Academy, a small public high school in the Bronx in New York City, teachers are often buzzing about big new ideas on how to teach and reach students. But few of their improvement schemes made it into classrooms until rookie teacher Charles Best had the best idea of all: to create an online charity that would give citizen philanthropists direct access to needy classrooms.
Best's vision became donorschoose.org a site that allows donors to search teacher requests and fund the projects they like best. The charity then buys the supplies--anything from colored pencils to microscopes--and ships them to classrooms. "People knew the plight of students in our public schools," says Best, 29, whose own education, at Yale University and an exclusive New Hampshire boarding school, was unmarked by economic hardship of any kind. "They wanted to help out but wondered if their contributions were going to go into a black hole."
In the spring of 2000, Best used roasted pears (his mom's recipe) to lure 10 sweet-toothed colleagues to post proposals on the site. He initially failed to find donors, but he believed in the project so strongly that he used his own meager teacher's salary to anonymously fund all 10 of them--then moved in with his parents to keep the site and himself fiscally afloat. Since then, residents of 49 states (South Dakota is the holdout) and 10 foreign countries have donated $3 million to fund 6,000 projects. The charity garnered a Tech Museum laureate for innovations in e-procurement and has won over corporate sponsors such as Yahoo, Lehman Bros. and Bank of America.
DonorsChoose may be a virtual charity, but its effect on children is very real. Every shipment includes a disposable camera and guidelines for writing class thank-you notes. A fifth-grader in the Bronx reduced a regular donor to tears with this note: "No one has ever done anything that nice for me before ... I want to do something nice for you. Just let me know what you need, and I'll take care of it." Vani Khajuria, a North Carolina fourth-grader, wrote her patron, "My children's children's children will treasure this book." Eloquent proof that a minute or two on a website can have an effect for generations.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Subscribe | Customer Service | Help | Site Map | Search | Contact Us
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Reprints & Permissions | Press Releases | Media Kit
