Crowdsourcing Expert Charles Best Helps DonorsChoose.org

Educator Charles Best came up with a very big idea one day back in 1999 while eating lunch with his fellow high-school teachers in the Bronx.

“My colleagues and I were talking about books that we wanted the students to read, field trips we wanted to take them on, and art supplies that we needed—but we all knew these ideas wouldn’t go beyond the teacher lunchroom because of funding issues,” explains the founder of www.DonorsChoose.org, one of the nation’s first peer-to-peer philanthropic websites, which he created in the year that followed.

In the 12 years since, about 800,000 citizen philanthropists have risen to the occasion. So far, they have donated $120 million to fund 240,000 classroom projects posted by more than 230,000 public school teachers.

In our podcast interview, we learn:

• How he got his organization up and running.
• How he managed to attract Oprah and Colbert to his Board of Directors.
• What First Lady Michelle Obama said about DonorsChoose.org.
• Why transparency, and integrity, are critical to the organization’s continued success.
• And much more!

Listen to our podcast with Charles Best, by clicking download at right.

• Click here to read our interview with Best in Be Inkandescent magazine.
• To become a donor, click here to learn more about DonorsChoose.org.