Education

New York City public high school teacher Charles Best was dissatisfied with what he saw as the unequal distribution of learning materials in public schools, so he did something about it. With the help of his students and co-workers Best started DonorsChoose.org, a charity that allows public school teachers to post classroom projects online and have donors direct their funding towards a project of their choice.

Here's how it works: public school teachers from around the country log on and post classroom project requests. Donors can then browse project requests and give any amount of money they'd like. Once a project reaches its funding goal, DonorsChoose.org delivers the item to the school.

In the ten years since its founding, DonorsChoose.org has helped 131,000 public school teachers secure over $52 million in books, art supplies, field trips, and other resources. "Citizen philanthropists" have helped more than 3.2 million students obtain the materials they need to learn.