Donate one-to-one with Donorschoose.org

Do you find yourself wondering where your donations go when you write a check to a large organization? Are you interested in education? Perhaps you would prefer to choose who receives your money, and for what purpose. If so, you might want to check out Donorschoose.org.

Donorschoose matches willing donors with requests from teachers for funding of specific, small-scale classroom needs. For example, a class in San Jose, Calif. needs $189 for a worm farm and accompanying text books. A Texas class of second and third graders need $665 for digital cameras so they can put together a digital yearbook. A school in North Carolina asks for $835 to beef up its fiction collection. Donors can choose to fund all of the project, or pool a smaller contribution with those of other donors.

At the end of the project, the donor receives a feedback package with photos and the teacher's impact statement. The funded school typically returns 15% of the donation back to donors are given the option of contributing up to an extra 15% to fund the not-for-profit's operations.

This is one of many opportunities opened up by the Internet to connect donor and recipient. If you have some cash and a desire to do some good with it, this would be worth your consideration.