The DonorsChoose.org Tech Blogger challenge has been fascinating to watch. For those of you not following the competition, a number of bloggers have signed up to help DonorsChoose.org raise money for teachers and schools all across the states. DonorsChoose looks like a great organization and it seems these schools and educators are very worthy of our support. And it was great the bloggers offered to help.
What is interesting to me is that people are not giving! For instance let's take Michael Arrington, one of the kings of the blogging world. His goal is to raise $25,000 by October 31st, though he even said that amount "seems kind of low to me, given how many VCs read this blog". Since announcing his participation, he has tried to promote it by announcing that he would match every dollar donated. Michael has over 600,000 subscribers to his blog. How many have given as of tonight?: 19 (raising a little over $5,000). Fred Wilson seems to be doing better (with 81 donations totaling over $18,000) but for most the performance appears to below expectations.
It is clear that people use the web to identify and provide funds to many causes. Coincidentally, Greg Cohn a friend and former co-worker of mine, has a great post today on Kiva.org and opportunities to help others (and it is great to see he is fired up to change "the System").
The great thing about Kiva is that stories are created, told and remembered. You see pictures of the people you are helping. You know who else is contributing. You are provided updates on progress. DonorsChoose.org would certainly benefit by building a similar community platform. Yet, the platform cannot be the only reason people are not contributing. Perhaps our "tech web celebrities" do not have the broader influence that celebrities traditionally enjoy. With respects to the DonorsChoose.org project - this is unfortunate.
As an editorial in the Oaklahoma A&M student paper states -
If you really want to help a cause, log off Facebook, get up off the couch and do something. Donate money, volunteer, start a petition or write a crazy ranting letter to the government.
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