10.18.2007

The New Job

People have been asking for me to tell more about my new job, so here goes. I will be the Associate Director, Indiana for a wonderful nonprofit called DonorsChoose.org (please check them out! They are a 4-star top-rated nonprofit by CharityNavigator.org too). In a nutshell, the organization allows public school teachers (K-12) to post proposals online for units, learning modules, activities, fields trips, etc. that they would like to do with their students but do not have the funds to accomplish (usually because the school and students are low income). Individual donors ("citizen philanthropists") can sponsor the projects (or any small portion, literally you can just give $20 if you want to help fund a project), and then you get thank you notes from the kids and pictures of them using the materials. It's an excellent model since donors know exactly where their money is going, and you can search for specific projects on the website by school, state, subject area, amount of need, % low income students, and many more. The organization was started by a public school teacher in New York City in 2000, and it is expanding throughout the US. I will be in charge, basically, of the entire state of Indiana including developing the strategy for statewide expansion. Currently, the organization has a decent presence in Indianapolis, but their is still a lot of work to be done there to recruit more teachers to post projects (especially in the STEM disciplines). Statewide, I will be working to get the organization known in larger cities like Fort Wayne, Gary, and Evansville, but also throughout the state, including rural areas. This includes teacher recruitment, general PR and marketing, "citizen philanthropist" recruitment, donor engagement, and coporate paternerships. Also, I am hoping to partner much more with the universities in Indiana and especially their education departments and the future teachers in the state. I will be the only one "on the ground" in Indiana and will be up to the Chicago regional office frequently (if you're in that area and want to visit) to work with their wonderful staff. If you have any contacts for me, be sure to let me know. I will start the position in about two weeks, and I am hoping to have a DonorsChoose Indiana blog that I will post to throughout the year.

1 comment:

The Luh's said...

what kind of contacts??