The Power of One Idea

By Charles Best | October 24, 2006

I’ve only had one job where I had one good idea. My one idea, the web site DonorsChoose.org, began six years ago in the teachers’ lunchroom at a public high school in the central Bronx. My colleagues and I often talked over lunch about books our students should read, field trips that could bring subject matter to life, or art supplies needed for a project.

But these ideas never went beyond the teachers’ lunch room because we had no funds to realize them. We spent a lot of our own money on basic paper and pencils, but our students were going without the materials and experiences needed for a great education.

While we had these conversations I figured there were lots of people who wanted to help improve public education, but wanted to see the impact of their dollars. If they could choose where their money went and see their dollars at work, we teachers would have a way to get those books, go on that field trip, and do that art project.

So I created a rudimentary website where public school teachers could post classroom needs and where any donor could choose the classroom need he or she would like to fulfill. Teachers at my school requested baby-think-it-over dolls, SAT review books, and a set of immigration novels. News of our experiment spread to other teachers in the Bronx.

Six years later, DonorsChoose has taken off. Thousands of teachers and donors have connected at our web site, channeling $8,000,000 in resources to 450,000 students from low-income families. We’d like to think that the best ideas often have the most humble of origins.