Last October, the 2007 Blogger Challenge inspired the web community to help 75,000 kids in high-need public schools. This October, bloggers and their readers are setting out to provide even more help to students in low-income communities. Technorati is sponsoring the “generosity rankings,” and FORTUNE is helping to spread the good word. Yahoo!, who will award the blog that mobilizes the most readers, recently announced two prizes: the winner will receive a lunch with CEO, Jerry Yang, and Yahoo! will pay for a field trip for the kids at a school of the winning blogger’s choice (up to $5,000). Six Apart will also award the blogger who helps the most students (TBA)!
Titans of the Web have tossed their hats into the ring. TechCrunch, Engadget, BoingBoing, Fred Wilson, Kara Swisher, Apartment Therapy, and other top bloggers have created giving pages on DonorsChoose.org listing their favorite classroom project requests–and are now encouraging their readers to donate to those projects. See the giving contest take shape at: www.donorschoose.org/bloggers and check out two great pieces in FORTUNE describing the 2008 Blogger Challenge:
Fear not, small bloggers. The DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge is about the engagement and generosity of your readers, not the number of your readers. Here are some tips for having the most fun, and helping the most students possible, during the 2008 Blogger Challenge:
1. Invite your readers to pick some of the classroom projects that will go on your giving page. When readers participate in choosing the projects, they feel a special responsibility to fund those projects.
2. Offer to do something wacky if your readers reach a certain level of donations. Last year, the blogger behind TomatoNation.com offered to dance through Rockefeller Center dressed as a tomato if her readers funded all the projects on her challenge page. It worked.
3. Say something feisty about the other bloggers in your giving group or about the singular awesomeness of your readers. A sense of competition, and of team pride, really helps to inspire donations.
4. Use the widget for your giving page. This widget will not only serve as a constant call-to-action for your readers, but as a public salute to the individual readers who have made donations through your giving page.
Here are some all-star posts from the last Blogger Challenge:
TomatoNation: “Preview” and “Whoa”
ScienceBlogs.com | Pharyngula: “Freethinkers for Education”
TechCrunch: “Fred Wilson Needs to be Stopped!”
Kara Swisher (All Things Digital): “Blogger Charity Smackdown” and “Using MY kids to Raise Money for the Kids at DonorsChoose.org
Official DonorsChoose.org Press Release: 2008 Blogger Challenge
- Headphones for Middle School Bloggers
- Hip Young Readers: Enjoyable SSR!
- Rainbow Reader Table Needs Chairs
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[…] Here’s the deal folks. You all know how hung up on giving I have been recently. Well, I guess I have been making enough racket about it that I was approached about a wonderful cause. It is called the DonorsChoose.org 2008 Bloggers Challenge. […]
Pingback by Can You Give $5 to a School in Need? « Morningside Mom — Oct 1, 2008 @ 4:37am
[…] we were asked to join the award-winning charity DonorsChoose.Org’s Blogger Challenge, we knew just the kind of project we wanted to partipate in. We’ve chosen to help an […]
Pingback by Baby Got Books » Good Readers Need Good Books — Oct 1, 2008 @ 2:18pm
I would like to join. Thanks.
Comment by LiveCrunch — Oct 1, 2008 @ 3:08pm
[…] 2008 Blogger Challenge is back and inspires the web community to help kids in high-need public schools. Bloggers will compete to […]
Pingback by DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge: Fund Classroom Projects — Oct 2, 2008 @ 8:06am
[…] More »Powered by Bookmarkify™The 2008 Blogger Challenge is back and inspires the web community to help kids in high-need public schools. Bloggers will compete to […]
Pingback by Joe’s Korner - DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge: Fund Classroom Projects — Oct 2, 2008 @ 11:19am
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[…] at Chicago Mom’s Blog and their sister sites, we are rising up to the worldwide 2008 DonorsChoose.org Bloggers Challenge to help thousands of kids in high-need public schools. Last year during the 2007 Blogger […]
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[…] Bloggers Challenge! Check out the opening news story here. You can also read more about it on the DonorsChoose.org blog. So far, the challenge is off to galloping start with over $80,000 raised and over 16,000 students […]
Pingback by Guest Post: Social Actions Roundup 11 - DonorsChoose.org Launches Bloggers Challenge 2008! « CauseWired — Oct 4, 2008 @ 8:47pm
[…] 2008 Blogger Challenge is back and inspires the web community to help kids in high-need public schools. Bloggers will compete to […]
Pingback by All World In One Site » Blog Archive » DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge: Fund Classroom Projects — Oct 8, 2008 @ 2:56am
[…] September 28th post on the DonorsChoose blog suggests: Offer to do something wacky if your readers reach a certain level of donations. Last […]
Pingback by Icma2002.Com » Blog Archive » Step up and help classroom teachers with DonorsChoose! — Oct 23, 2008 @ 9:30am
Thank you so much for helping fund my Family Diversity proposal from Donors Choose. It helped reach 21 students and their families and raise awareness about the cultural and special needs diversity of our communities. I have 1 month left to get another proposal funded. Please consider funding First Love of Math - proposal #190967.
It will help needy 1st grade public school students master the fundamentals of Mathematics for years to come.
Mrs. Mendivil - 1st Grade Teacher
Comment by Mrs. Mendivil — Nov 2, 2008 @ 1:46am
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Pingback by Yodel Anecdotal » Blog Archive » Lunch with a tomato — Nov 4, 2008 @ 5:29am
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