Oh My, I Love This Community

I just got back online after a long day and saw that this community gave over $4000 today to Donors Choose. I was part of that, but a small part. I completed a project with a donation of about $150. The rest came from 10 donors, at an average of $400 per donation.

I cannot thank all of you enough for that. We are back in first place, we are now well ahead of last year’s pace, and I am humbled by the generosity of this community.

Now I’ve got to get some more projects to fund on the giving page. Please feel free to send me suggestions via email or the comments. And thanks!

#VC & Technology

Comments (Archived):

  1. ceonyc

    Out of curiousity, what % of your donations have been anonymous?

    1. daryn

      Is that possible with Donors Choose? I didn’t see that option.

      1. ceonyc

        As the owner, you can see who gave or who chose to stay anon…

    2. fredwilson

      7 out of 48 donations so far have been given anonymously

      1. ceonyc

        I wonder what the stat is across the board.On one hand, friendly competition among bloggers is a good driver, but I think much more powerful is the “this is a way to make myself stand out in front of Fred” thing. Well, if an entrepreneur was smart, they’d be doing it… and who cares, really, as long as the kids get help.I’m holding steady at 7th.

  2. jarid

    Last year, the project that really struck a chord with me was one where the students needed flash drives to save their work. When I think about all the flash drives given away freely at conferences, and all of the ones from companies that have changed their logos or have been acquired that have been deemed “useless” lying around in some closet somewhere, it’s a shame that these students can’t have today’s equivalent of a 3-ring binder.So, how about some flash drive projects?

    1. fredwilson

      Good ideaHow can we collect all the ones that are just lying around and repurposethem?

      1. jarid

        I actually gave it some thought last year, but couldn’t nail down the logistics. Setting up a simple web page with a mailing address and publicizing it is a no-brainer. I’m sure someone in your audience could come up with a catchy name for the site. 🙂 The best I ended up with was FlashMySchool.org.The challenging parts are where to tell everyone to send them, and then how to distribute them to the schools? I can’t picture the Board of Ed having a hub-and-spoke distribution model in place…

  3. Drew Meyers

    My apologies for being an avid reader, yet infrequent commentor. But I’ll throw out a suggestion — I’d love to see a microfinance project be added to the list.My best friend works for Esperanza International down in the Dominican Republic and Haiti doing microfinance work and, especially after seeing the impact in person last year, I believe access to credit is vital component of the fight to eradicating this world of poverty. I’m going to visit her again in a few weeks and to do some volunteer work down there (including pouring some concrete floors).Thanks for your work promoting great causes Fred.

    1. fredwilson

      DrewIt’s not exactly the same thing but you should know that I give all therevenue from this blog to charity and one of the charities I give to is thegrameen bankFred

      1. Drew Meyers

        That’s great to hear — doesn’t surprise me that you do support them :)I’m a huge fan of Grameen Bank and what they’re doing to help eradicate poverty.

  4. vincentvw

    Spam the p*werst*cks guy

    1. fredwilson

      I am going to delete it

  5. kidmercury

    few things please me more than seeing justice served. and after mikey’s unwarranted blog assault on fred only a few months back, for which mikey has yet to publicly apologize (even though fred apologized and fred didn’t even do anything wrong) it is clear that the markets have spoken: the masses have stood behind fred, ensuring that he wins this epic battle, and that justice is in fact served.even me, a ruthlessly cheap bastard who thinks public schooling shouldn’t exist to begin with (see deliberatedumbingdown.com and johntaylorgatto.com to learn why) and that parents, local private education, and self-education are where it’s at, was inspired to see justice served and victory awarded to fred, while defeat awarded to mikey. and thus i’ve made a contribution if $1. granted, i tried to make a contribution of $.05, but the system wouldn’t let me, so looks like i’ll go 20X my budget. and this is in the midst of an unfolding depression! that’s how much i want to see fred beat mikey!!!!i hope you all will join me in the quest to restore justice and honor to the blogosphere, so that bragging rights can exist where they belong. any market is only as honorable as its market participants, so let us show the world that the technology marketplace is the most honorable of all by supporting fred.