DonorsChoose Challenge 2010

Time once again (slightly late, actually) for our annual DonorsChoose fundraising challenge. It’s a great program. Public school teachers around the U.S. ask for small amounts of money for their classrooms, and the donor — that’s you — gets to pick exactly how much you give, and to what project. It will break your heart to hear about elementary-school kids in high-poverty areas who need a few bucks to buy whiteboards or calculators. But these basic tools can make a huge difference in inspiring someone to get excited about math and science. Check out some of these projects:

Cosmic Variance Challenge 2010

and see if you aren’t moved to throw a few bucks their way.

As before, we are part of a larger Science Bloggers Challenge. A little friendly competition is good for the soul, and for the donating. Now, in the past, the readers here at Cosmic Variance have done incredibly well in donating — over $12,000 last year! Not sure how that happened, honestly. You guys are good. Can we possibly do even better?

One thing that will help is that your donations are leveraged. The folks at Hewlett Packard have agreed to match any donation up to $50,000. (Not that we would object if you chose to give more, but it’s not strictly necessary.) So every dollar you give is two dollars of impact.

And who know? Maybe there will be gifts for people who are especially generous. We’re not above bribery. Any ideas for what would constitute a good bribe?

Also! If any other bloggers want to put up a post encouraging their readers to donate at our page, we will be very happy to link back to them with assorted compliments. Heck, we’ll even link to tweeters.