DonorsChoose Fundraiser 2010

It's that time of year again, which is to say "October, when we raise money for DonorsChoose." As you may or may not know, DonorsChoose is an educational charity which has teachers propose projects that would make their classrooms better, and invites donors to contribute to the projects of their choice. Every October since ScienceBlogs launched, we have done a fundraiser for them here, and this year's entry is now live:

While the warm-fuzzy sensation of doing a good deed for school children in poor districts may be enough to get some people to donate, I'll also sweeten the pot a little with some incentives for donation:

First, as has been my usual practice, a donation of $20 gets you the right to ask one question that I will answer on the blog (subject to the usual caveats: I reserve the right to blow off or answer flippantly any questions that would cause undue trouble). This can be multiplied, so $100 allows up to five questions, etc.

Second, I'll throw at least two signed copies of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog into the prize pool: one for the largest individual donation, and at least one to a donor chosen at random from the pool. The signed copy can be in any language of your choice, provided you choose English, Portuguese, Chinese, or Japanese, or are willing to wait until I get author copies of the others.

Any size donation counts as an entry for the random drawing-- just send me a copy of the confirmation email you get from DonorsChoose after making your donation (address in the "About" tab above) and you'll be entered to win.

Finally, I'll offer some sort of big incentive should the total donations pass some arbitrary limit, along the lines of last year's puppet show or the previous year's monkey dance. I haven't decided what I should do yet, though-- suggestions are welcome.

So, thank you in advance for your willingness to chip in to help students in underfunded schools. And if you're not willing to chip in to help students in underfunded schools for ideological reasons, thank you in advance for not leaving snotty comments about it here.