The Silicon Valley chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals named Los Altos High School student philanthropy group One Dollar For Life the “Outstanding Youth Philanthropy of the Year” last week.

The association recognized the charity, founded three years ago by teachers and students at Los Altos High, for its extraordinary accomplishments locally and abroad.

One Dollar For Life invites every high school student in the United States to donate just one dollar through a fundraiser conducted on high school campuses. It uses the funds to build schools and other infrastructure projects for education in the developing world.

“This was a very competitive process, but the choice of One Dollar For Life was an easy decision for the panel,” said Debra Jones, executive director of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. “They were impressed by how far-reaching the project has become in such a short period of time.”

Since its founding, One Dollar For Life funds have built three high schools in Kenya, a school in Nicaragua, a three-room school in Nepal and an elementary school in Indonesia. The group also contributed to an elementary school in Malawi, sent 452 bicycles to Africa and purchased cows for an orphanage in Kenya.

The goal of One Dollar For Life is to sustain a program where every individual student, regardless of income, could contribute, hence the $1 donation threshold.

The second purpose of the program is to show teenagers they have power to change the world, provided they work together.

“No one dollar can do very much. But all of the dollars together can actually have a pretty big impact,” said Robert Freeman, founder and teacher at Los Altos High.

Freeman pointed out that there are 23 million high school students in America.

“If every one of them gives just one dollar, we can build more than 1,000 schools a year in the developing world,” he said. “It is literally a ‘change the world’ idea.”

Schools in California, Oregon, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Ohio have conducted One Dollar For Life fundraisers. The organization has built a “Fundraiser in a Box” that instructs students at any school in how to carry out a successful fundraiser.

Because volunteer teachers and students operate the organization, every dollar contributes to building a school or other needed project.

“Our motto is ‘Bigger People, Better World,’” Freeman said. “That’s bigger people here – those who give a dollar – and a better world out there – the schools we build.”

The groups plans to build six schools this year in Kenya, Malawi, Indonesia, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals advances philanthropy around the world by enabling people to practice ethical and effective fundraising.

For more information, visit www.odfl.org.

Email (will not be published)

Name

Title

Comment
 remaining characters

Post

We reserve the right to use comments submitted on our site in whole or in part. We will not publish comments that contain advertising or website links.