You may remember from previous posts that I am the group manager for the Cincinnati group on BlogHer.

Well the conference may be over, but there are still many things going on over at BlogHer.com. Among them is BlogHer’s 2009 Social Media Challenge, of which I am happy to say that I am participating in.

This year BlogHer has teamed up with the non-profit Donors Choose and is using it’s power to help raise funds for public schools.

DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that enables you to donate to schools and students need. The way it works is that teachers post requests for items like books, tables, school supplies, etc. to the site – along with estimated costs and the deadline for which they’d like to use the item in the classroom.  You then can choose to donate towards their effort, be it $5 or $100.  Once enough funds are raised, the teachers get their items. Donors later receive photos showing how the item(s) was used in the classroom.

This year I was asked to lead the fundraising effort for the Cincinnati blogging community and I couldn’t be more excited.

Eight projects have currently been submitted by local teachers to the site, with the total amount of funding requested falling just under $4,000 (averaging around $340 each).  While I’d love to raise enough money to support them all,  I thought I’d start small with one project. Then if we reach our goal we can add another!

For this first challenge, the goal is to raise $436 towards the purchase of a Child Friendly Computer Station for 2. Being that we are all using computers every day, I thought it only appropriate that we try and help these inner city pre-school students with special needs with their request for help for a computer station and chairs.

As I mentioned there are several projects available for supporting in our city. You can view each project, a little about the school and the need by clicking on the widget in my left sidebar.  I am hoping together we can help raise enough money to help at least 2 of these project requests be fulfilled.

How you can help:

1) Make a donation. Big or small, every dollar will help a local school and even more important, help a local child.

2) Get involved. Participate in the Bloggers Give Challenge. Add the Cincinnati BlogHer Team widget to your blog. Guys can do this too! You don’t have to be female, just because it’s BlogHer!

3) Spread the Word. Tell your friends about this challenge. Share it with your readers. Let’s help as many of these local schools with their project wishes as we can!

4) Follow @donorschoose on Twitter or become a Fan on Facebook.

Last year, bloggers across the country raised $270,000 to provide 65,000 students with the resources needed to learn. That’s pretty amazing!

Not in Cincinnati? No worries. Lots of cities are participating:

Here are the giving pages for each regional group.

NOTE: This post was revised at 7pm on Oct. 1. Originally I was wanting to go after all the projects at once, but after thinking about it I decided it best to “pick the off” one at a time.