GrayMatter

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GrayMatter (or The GrayMatter Foundation) is a student-run not-for-profit organization working to help students attending underfunded public high schools in the United States. GrayMatter benefits education on the premise that "Students know what students need."
History
The idea for The GrayMatter Foundation was formulated in 2010 when students attending Staten Island Technical High School and Culver Academies, contemplated how they could help schools in New York City facing enormous budget cuts from the governments of New York State and New York City. As they brought together a grassroots group of like-minded high school students from around New York City, they began promoting their cause for education while raising and donating funds.
Etymology
"GrayMatter" comes from the Americanized spelling of greymatter, the biological term for a major component of the central nervous system which assists sensory perception and makes up the cerebral cortex. As greymatter facilitates learning within each individual, GrayMatter aims to facilitate education within our society.
GrayMatter Projects
After raising $410 from an Ultimate Frisbee Tournament in Battery Park, Manhattan at which over forty high school students competed, GrayMatter sought to put these funds toward a school in need. While coordinating purchasing English books for Leon M. Goldstein High School in Brooklyn, NY, the founders again realized the amount of need for educational donations in New York City high schools and sought a new method of obtaining these donations and awareness through the internet.
This resulted in an effort to recreate GrayMatter's website to enable donors to give to projects posted by students asking for materials they need for school, a student-focused variation of DonorsChoose's model. The CEO and Founder of DonorsChoose, Charles Best, sits on GrayMatter's advisory council along with several other successful social entrepreneurs and internet technologists.
The official beta version of GrayMatter Projects is expected to launch in the coming months. The endeavor aims to create a more transparent fundraising process while maintaining integrity and reaching as many students as possible.
GrayMatter has raised several thousand dollars so far.

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