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By Cathleen O’Grady

Avivara is a small charity aimed at improving access to education in impoverished areas in Guatemala. They also work toward the improvement of existing educational facilities and cultivating relationships between Guatemala and the United States.

Avivara has a multi-faceted approach to educational improvement, with a number of programs. They provide scholarships for students hoping to continue their education beyond 6th grade and provide grants for schools to improve their facilities. Recognizing that education goes beyond simply what happens at school, they also provide after-school learning facilities where students have access to tutoring and homework help, and run nutrition programs in a number of schools to ensure that students are well fed and able to focus on learning.

The effects of Avivara’s programs in Guatemala are tangible. Previously ill-equipped schools are provided with desks, books, and learning resources, and in 2012, 43 students were given scholarships to continue their education into junior high, high school, or tertiary education. Avivara is an organization creating tangible change with a limited budget and huge financial challenges. This impact, along with their program assessment and focus on the greater social context of inequality in Guatemala, makes them a deserving Small Grant beneficiary.

In between checking your email and browsing the latest updates on your Facebook wall, can you spare a few clicks? Foundation Beyond Belief, Secular Student Alliance, and Camp Quest need your votes to earn up to $450,000 combined in the Chase Community Giving contest! They’re all 501(c)(3) nonprofits, so a little money never hurt—and you know it’s not going to pay for increasing the size of their yacht fleets.

The Chase Community Giving program awards funding to charities based on votes from Facebook users and Chase customers, and there are lots of grants available. The first place winner gets $250K, the following 10 get $100K, then the next 35 get $50K, and the next 50 get $20K. SSA was ranked 30th as of September 11, which would net them a $50K grant. FBB was ranked 56th for a $20K grant, and CQ was 166th and in place a $10K grant. That’s $80K for secular charities, but we need at least 100 votes every day to maintain these positions, and 200 to 300 votes every day to move up in the ranks.

As of September 11 (Day 6 of the contest), SSA has almost 1,100 votes, FBB has about 730, and Camp Quest has about 325. Yesterday many people worked very hard to spread the word, and we banked more than 200 votes and raised each organization’s rank in the contest significantly. We need to do this every day to stay competitive, and we need everyone’s help to get the largest grants possible for these secular organizations. We can increase the grant total for the three organizations combined by more than $300K!

Let’s make this an even better deal—we estimate that 2,000 votes per organization is about the number of votes needed to put groups safely in the $50,000 range for the duration of the contest. Groups probably don’t need that much, but it’s hard to say at this point.

 Now let’s do the math: $50,000/2,000 = $25

 per vote. Each person gets two votes. You can help secure $50 for these awesome organizations just by voting.

On Facebook, you can get two votes automatically that have to be used on different charities, and you can earn a third vote that can be doubled up or used on a third charity if you share a link on your wall and someone clicks on it. Here’s the Facebook event with all the voting links that you can use to RSVP and let your friends online know about the contest.

To go directly to the Chase giving pages and vote, click these links:

• Vote for Foundation Beyond Belief: Foundation Beyond Belief provides a venue for humanists to put their values into actions by supporting efforts to improve this world and this life, and to focus, encourage and demonstrate humanist values such as generosity, compassion, mutual care, and responsibility.
• Vote for Secular Student Alliance: The Secular Student Alliance organizes, unites, educates, and serves students and student communities that promote the ideals of scientific and critical inquiry, democracy, secularism, and human-based ethics.
• Vote for Camp Quest: Camp Quest provides an educational adventure for kids 8 to 17 years old that is shaped by fun, friends, and freethought, featuring science, natural wonder, and humanist values.

Chase customers get two additional votes in addition to the Facebook votes. That means one person can have up to five votes to spend on three or more charities.

Voting ends Wednesday, September 19. Please vote today, and help spread the word!

For more stories about this drive and these organizations, visit the Foundation Beyond Belief blog, the Secular Student Alliance blog, and the Camp Quest blog. You can also follow these groups on Twitter: @foundbb, @volunteersbb, @secularstudents, and @campquest.