OUR COMMITMENT
For more than 50 years, The Critical Thinking Co.™ has proudly donated hundreds of thousands of materials to charities, institutions, and children in need. Thanks to suggestions from customers like you, our philanthropy program has grown to new heights.
Every year Critical Giving provides more than 100,000 educational products through our non-profit partners to children living in the U.S. and abroad.
We are incredibly proud and honored to have the privilege to help so many children, it is truly humbling. Their success stories continually inspire us to keep on empowering the minds of children around the world. Thank you for making this possible.
THE CHALLENGE
For the 3rd consecutive year, charitable giving is down around the world. Now, more than ever, children around the world need our help. It's our world, help us make it a more thoughtful, giving, place. All it takes is a little critical and creative thinking.
Every day, millions of kids in the United States arrive at a preschool or after-school program without an age-appropriate book to read, let alone a computer to use. According to the Giving USA Foundation, 2008 marked the first year charitable giving declined in more than two decades. The downward trend appears to have continued in recent years, according to the Philanthropic Giving Index (PGI) released in August of 2010 by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. With charitable giving declining and millions of children living below the poverty line, the lack of educational resources frequently strikes the most important people in our communities; teachers and children.
The Kids In Need Foundation indicates more than 13 million U.S. children live below the poverty line, and according to First Book, 80% of preschool and after-school programs serving low-income populations have no age-appropriate books for the children they serve.
With a record-breaking 50 million students entering classrooms across the nation and teachers spending more of their own money than ever before to purchase supplies for their students and classrooms, upwards of $1,000 annually, the need for quality educational materials, especially for low-income populations, has risen drastically.
HOW TO HELP
You can help give critical educational materials to those in need simply by shopping at www.CriticalThinking.com. In addition to Critical Giving, a portion of every order is donated to the John David Baker Memorial Scholarship Fund for less privileged children, in honor of the company's founder.
NON-PROFIT PARTNERS
Our family-run business donates award-winning products to educational and charitable institutions such as Kids In Need Foundation, Gifts In Kind International, First Book, and many others. Let us know your favorite charities and we may add them to our non-profit partner list.
Testimonials:
"We showed him one of the books that The Critical Thinking Co.™ donated. One of our interpreters is actually a teacher in Port Au Prince and he made the necessary translation and modeled how to use the book in the classroom for the other teachers. Thanks for your kindness and generosity and your interest in what ServeHAITI is trying to accomplish in Grand- Bois. We can't do it without people like you." - Liz McDermott
"Last year we received a donation from The Critical Thinking Co.™ for our ministry to kids here in Lusaka Zambia. We received some books and an assortment of CDs. I want to report that the boys have benefited tremendously from them. The education here is so very poor and in addition to a library that we have in our home we have a computer that is open to a large group of neighborhood kids." - Tracy Murray
"On behalf of the students at Kidder Elementary in Brunswick Ohio we thank you for your donation. The kids enjoyed all the baskets." - Kathy Cipalla
PRODUCTS WE DONATE
The Critical Thinking Co.™ donations to schools and charities include national award-winning titles such as (but not limited to) Scratch Your Brain®, Language Smarts™, Red Herring Mysteries, Reading Detective®, Editor in Chief®, Mind Building Reading, Complete The Picture Math, Word Benders™, and many more.
Full Disclosure: We donate digital access to our materials in addition to physical hard copies of books and software. This allows us to reach more schools and children, and provide each child with several mind-building options.
According to a study published in 1998 by the The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, "Virtually all of our nation’s children have access to computers at school, and over two-thirds have access at home." Granted, schools serving predominantly low-income children tend to have older, less functional computers, and fewer computers in each classroom as compared with schools serving higher-income children, but the fact remains, most low-income students in the U.S. who want them now have access to the Internet and other digital learning resources.
Inspired by life-changing organizations, such as One Lap Top Per Child (OLPC), Computers for Kids, Computers for Families, First Chance Project, Juno, and NetZero, helping to make free web access and online learning possible for the less privileged, The Critical Thinking Co.™ now provides digital donations (along with physical hard copies) to give to schools and children on a much larger scale.
Internet access abroad by children in need is a much different story. For this reason, we work with international humanitarian non-profits to deliver thousands of physical books to children in need; however, children in the United States receive the bulk of our donations.
“It is a great honor to support schools and charities in their greatest time of need. The Critical Thinking Co.™ is committed to enhancing education and developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills to ensure our students are prepared for the challenges of tomorrow and able to compete with their global peers. Critical Giving formalizes our One-to-Many pledge.” - Nile Duppstadt, Vice President, The Critical Thinking Co.™