It's on! The second annual DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge is live, with bloggers competing to raise money. DonorsChoose.org is a site that allows teachers to register for classroom items they need; Techland says "techies love Donorschoose.org." because it's "part tech and part business with a strong do-gooding bent." They predict the competition will "get rough, and hilarious." The DonorsChoose.org blog notes that "Titans of the Web have tossed their hats into the ring. TechCrunch, Engadget, BoingBoing, AVC, Silicon Valley Moms Blog, BoomTown, Apartment Therapy, and other top bloggers have created giving pages on DonorsChoose.org listing their favorite classroom project requests," but says smaller bloggers shouldn't worry: The challenge "is about the engagement and generosity of your readers, not the number of your readers."

You can track how much has been donated, and to which projects, here; lots of bloggers choose projects that are particularly meaningful to them or their blogs--Fred Wilson, for instance, who won in the tech category last year, emphasizes technology and music learning projects.

Last year's winner, Tomato Nation, writes, "It's not a good time to ask for money. I'm-a do it anyway. . . . It's sucky, queasy times like this...when it's the most important to get everybody pushing in the same direction, if only to remind ourselves that we can make a difference and that goodness exists." Last year, they raised over $100,000. Silicon Valley Moms writes, "Yes, we want to raise a lot of money, but we'd also like to show off how many moms care about the education of all children and not just their own." Blogs are offering various prizes and incentives to readers who donate--everything from promising to post every day of the challenge (Dollarshort) to original artwork and poems (Adventures in Ethics and Science) to a free pass to all TechCrunch events for a year (SWiK). And the prize for the blog that gets its readers to donate the most? "A good old-fashioned dose of media attention," writes Techland, "a priceless prize for any blogger."