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Ask Slashdot: Where Should a Geek's Charitable Donations Go?

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-accept-all-major-credit-cards dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I'm in the position to direct (or at least suggest the direction of) a fairly large amount of charitable donation on behalf of a foundation interested in promoting education. As a lifelong geek, I'd like to see some of this money directed toward organizations involved in things geeks-like (e.g. spreading technology in education to those without it, improving the use of technology for those who have it, etc.). If it was up to you, what charitable organizations would you support and why?"

13 of 263 comments (clear)

  1. Altruism... by wermske · · Score: 4, Informative

    Education is a broad category... geek-ish is equally broad depending on application.

    Prime Directive... LOCAL...LOCAL...LOCAL. Your operative or key word is impact. You want to insure that as much as your dollar achieves its intended objective and that you have the ability to (if you choose) to verify the impact. Avoid a national or international blunderbuss -- such an approach scatters your money, creates too much dilution and generally includes excessive overhead.

    Out-of-the-Box Brainstorm Suggestions:

    Crisis Hotline, Woman's Center (or an similar support system for domestic abuse), Big Brothers Big Sisters, Homeless Shelters, Addiction and Rehabilitation Groups

    You can also use Charity Navigator to assist you in researching specific organizations.

    Each of these can be geeked-up to provide uplift and outreach were normal "geek enablement" or "geek opportunity" might otherwise simply be unavailable due to lack of funding. KEEP IN MIND -- Educational opportunities and technical services are very low priority when safety, food, and shelter are priority one!

    Just a thought...

    1. Re:Altruism... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Informative

      You want to insure that as much as your dollar achieves its intended objective and that you have the ability to (if you choose) to verify the impact. Avoid a national or international blunderbuss -- such an approach scatters your money, creates too much dilution and generally includes excessive overhead.

      I'd just like to second that, and stress an important point. Many of these Big Charities spend about half their money on their own administration activities, like expensive lawyer fees. There was an article in The Economist a couple years ago about this. Even reputable charities like the United Way and a Lady Diana Foundation have run afoul of this.

      Donating to something where you know the people spending the money personally, will avoid this. And you will have the personal satisfaction of seeing the money put to good use.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Altruism... by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's a website that focuses on exactly this point:

      Give Well

      They analyse charities for cost/benefit of their activities and what percentage of the charity's funding goes on ancillaries vs the charity's stated purpose.

      Also, they look for evidence that the charity actually does what they say they do.

      Another resource for evaluating charities is the BBB, apparently.

    3. Re:Altruism... by sapphire+wyvern · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you're trying to maximise the impact of your donation, you might be interested to know that a bunch of eggheads have already considered this exact point and written a report on their conclusions. It gets updated every few years.

      On the upside, a fair bit of thought and research has gone into their publication. On the downside, most of the experts are economists, and I'm not actually sure if one should take an economist's word on whether the sky is blue.

      Here's the website, anyway: The Copenhagen Consensus.

  2. The EFF and TIA by subreality · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://eff.org/ - Doesn't need an explanation really.
    https://archive.org/ - The librarians of the internet

    1. Re:The EFF and TIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      I support all of the above and would like to add the Free Software Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation.
      (Mind you, there are plenty of other good causes like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation or Médecins Sans Frontières, but I'm assuming we're looking for a way to give money to geek-y causes rather than causes a geek wouldn't mind sending his money to.)

  3. National Science Olympiad by loimprevisto · · Score: 3, Informative

    The National Science Olympiad gets a good chunk of my charitable donations. They do a lot to promote science education and I had a great time competing when I was in high school.

    --
    Much Madness is divinest Sense --
    To a discerning Eye --
    Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
  4. MIT Open Courseware and the Wikimedia Foundation by FoolishOwl · · Score: 4, Informative

    MIT Open Courseware is a good project.

    And everyone knows the Wikimedia Foundation, but they can use more help.

  5. One DVM per child by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Informative

    How about giving away a free voltmeter to any student from a 3rd world nation who passes the edX course "Circuits and Electronics"?

    6002x "Circuits and Electronics", an online version of the MIT introductory electronics course. This was an exact copy of the MIT course, taught by an MIT professor, and was just as hard as the original course. Same material, same difficulty, online format.

    Some of the 7,000 graduates were from 3rd world nations. For example, this article talks about a class of high-school students in Mongolia:

    I'm reminded of William Kamkwamba, who built a wind-powered generator and was able to bring electricity to his village. His Ted talk is pretty interesting.

    Mr. Kamkwamba had nothing. He built his windmill from scratch after learning the principles of electricity from books in the local library. He built his own circuit breaker by winding wire onto nails driven into wood.

    His task would have been so much easier if he could have measured continuity, or the output voltage of his generator.

    Most of the modern world is based on electronics - measurements, actions, communications, and so on. Having the tools and understanding would allow people to repair broken equipment and machinery, to take pieces from ewaste and hook them together in new ways, and generally have better life opportunities.

    Supplying 5,000 students (a generous estimate) would cost only $10,000.

    Here is the contact page for edX.

  6. CHILDS PLAY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Childs Play, and also really any charity you agree with. Just because your a geek doesn't mean your going to revoke your geek card if you donate blood and donate to something like the Red Cross instead of something more "geeky".

  7. Pirate Party by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 3, Informative

    The pirate parties of all countries need lots of donations to organize the upcoming elections...

  8. Local technical museums, hackerspaces or similar by Rastloser · · Score: 3, Informative

    As a volunteer for the club that restored Germany's first radio telescope (see http://astropeiler.de/ ), I am certainly quite biased, but I think that technical, hands-on museums would also be a good target. Check your area for volunteer-run astronomical observatories, open electronics labs, private physics labs... essentially places that are open to everyone interested in science, give people a hands-on experience with old (or current) technology and where everyone can repeat important experiments that shape our world-view. For example, we offer everyone the chance to repeat the measurements by Oort et al. from 1958 that show that the Milky Way has a spiral structure, and hope to support and promote an evidence-based world view by doing so. (And, besides, it's just great fun to operate your own radio telescope!)

  9. Wikipedia by Fished · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would seriously consider the Wikimedia Foundation, publishers of wikipedia. Particularly in the third world, this sort of freely available information is vital.

    --
    "He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1