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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?"

6 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 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.

    2. 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

  3. 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.

  4. 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.