
What’s the best way to spend $20K to help the common good? - BenjaminTodd
https://80000hours.org/2015/06/whats-the-best-way-to-spend-20000-to-help-the-common-good/
======
shoo
Another important aspect might be to consider how the $20k was obtained in the
first place. What resources were consumed to generate that wealth? What
pollution was generated? Which parts of society benefited, and which did not?

Here is a contrived example:

Suppose you obtained $20k by applying your skills as a consultant where you
helped some business make an additional $200k profit by more effectively
advertising their products.

Suppose that business has a profit of 20% for each item they sell, so you've
actually lifted their revenue by $1m.

Now, suppose these products are essentially useless consumer products that
will go out of fashion within 1 year.

I claim without evidence that the environmental impact of producing,
advertising, distributing and disposing of $1m of useless products may, in
many cases, be well in excess of how much of that impact you could attempt to
reverse with a $20k budget.

So, another option is to consider is that the world may be better off if you
didn't earn that $20k in the first place. It very much depends on the direct
and indirect effects of how you did it.

edit: I am curious if I am copping the odd down-vote because this argument is
complete nonsense (in which case please help me modify my beliefs!) or simply
because I mention something that is perhaps uncomfortable to reflect upon. I
claim no moral high ground here.

~~~
lmm
When people try to make these judgements you end up repeating the mistakes of
communism, where (e.g.) very good research into genetics and psychology was
abandoned because people thought it wouldn't be useful, and resources were
wasted producing old manufactured goods (inefficient machines and the like)
that no-one wanted.

Even if in this one example the $20k was obtained through a net negative
action, overall it seems like the invisible hand is better at allocating
resources than well-intentioned human judgement. So the best strategy for the
world, as counterintuitive as it seems, is to blindly do whatever makes you
the most money.

~~~
EGreg
You should read about negative externalities. If everyone did whatever would
make them the most money, the net effect would be to exploit as many resources
and turn them into waste at an ever increasing speed, since the goal is simply
to increase the money velocity. The result would be a population explosion and
crash.

Looking at the graph of the human population, are you so sure the efficiency
of capitalism is sustainable?

~~~
lmm
Sure; there are specific cases where capitalism doesn't work well and other
approaches are better. I see what I wrote goes further than I intended. What I
meant to say was that in the general, overall average case capitalism works
best. But "blindly" was overstating it.

------
2anon4this1
I did a stint in a rural bangladeshi hospital while a medical student.

I went on an outreach camp with an opthalmologist. In one village we saw
dozens of elderly people partially or fully blind from cataracts. None of them
could afford the surgery. I asked the opthalmologist how much the operation
was and he said "$40 each", so I said "ok choose the 20 people who need this
operation the most and ill give you the $800". They put 20 of them in minivans
and took them to the hospital the next day and all 20 got their operations.
Had a whole ward of really delighted people.

~~~
J-dawg
I've seen fundraising campaigns from the big charities (Oxfam, Unicef etc)
where they put a price on different interventions. E.g. £5 buys a dose of
medicine, £10 vaccinates a child, £50 buys a goat for a family, etc.

I've often found this sort of fundraising slightly off-putting because it
implies that there is literally a line of people waiting to be vaccinated, and
they're just waiting for your money before they can move on to the next child.
I find this scenario hard to believe, and I think the over-simplification is
patronising.

However you've described a situation where there literally was a line of
people waiting for cataract operations, and your donation had an incredible
impact on 20 people's lives.

It would be great if there were easier ways to donate money directly to people
like you did. Donating money via huge organisations that employ hundreds of
people in developed countries seems like an incredibly inefficient way of
doing it.

To put it another way, I'm sure most people would rather pay for 20 cataract
surgeries for 20 real people than 20 notional goats

~~~
saiya-jin
street wisdom (or they...) says that roughly 95% of charity/help donations go
to management and delivery of those donations, and only 5% is spent on actual
goods (be it medicine, blanket, food etc.) that help people. it seems a bit
over-the top statement, but then you realize how massive organizations (or
corporations?) like UN are, employing thousands and thousands of people in
most expensive parts of the world (New York, Geneva... seriously WTF?).

Here in Geneva, there are gazillions of non-profit orgs, then there are
various organizations grouping those non profits and so on. Still talking
about one of most expensive cities in the world. Yes, those people probably
don't have private bank-levels of salary, but I know a people or two who are
curently buying high-priced properties over the border in France, so they are
more than OK.

Friend in quite high position in Red cross hates UN with passion, stating they
are useless in real crysis scenarios, just bureaucrats etc. Not sure if that's
an objective statement, but there is probably at least some truth there.

What I decided to do, at least for now - Amnesty International. Rather than
putting bandage where bleeding, it might lead to improvement of system. And I
pay directly organization of lawyers who actually try to do good stuff, not
bureaucrats who travel all around the world and check some spreadsheets and do
presentations.

But what one poster says here is probably one of best things - directly invest
into treating people, no useless middlemen who, like it or not, also need to
be payed.

------
Osmium
You could always find someone you like and give it to them ;)
[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2569](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2569)

In seriousness, GiveWell ranks charities by their effectiveness. You could
give to one of their top charities: [http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-
charities](http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) "These are
evidence-backed, thoroughly vetted, underfunded organizations."

Edit: (in reference to z3ugma's comment) further down that page is actually a
charity whose mission is to aid salt iodization programmes in developing
countries. I honestly had no idea this was even an issue until now.

~~~
BenjaminTodd
GiveWell is great, and I seriously considered making "give to GiveWell
recommended charities" the recommendation of the article. However, I think
it's even better to give to the Open Philanthropy Project (a collaboration
between GiveWell and Good Ventures) or to give to GiveWell itself, rather than
their recommended charities (which has the effect of increasing OpenPhil's
funds). It depends on the extent to which you share GiveWell's values though.

~~~
melling
It's only 20 grand. As I tried to mention below, aim higher. You've got the
nerds running around in the weeds here on HN.

This other story on HN is not gaining any traction but it's interesting
because a 33 year old Malayasian billionaire is financing using Watson to
assist with cancer treatment.

"[http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons-
next-feat-taking-on-cancer/)

"Jho Low, the 33-year-old billionaire who is bankrolling the $50 million MD
Anderson project with Watson, said the effort grew out of his grandfather’s
treatment for leukemia in Malaysia. Low said that he felt fortunate to be able
to connect his grandfather’s doctors remotely with MD Anderson specialists to
devise the best treatment plan. He believes everyone, rich or poor, should
have the same access to that kind of expertise."

~~~
BenjaminTodd
If you're a young personal at the start of your career, then I agree it could
easily make more sense to invest it in yourself (e.g. education, trying out a
startup, graduate school).

~~~
vinceguidry
Whole-heartedly agreed. Until you have more money than you know what to do
with, the expected social returns from just about everywhere you put your
money would be far dwarfed by the returns you'd get from investing in yourself
and giving back once you've got enough piled up to where it doesn't matter one
whit whether you have it or not.

~~~
tedsanders
That doesn't make sense to me. If you give money to poorer people, it allows
them to invest in themselves at a higher rate of return than you can achieve.

~~~
derefr
No; ten people accruing compound interest (for example) on $100 is not nearly
as good as one person accruing compound interest on $1000, and then
distributing the dividends. Why? Because fixed costs eat away the interest
gains of the ten much more than the one.

Every system has friction. You have to concentrate power to overcome friction
and get things done. We'd be knocking off the world's problems a lot faster if
we could "focus fire" on them. Ten diseases that might each take a decade to
cure with 1/10th the donation could be solved half the time or less if each
disease got a year of _all_ the donations. But charity is more about
signalling your clever pet cause than global optimization of future world-
states, so nobody will let go of their second-best (or, realistically, 897th-
best) charity.

~~~
tedsanders
If it is indeed socially optimal to concentrate wealth, then we should
advocate a regressive tax policy and encourage the poor to donate to the upper
middle class.

Do you know of published research that supports this conclusion? I'm honestly
curious.

------
z3ugma
It's probably shipping $20,000 of iodized salt to the developing world:

Iodine deficiency is a leading cause of preventable mental impairment, as
iodine is a micronutrient crucial to brain development. An estimated 2 billion
people-- almost a third of the earth’s population--have low iodine intake and
are at risk for suffering from the complications of iodine deficiency.

Eradication of iodine deficiency is highly cost-effective— worldwide, the cost
of salt iodization per year is estimated at $0.02-0.05 per child covered, and
the cost per child's death averted is $1000 and per disability-adjusted life
year gained is $34-36.

~~~
77ko
What about delivery? Without a delivery mechanism to those who need it this
would be a well meaning but not very useful.

~~~
knodi123
haha, well I think that was implied. It's not as if you can literally write
"the developing world" on a shipping label and just pour in a ton of morton's.

I agree that the advice given is overly vague. GP should list an _actionable_
way to to give iodized salt.

~~~
jqm
How about just sending the iodine and let them iodize their existing salt
supplies?

~~~
knodi123
flaws:

1\. same 'who do I write on the shipping label' concern

2\. assumes a sufficient existing salt supply (perhaps these people already
needed salt, so this aid healed two birds with one bandaid)

3\. assumes knowledge about proper iodization (ratios, sanitation, etc)

------
icanhackit
Use it to lobby people of influence to release even more funds for your hobby-
horse charity. More abstract; use it to fund the creation of a site that's a
merger of Getup.org and Kickstarter so that we can crowd-source lobbying. That
way the common person can compete with the petrochemical and military
industrial companies by dropping a dollar or ten on their chosen hobby-horse
issue. Small donations multiplied by many participants will result in
considerable funds.

Politicians are an interface to policy and money is the API.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
There's a rule of thumb called the Tullock Paradox that suggests the ROI from
lobbying is stupidly large, though no one is really sure why.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullock_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullock_paradox)

On the other hand, and this is something I've always felt about Bill Gates,
I'd need to see a full economic accounting of all the loss to global society
from their monopolostic rent-seeking behaviour, before I'd believe that their
giving the profits away to charity would counterbalance that behaviour.

~~~
innguest
So you believe the whole of Microsoft's contribution to the world has been a
net negative?

It seems to me they've made possible for countless businesses to do their day-
to-day work more efficiently.

------
zaroth
I always liked the idea of Benjamin Franklin's two century trust.

In 1790 when he died, he left £1,000 each to the cities of Boston and Philly,
to be kept in trust for 100 years. There was supposed to be £130,000 by 1890,
of which £100,000 would be spent, and another £30,000 left to compound for
another 100 years. [1]

Even after a significant distribution in 1890, the funds distributed about $7
million to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia in 1990. The original
investment was about $80,000 (for both cities) in today's dollars. [2]

[1] -
[http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_ph...](http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/excellence_in_philanthropy/what_miracle_of_compound_interest)

[2] -
[http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number12/heldman.ht...](http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number12/heldman.htm)

------
lucaspiller
Instead of getting a more efficient car, how about spending it on moving
somewhere where you don't need a car? That $20k could go towards a more
expensive home that is closer to downtown or public transport links.

As a European who has lived in cities with pretty decent public transport for
the last 10+ years (I lived in the countryside before that), it's mind
boggling to me that most American cities are so car-centric.

~~~
VLM
Something to think about with cars and trucks is Americans love to spend
thousands to save tens.

So the best way to spend $20K on vehicles is probably $20K of delivery
services / delivery truck drivers in order to obtain some economy of scale
effects. Hauling 800 pounds of dirt in a small hybrid is bad, spending $25K
extra to buy a truck to avoid the home depot $19 rental truck is worse, but
best of all is spending $100 to have the giant home depot truck deliver it
next time it swings by, repeated 200 times.

Also $20K of purchasing in bulk to eliminate extra trips. The best way to
drive to walmart to buy a 4-pack of toilet paper that you just ran out of, is
not a 8 mpg truck or a 10 mpg SUV or even an electric car, but to spend a
little more $$$ up front to buy the giant pack of toilet paper to avoid
running out and eliminate making an extra trip in the first place.

------
pkkim
I had the opportunity to speak with some Bangladeshi labor organizers who help
workers organize unions in the textile factories there. It sounds like they
are doing some great work[0][1]. Organizers' salaries are apparently well
under five hundred USD per month, and they are on the front lines of a
struggle against the global wage race to the bottom and unsafe working
conditions. There are some organizations I've worked with in the US that have
connections with some of them, and I am strongly considering to these groups
in Bangladesh.

The main question is whether or not this will simply lead to these jobs being
pushed to even poorer countries with even lower wages -- though that would
probably help those poorer countries.

0: [http://www.ranaplaza-arrangement.org/](http://www.ranaplaza-
arrangement.org/) Compensation to victims of the Rana Plaza factory disaster.

1: [http://www.voanews.com/content/labor-unions-bangladesh-
garme...](http://www.voanews.com/content/labor-unions-bangladesh-garment-
industry/2744414.html) "Since 2010, the number of active garment industry
unions grew from seven to 200. They represent some 150,000 workers."

------
apeace
Charged at $200/hr, $20k = 100 hours.

Keep the money for yourself, and spend 100 hours of your time talking to a
poor person. Help them find a better job, or make a better financial plan, or
eat healthier, or just listen to what they have to say and tell them they can
call you if they need someone.

This is by far the biggest impact a person like Paul Buchheit could make on
the world. Even if his $20k could go 100% to a better water bottle in Africa,
or a more efficient hybrid, or whatever, it will pale in comparison to how he
could personally change someone's life if he walked up to them and took the
time to try.

So go blow $20k at the club or on a cool car, after you've earned it by
hitting the streets and solving your neighbor's problems for 100 hours.
Someday your neighbors might do the same ;)

~~~
logicallee
I'm sorry, if you're serious, this is the most entitled and egotistical
suggestion I've ever read in my life, it's kind of shocking. The best way to
spend $20K charitably is to bill oneself $200/hr and spend 100 hours sharing
one's massive brain with homeless people by giving them... a talking? (While,
again, billing $200/hour for it.)

Then spend that well-earned money on hookers and blow? You've made a
difference?

Honestly... words fail me.

~~~
apeace
You miss the point :)

I don't think it's helpful to others to go clubbing, in fact it's not an
activity I'd do myself if I had that much money (nor would I waste money on a
car).

My point is that the $20k can't help someone as much as you can personally.

~~~
thret
So someone who is homeless and forced to beg or commit petty theft in order to
eat would appreciate a chat more than $20k? You should try that and mention
you're paying yourself $200 an hour because you think that's better for them.

------
newman8r
I would make STEM kits for $20 each (common lab compounds, electronic
components, microcontroller, lenses, list of online resources, etc.) I would
give them to high school kids rather than the younger kids they're usually
geared towards. Make it a little bit edgy - high schoolers love fire we all
know this - not like a bit of rocket candy is more dangerous that whatever
else they have access to. If they want the next kit they pay $20, but they
also have to give the previous kit to a noob first. The second kit would how
them how to get all the components/compounds they need generally free or
cheap.

------
kendallpark
One thing this article didn't mention is giving money towards research.
There's no lack of underfunded labs filled with scientists researching rarer
diseases or unique approaches to humanitarian issues. 20K could go a long way
in helping these smaller labs. It would take some searching and talking on the
giver's end to find the right cause and scientists he or she trusts, but it
wouldn't be too hard with the powers of the internet.

~~~
knodi123
I have a lab that's trying to find a way to use beer consumption to prevent
cancer.

But seriously, make sure to find an objective measurement of a research
topic's plausibility before you give the money. There's no lack of research
projects where a donation is statistically identical to setting the money on
fire.

~~~
kendallpark
> There's no lack of research projects where a donation is statistically
> identical to setting the money on fire.

Very very true.

------
reasonattlm
If you want to be utilitarian about it, maximizing common good derived from a
modest donation, then pick (a) the venture that will produce the greatest gain
in common good if implemented, and (b) an organization with a low
administrative overhead that is in your opinion doing a good job of making
progress towards (a). That is the 80/20 calculation. You'll never know if you
got it right, but it has the best chance of doing something rather than
nothing.

For my money, (a) is ending degenerative aging by periodic repair of that
damage that causes it, and (b) is the SENS Research Foundation. There is no
other single cause of death and suffering as large as the biological wear and
tear that causes degeneration and death in aging. There is no other
organization I know of that will definitely put all donations to research,
advocacy, and scientific organization relating to this task. There are other
single-disease or single-field patient advocate and research organizations out
there that do a little work relevant to age-related damage, but you've got no
way to ensure a donation as small as a few thousand dollars will actually go
to the aging-relevant 1% of what they do. Even cancer and stem cell fields are
doing a large amount of work that has no bearing on the best path forward.

In fact I'm personally donating $25K to the SENS Research Foundation this
year, and running a matching campaign in search of others willing to do the
same.

There are other options for using modest amounts of money that are more of a
lottery; use your money to persuade other people to give money, try to grow
your money to give later, etc, etc. But these are much more unreliable, or for
a few thousand dollars just not even worth trying versus outright donation to
a cause.

~~~
cdcarter
Planning to give later is a VERY effective use of money for early career
professionals (who will be able to make stable investments over long periods
of time and then give larger payouts when their own situations are more stable
as well) or people who do not as strongly believe in a given cause as you do
(who can wait until the causes they believe in are more stable or until they
have researched more sufficiently).

I have a retirement portfolio and a wealth building portfolio. The latter is
currently funded by my credit cards cash back policy, aggressively seeks
market gains, and forms the basis of my personal philanthropic efforts. My
giving currently focuses on arts organizations and local community
development, as that's a personal passion. My long term giving is hunger
focused, where a $50 donation is less meaningful and it makes sense for me to
grow my money first.

~~~
eru
> My long term giving is hunger focused, where a $50 donation is less
> meaningful and it makes sense for me to grow my money first.

Why is it less meaningful?

------
davidmr
> Invest in a startup. This is better than investing in the S&P500. The
> expected return is higher.

Is that actually true, or is the author using some meaning of the phrase
"expected return" that isn't common?

~~~
tptacek
My understanding is that it isn't even true for professional startup
investors, and they have preferential access to dealflow that your $20,000
doesn't.

~~~
tempestn
The median return is certainly lower, but the _expected_ return at least
should be higher. So most startup investments, and probably most startup
investors will fail, but some will succeed spectacularly. The point is, if
everyone who is interested in investing to eventually donate did so by
investing in startups, their aggregate returns _should_ be higher than if they
invested in the S&P or whatever instead - so it's superior even if most of
them end up with a negative return. (As opposed to when you're investing to
fund your own retirement, in which case you don't so much care how others'
investments go.)

~~~
tptacek
My understanding is that the median _fund_ underperforms the S&P, and that
investment managers at pension funds and endowments put money into VC funds
because their strategies require them to put a slice of money into that asset
class.

And, again: that's the outcome for investors that have preferred access to
dealflow.

~~~
tempestn
I don't have evidence to back up my assertion - only the theory that in an
efficient market riskier assets should be priced appropriately. So I don't
know for a fact that the expected return is higher. That said, the fact that
the median fund underperforms the S&P doesn't necessarily prove that the
expected return on an individual startup investment will do so. For one thing,
funds will have overhead - probably significant overhead in startup investing.
(Of course, they provide valuable diversification, but as mentioned above,
that shouldn't be the priority in this particular case.) Also, even if the
median fund underforms before costs, the average might still outperform, if
the winners are relatively concentrated.

~~~
notahacker
The application of the EMH to a market as overhyped, information-poor and
illiquid a market as startup investment is questionable. And another
consequence of competitive markets is that funds with board seats, insider
information and ability to negotiate preferential terms based on expected
follow-on investment take on less risk than you when investing, but they shape
the market prices for the asset.

$20k is friends & family or crowdfunding money, and I suspect that whilst
there will be some winners, the median return on those asset classes will be
-100%

~~~
tempestn
All good points. And I agree that the median return will likely be -100%.
Honestly I think you're probably right that even the average return will
probably be underwhelming, even if theoretically it shouldn't be. I am curious
though. I certainly wouldn't invest my money in startups on the theory that on
average I would end up with more to donate, even if I intended to donate 100%
of the proceeds regardless...

------
spectrum1234
What's really interesting is that if you are (far) less intelligent than the
average person you should almost certainly destroy it (assuming you can't just
give it to someone smarter than you.)

This assures you don't do something stupid and guarantees everyone else is at
least a tiny bit better off (because their money is now worth more).

~~~
eru
`Burning' the cash is actually an interesting idea. Especially if you think
inflation is a problem.

------
blazespin
He's wrong. Spending 20k on a hybrid car facilitates demand for a hybrid car,
which leads to better hybrid cars. If your buying it to directly (rather than
indirectly) improve the environment, you don't get what your are doing.

~~~
BenjaminTodd
That's true it's another effect, but I doubt it means hybrid cars win e.g. it
seems you could have a greater impact by speeding up the development of hybrid
cars just by giving the $20,000 in cash directly to Toyota.

------
monk_e_boy
If I had the money, I think I'd give half to my local primary school. They
could do with some books and PCs.

The other half I spend in Uganda, I'd just do random acts of kindness. Buy
medicine for someone, school books for a kid. Shoes or clothed for someone
else. Would be a really fun way to spend the money.

Rich people seem so clinical about their money. Get yer hands dirty, talk to
some people in need.

~~~
reagency
These rich people are trying to do something impactful and sustainable, not
just personally entertaining "poverty porn"

------
bezalmighty
The article states "Indeed, you may be able to offset a ton of CO2 for as
little as $1" and also: "... If we were to use the mean rather than the median
estimate, we would get a social cost of carbon of $48 per metric ton of CO2."
So for every $1 spent, you can save society a cost of $48? A 4,800% social
return on your money seems pretty good!

------
futuravenir
How about spending financial wealth on an educational program that redefines
wealth? I've started studying what Arthur Brock is doing and am trying to
implement it into my alternative economics startup as much as possible. You
cannot break down the Co2 that is processed by a tree into dollars...It's like
breaking down the value of a human being through how much plasma can be
extracted and selling it at market rate.

[http://www.artbrock.com/videos/arthur-brock-transitioning-
ne...](http://www.artbrock.com/videos/arthur-brock-transitioning-new-economy)

~~~
eru
> It's like breaking down the value of a human being through how much plasma
> can be extracted and selling it at market rate.

That certainly puts a floor under the value of a human being.

> You cannot break down the Co2 that is processed by a tree into dollars

Why not?

~~~
futuravenir
The point is that this is the value obtained through extraction. There are
other values that are non-financial that are not being calculated into the
equation.

Trees are ecosystems. Human beings are ecosystems. They interact in incredibly
complex ways with their external ecosystems.

To answer more simply, you can't break down the Co2 into dollar-value because
it isn't the only value that a tree has. It has an incredible amount of all
kinds of values. It helps create shade for other types of plants to grow, so
we need to factor that in. It creates a habitat for certain insects that help
with pollination. Those insects help keep away another type of insect that are
bad for reasons X, Y, Z. The relationship is so vast and complicated, that to
simply say, a tree is worth $40,000 is judging it by the wrong qualities.

It's like judging Einstein's Theory of Relativity based on the amount of
words, but not on the ideas that are created when someone reads it and is
inspired to create something new. Or judging a healthy diet simply by the
amount of calories. It just doesn't work like that in the real world. The
financial extraction of value is based on limited qualifiers that do not take
into account the complexity of true-to-life value.

~~~
eru
Putting a label of a certain monetary value on things doesn't deny that
there's other value judgements to be made.

How do you decide which tree to cut down? Or whether to cut down a tree or
break a stone?

~~~
futuravenir
Well, by taking into account all of the potential value judgments, then
utilizing the ones most relevant to your decision, acknowledging the short-
comings of your decision and making good on them.

Acknowledge - 100 values that Tree A brings. 85 values that Tree B brings.
Judge - 12 values from Tree A are relevant to our decision. 8 values from Tree
B are relevant to our decision. Cons - 3 values are really important that we
should rectify for Tree A. 5 values for Tree B. Make Good - 1 value of Tree A
cannot be replicated. All values of Tree B can be replicated. Conclusion - Cut
down Tree B. Benefit from it. Make good on 5 values that are important.

I literally made up this decision-making on the spot, but if I put more than
30 seconds into it, I think I can refine it and make it applicable to a lot of
spots. Yes, they would require qualitative thinking and are more complicated
than a simple monetary equation, but it considers all of the externalities of
our decisions beyond financial gain/loss and that was my initial point.

------
shaftoe
You could always check that box on your tax form that says you wish to make an
additional contribution. That is, assuming taxes benefit the common good.

I'm sure the money will be spent wisely.

~~~
uhwhat
501(c)3 non-profits are tax deductible.

I'd recommend [http://machineproject.com/](http://machineproject.com/) for the
HN crowd

Also funding for workshops/education through makerspace type groups.

Also funding for clean water infrastructure in 3rd world regions.

~~~
xur17
I've been struggling with this a little bit - my income / spending currently
results in me taking the standard deductible, so I'm not able to take
advantage of this tax deduction. Therefore, it makes the most sense for me to
hold off on donating, and save the money until I'm not taking the standard
deduction, and then donate it all at once.

I've been shuffling money off into a separate savings account every month to
get into the habit, and then I plan to use the balance of this account once I
am in a situation where I am able to take advantage of this tax deduction. I
do still donate money out of this account, just not a substantial account.

edit: I went back and read the article now :) - this chart [0] was helpful. If
you're at the beginning of your career, this makes the argument for holding
off on significant donation even stronger.

[0] [https://3d4k2r1b9zry49ki142owdm5-wpengine.netdna-
ssl.com/wp-...](https://3d4k2r1b9zry49ki142owdm5-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/Now-vs-Later-flowchart4.png)

~~~
cdcarter
I do a similar thing, but I have a fairly aggressive portfolio on Betterment
that I store my eventual philanthropy in. I fund it out of my credit card's
cash back, and unexpected extra income. It's very frustrating to not be able
to take advantage of tax deductible gifts seemingly just because I don't own a
home!

~~~
xur17
If you donate the investment directly to a non-profit, you will be able to
deduct the full value of the investment, and won't have to pay capital gains
on it.

Keeping the money in an investment account is a fairly good idea - I should
have enough by the end of the year to make this worthwhile.

------
rmason
Sounds very high minded. I'd research and find a need in your local community.
Find some group doing good work already and allow them to expand.

Maybe it's a bigger kitchen for a group feeding the poor. Or a bigger office
for college kids that are tutoring kids in math. If you take some time you
will find something that has personal meaning for you.

~~~
cdcarter
As a sibling commenter somewhat flippantly notes, orgs like GiveWell, 80,000
hours (publisher of the post), Centre for Effective Altruism, and Giving What
We Can are all focused on highly effective non-personal philanthropy. They are
targeted toward "logical givers" and "impact investors" who do not need the
sort of donor centric language and personal touches that many NPOs rely on for
their fund development strategies.

This can be seen by orgs like OpenPhil that won't even take unsolicited minor
donations.

These are orgs that are supporting "truly altruistic" giving, and trying to
remove the personal connection from giving. These organization tend to use
lines of thinking that remind me personally (though may or may not be inspired
by) Mylan Engel and "Taking Hunger Seriously"
([http://www.niu.edu/engel/_pdf/TakingHungerSeriously.pdf](http://www.niu.edu/engel/_pdf/TakingHungerSeriously.pdf))

------
michaelsbradley
There's a crisis-pregnancy center a block from where I live (in Saint Louis,
Missouri, USA). I do volunteer work there, and one of my friends is their
director of child-care:

[https://www.ourladysinn.org/](https://www.ourladysinn.org/)

They do great work helping poor women in Saint Louis and their already-born
children through difficult times. In addition to food, shelter and other
basics, they provide professional counseling (many of their clients struggle
with drug addiction) and try to help their clients get a solid footing with
respect to employment and a safe place to live after they finish the program
(about six weeks to several months after their child is born). Great attention
is given to making sure the clients' children get to school on time, do their
homework and are being given proper care.

I know the organization to be extremely thrifty – nothing goes to waste and
they are very careful regarding how they spend money donated to the center.
The organization also owns and runs a couple of resale shops in the same
neighborhood, where many of the clients take their first steps (or first steps
in awhile) carrying out job responsibilities, working under a manager. All
proceeds from those shops flow back into the crisis-pregnancy center.

------
dylanjermiah
If I were to donate it, it would go to Khan Academy. Education is the most
important thing too invest in, IMO.

------
bogrollben
Give it to Charity:Water or Water.org. Save lives, prevent disease, 4x
economic multiple return on investment.

~~~
BenjaminTodd
[http://www.givewell.org/international/charities/charity-
wate...](http://www.givewell.org/international/charities/charity-water)

------
beatpanda
I think "effective altruism" is a big part of the reason why tech workers
can't be moved to give a shit about solving the extreme social problems in
their own backyards, that they have in many cases exacerbated, because solving
them would be "inefficient".

------
webreac
I do not have a quote under hand, but preserving our history is important to
make us better. Most of the recent history would already be lost if
archive.org was not there. I do not see how giving to this cause could turn
wrong.

------
aaron695
$20,000 is possibly not enough but some sort of import export business to
funnel money from a rich nation to a poor nation.

$1 stores do more to help the poor than a lot of charities (But not all
charities)

------
oliao
Give it to the Greek Government - just kidding

------
puredemo
Two months of rent in SF

------
learnstats2
This seems like helping people is something to be kept at arm's length. Even
the list of options seem predicated on hyper-capitalism. Where's the
compassion?

~~~
eru
Compassion makes you a nice person to hang out with. It doesn't make you an
effective person.

~~~
learnstats2
No, compassion does not make you a nice person to hang out with:

"Compassion is the response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire
to help. Compassion is really the act of going out of your way to help
physical, spiritual, or emotional hurts or pains of another."

Giving your money to the Gates Foundation concentrates it on areas that are
already receiving disproportionate help (e.g. from the Gates Foundation).

------
the_cat_kittles
despite the many ways you could interpret "common good", i'd bet that feeding
a couple of kids healthy food for several years would rank up there with just
about anything.

------
anon4
Burn it and decrease inflation.

------
elektromekatron
Burn it.

------
rasengan
Pop some bottles at a club.

------
ams6110
I would generalize the finding to: spend the money on something that rewards
success and not failure.

Giving money to failing schools rewards failing schools.

Giving money to the poor and unemployed rewards being poor and unemployed.

Giving money to the homeless rewards being homeless.

Use the money to create opportunity, not to reward failure.

~~~
jat850
Your reply rubbed me the wrong way, as it implies that being poor, unemployed,
or homeless are by definition failures. Perhaps you didn't intend that (or
perhaps you do believe it). Not looking for a philosophical argument - just
stating my opinion contrary to what yours comes across as.

~~~
viraptor
How is being homeless not a failure on multiple levels? You can be poor by
choice and happy with it, I agree. But is any sane person homeless by choice?
Not traveling, hermit, not able to function in society, or many other cases.
Just wanting to live somewhere and able to do work, but not having a home. To
me that seems like a failure on multiple levels: country - global situation
that allows people to be homeless, local - no community support or path to
employment or investment into people, self - well... unless we give some
income to everyone, and you can't claim benefits for not being able to work,
you're expected to work for a place to live.

Unemployed is an artifact of the economy. I'd like to be successful enough to
be unemployed, but rich and not homeless.

~~~
robotresearcher
Empathy failure. I hope if you ever screw up really badly there is someone
else to give you a hand.

~~~
viraptor
This is exactly what I wrote. Not having a community-level support for cases
of "you screwed up badly" is a failure. Same for no benefits when "life screws
you up badly". Not sure where you see the empathy failure.

~~~
robotresearcher
Sorry - replied to wrong comment - should have been the top-level comment by
ams6110. Absolutely not aimed at you.

------
blazespin
He's wrong. Spending 20k on a hybrid car facilitates demand for a hybrid car,
which leads to better hybrid cars. If your buying it to better the
environment, you don't get what your are doing.

~~~
tempestn
You make a decent point, but I think you're being downvoted due to a mix of
poor grammar and the unsupported (and rather blunt) statement, "He's wrong."
Yes there is a greater benefit to buying a hybrid than the direct CO2 offset;
however, I strongly suspect that no, that doesn't make it superior to the
other options, so his main point stands.

------
Fundlab
If I had access to that kind of money i will be providing clean water to
millions of people around the world

------
jastanton
Another option is a local Church that support missions such as building
schools for impoverished nations. I support a church that does this along with
a missionary that runs an after school sports program in very poor area of
Elkhart, Indiana. This helps gets kids off of streets, gives them food,
shelter and a develops the community. Benefit of this is that I get to
actually see the faces of the youth this impacts both in my backyard as well
as in other nations.

Say what you will about religion but there are a lot of people out there who
have a heart that yearns to help others, I don't care if they do it in the
name of a god or not, the fact of the matter is they are going out there every
day and touching peoples lives.

~~~
jqm
This brings up an interesting question. What exactly comprises "the common
good"?

~~~
dvanduzer
It's not a particularly interesting question. It's almost the definition of a
wrong question.

Most smaller church / religious outreach organizations that focus on poverty
_within their local community_ end up being very efficient. But a soup kitchen
is already a huge asterisk on the word common. You can't reliably feed humans
with a global strategy: successful charity only happens locally.

This blog post looks like a reasonable assessment of the allocation of
US$20,000 of capital in isolation. But it's clear that such a small amount of
money can't possibly have an impact on the global population of humans, taken
in isolation. By definition, any assessment of the common good depends on all
common actions:

If you want to know what the common good _is_ , it always depends on what
everyone else _does_.

~~~
jqm
<quote>It's not a particularly interesting question. It's almost the
definition of a wrong question.</quote>

Is it possible you are thinking superficially and not considering the longer
term ramifications of actions?

<quote>By definition, any assessment of the common good depends on all common
actions</quote>

That isn't a definition. That's a sales speak type obfuscated platitude. What
exactly is "the common good"?

~~~
dvanduzer
> Is it possible you are thinking superficially and not considering the longer
> term ramifications of actions?

No.

> That isn't a definition. That's a sales speak type platitude. What exactly
> is "the common good"?

Seems like you're misunderstanding my connection of "common" to "every single
human" here. There is no way to meaningfully divide twenty grand amongst eight
billion people. When we discuss "human rights" we are usually conflating
positive government action and negative government action. Providing a minimum
set of non-controversial services from the government (like "food" for
example) is never the right answer in these debates.

To wit: If you have $20,000 sitting around, and you don't know what to do with
it? Fuck you. As a general analysis of the impact any given $20k has in
isolation, this post is interesting.

~~~
jqm
"> Is it possible you are thinking superficially and not considering the
longer term ramifications of actions?

No."

Manifestly a wrong answer. Examples of correct answers would be "I don't
believe so", "I doubt it", "It doesn't appear likely from my perspective".

"Impact" and "Fuck You" and "Post is Interesting" aside, I still ask... what
comprises the common good? If you really think about this you may find the
answer is not as easy or as certain as you appear to believe.

~~~
dvanduzer
This is how I know you're sea-lioning me:

You don't understand that "common good" is impossible to define. This is one
of the most basic discoveries of utilitarian ethical theories. It is sensible
to ask what someone means if they use the term "common good" within the
context of a proposal, but there is no _general_ meaning of common good. There
absolutely can't be.

~~~
jqm
"You don't understand that "common good" is impossible to define"

Maybe I do understand that. I'm not "sea-lioning" you at all. I'm just
responding to a derisive and dismissive remark you made to a (IMOP) valid
point. I don't necessarily believe in the validity of "discoveries" of
utilitarian ethics. But I do believe "good" has, as you say, no general
meaning. Which is why it is an interesting question.

------
melling
Americans gave $358 billion last year. $20k is a drop in the bucket.

[https://philanthropy.com/interactives/giving-
usa-2015](https://philanthropy.com/interactives/giving-usa-2015)

If you really want to make a big difference, start a company, create jobs,
make millions then donate a larger sum of money.

~~~
tootie
I worked briefly for a philanthropic organization that had high visibility
among super wealthy people. They accepted whatever donations, but didn't
really pay attention unless you had at least $100K. The vast majority of their
endowment came in multimillion dollar gifts from people who wanted hospitals
named after themselves.

~~~
melling
It's unfortunate that HN readers would rather run through the weeds trying to
add zero to infinity, rather than try to actually make a real difference. If
we could make medical research donations more efficient, for example, we could
make a big difference. Say, for instance, we identified the best medical
research charities, and have people donate to those.

~~~
reagency
Givewell.org. basically does what you propose.

~~~
melling
I don't see any medical research charities:

[http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-
charities](http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities)

