
How Silicon Valley Nonprofits Lure Tech Donors - ss2003
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/how-silicon-valley-has-disrupted-philanthropy/565997/?single_page=true
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imh
I love the premise behind data driven giving, but it's really hard. In tech,
we are all used to running experiments to determine whether things really
work. But experimental design is not trivial and really benefits from
expensive specialists. Bad analysis and experimental design has many silent
failure modes in both the false positive and false negative directions. I have
to imagine that these reports that OP talks about charities sending their
donors are full of broken methodology. "We caused 10k kids to graduate high
school!" when 9990 would have graduated anyways.

If anyone knows of a way for a charitably minded data scientist to donate time
and expertise, I'd love to hear about it.

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petermcneeley
A much more interesting article by the Atlantic on this same topic
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/the-
pro...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/the-problem-with-
philanthropy/520989/)

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tinalumfoil
> He started adding on educational and vocational training programs to prepare
> kids to work in Silicon Valley

> Donors often give to causes they have a personal connection to

> ...recommends not talking about “charity” and meeting immediate community
> needs

> Groups like food banks, for instance, which provide an essential emergency
> service to low-income people, aren’t exactly disrupting poverty

I'm cherry-picking but this article paints a concerning picture for the future
of corporate philanthropy. I couldn't stretch laffy taffy as far as you'd need
to stretch the word philanthropy to include offering job training for work you
need workers for.

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edgarvaldes
For me, philanthropy is about money, cooperation and identification and
selection of causes. Has Silicon Valley helped in those areas to improve
philanthropy?

~~~
djohnston
those may well constitute philanthropy, but there is a hierarchy of
organizations who have the same values on this tuple and execute with greater
or lesser efficiency.

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secfirstmd
Based on my experience working on and building tech/human rights related NGO
startups from scratch. One of the problems is also that there is shift in
philanthropy, in particular towards slightly safer, less controversial (but
still worthy) issues.

For example, very few tech donors will touch some of the hard human rights
related issues, as they feel it will court controversy or affect their
businesses. In the current political climate, it is more important than ever
that the future tech version of George Soros emerges. E.g someone who is
willing to fund movements and organisations that are willing to fight for the
spread of the liberal human rights focused international order.

Another issue that the nonprofit sector really lacks the dynamism of the
startup space. There are a significant amount of bloated large NGOs that no
longer fulfil their mission effectively and/or at a proper cost model. The
effect is tricky as these end up hoovering up funding, even though many are
often de facto zombies when it comes to their mission. If they were commercial
businesses, many of these would already have been allowed to die, however
their large scale and name recognition allows them to access traditional, safe
funders.

This effectively blocks out newer, smaller leaner ideas, organisations etc.
The concepts of mergers, acquihires takeovers are fairly alien to the
nonprofit space. Also many nonprofit startups are trapped by things such as
the outlay, funding and costs of applying are very very high (esp compared to
the returns in many cases) and many traditional funders have strange
stipulations whereby they won't fund organisations unless they are 3-5 years
old...Imagine a VC in the Valley saying that!

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maym86
With the Elon musk submarine story all I kept thinking throughout is that he's
a billionaire and if he really wants to help people so much give money to
people who need it. Charities actually know what to do with it and are far
more effective than clumsily trying to do it directly.

Out of everything this is what bothered me most because he really can help
people and there is already a clear way to do it for someone with his means.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Charities actually know what to do with it and are far more effective than
> clumsily trying to do it directly.

What gives you so much faith in charities?

What do charities know about being efficient that other people don't? Why
would they be the only ones with good ideas?

Being a charity is just a way to set up an organisation. Having that status
doesn't inherently make you a force for good.

~~~
s73v3r_
"What gives you so much faith in charities?"

What gives you so much faith in a random person who happens to have money?

"What do charities know about being efficient that other people don't?"

Most of those people have been working with the problem that the charity is
tackling a lot longer than some random rich person. Seriously, this statement
sounds so much like the, "What makes you think that people who have actually
studied the issues know about those issues" sentiment that is going around in
the political sphere, and not in a good way.

"Having that status doesn't inherently make you a force for good."

Neither does being a billionaire.

~~~
chrisseaton
I'm not claiming to have faith in anyone.

I'm saying if I was the billionaire and someone criticised me for using my
money directly rather than giving to the charity I'd ask how does that person
know the charity is better than me. It seems like people are just seeing the
label 'charity' and are thinking it's undeniable that the charity have any
idea what they're doing themselves.

What causes do you support? If I set up a charity for those causes, took a cut
for my salary and distributed the rest of the money as I saw fit, would you
give your money to me instead of carrying on as you see fit? But I'm a charity
and you're not!

~~~
s73v3r_
Your entire argument boils down to "billionaires know better because they're
billionaires." You completely ignore the whole, "Working on the problem for
far longer" part, and assume that charities themselves are an appeal to
authority. You're not discussing things in good faith.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Your entire argument boils down to "billionaires know better because they're
> billionaires."

There's nothing in what I've said whatsoever to support this. You've
completely imagined that.

What I've said is that I don't think charities know better simply because
they're charities. You've sort of transposed that to the opposite side of the
argument and are making out that I said another argument, which is
'billionaires know better'.

'I don't think A always knows any better' does not mean 'I think B knows
better'.

> assume that charities themselves are an appeal to authority

I do think charities are in general a bit of an appeal to authority. People
just say 'charity' and everyone assumes it must be a worthwhile cause and
people doing the right thing.

Just because you are have the magic sticker of being a charity does not mean:

\- you have worked on a problem for a long time

\- if you have been working on a problem for a long time, then that you have
made any progress

\- that you even understand the problem better than someone else does

\- you are working more efficiently than someone else could

\- that you are doing anything useful whatsoever

> You're not discussing things in good faith.

Well you're claiming I said "billionaires know better because they're
billionaires" which I really think you'd struggle to back up with anything
I've said, so neither are you.

It baffles me that people say 'give it to charity instead'. You might as well
say 'give it to anyone who can fill in IRS Form 1023', because that's all
you're guaranteed to get from a charity.

~~~
s73v3r_
"There's nothing in what I've said whatsoever to support this. You've
completely imagined that."

No. Your entire rant where you mention people who can fill out an IRS form
clearly shows that you are not arguing in good faith. You are assuming that
we're saying any charity is good, which, if you were listening, no one ever
said. Once again, the entire thrust of your argument is, "What makes people
who have actually studied things, people who are actually involved with the
problem they're trying to solve, think they know more than me, a rich person
who's read something on Twitter?"

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drb91
Yes, exactly what we need charities to optimize for: short term returns.

