

Ask HN: Do you donate to any charities? - trev0r

If so, which organizations are your favorite and why?
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AmberShah
ASPCA and my local SPCA

Nothing but nets

I want to start with charity:water soon too.

The "why" is that these causes touch my heart and the organizations are
responsible. No pet deserves cruelty or starvation. Every child deserves to
live with clean water and not die of malaria. But so many causes are worthy so
it's more a matter of what problem breaks your heart.

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frossie
Yeah, I donate to charity. I also donate to open source projects. I give to
bloggers. I buy freemium-service subscriptions even if I don't need the
features. I give to buskers.

Why? Because it feels right.

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bjplink
If you don't have a lot of money but are interested in doing something you
might want to check out Kiva (<http://www.kiva.org>).

They give micro loans to small businesses in countries around the world. You,
over the course of months, get your money back and you can then redistribute
it back to another person somewhere else.

I've been a member for nearly four years now and in that time I've managed to
help with 14 loans.

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marknutter
I go out of my way to avoid charities. I'd rather build up wealth and dispense
it Bill Gates style than give out a slow trickle over the course of my life.
That way I can personally make sure my money is being spent properly and be
hands on with it, rather than trust some far away bureaucracy to not waste it.

~~~
coryl
There are problems with thinking like this:

1) You may never be rich enough to have any wealth to dispense. This is
arrogance and ignorance.

2) You ignore the plight of those today. Money isn't the only way to be
charitable. Time, energy, effort, and passion can be lent to charitable
causes.

I have the same thought process as you, "oh I'll be rich one day and I'll be
generous and give everything and make happiness, that'll be my contribution.
But not now, I've got my own problems.". I think we all have a responsibility
to do something for those less fortunate, those without opportunity, those
suffering. A lot of my friends in college volunteered, and it really shamed me
a bit into how little I do for anyone else.

That said, give now, whatever it is you want to give.

~~~
_delirium
Plus, if everyone did it, you'd just multiply bureaucracy: every dot-com
millionaire will have a non-profit organization, with its own office, staff,
accountants, lawyers, fundraising office, designers, program managers, etc.,
etc. That's one reason Buffett just gave his money to the Gates Foundation
instead of setting up a self-aggrandizing but redundant Buffett Foundation.

~~~
marknutter
Well, what I should have said then was I want to give my money away Warren
Buffet style: carefully research which is the best nonprofit to donate to, and
go all in.

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kiba
On the bitcoin forum, I started a thread to donate bitcoins, which is a kind
of cryptocurrency, to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

This is because the technology and the concept behind bitcoins is probably
something that the Electronic Frontier Foundation would probably have to
defend in the future.

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retrogradeorbit
Yes. Amnesty International. Because I think of all the things wrong in the
world, and I think a good way to start to fix them is to work on the most
basic of human rights. From this will flow other benefits. How can we save the
planet if we can't even look after each other?

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rdl
Yes.

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS, www.maps.org) is
my #1 destination for donations. I think the war on some drugs has done more
to damage the US than anything else, and this seems like the most reasonable
pathway to fix this -- showing that various "evil" substances are medically
useful.

I also donate to: EFF, Gun Owners of America, NRA, Tax Foundation, the
National Cryptologic Museum, and the Singularity Institute for Artificial
Intelligence.

I'd like to donate to global, national, and local (Seattle or WA/PNW)
environmental groups which are responsible and not "Environmentalists"; buying
land privately and being responsible with it seems to be a more direct way to
accomplish this.

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linhir
I've been resolved since I was in college to give away 10% of my income a
year. I give to two anti-human trafficking organizations that I know first-
hand spend their money wisely and vastly improve the lives of individuals who
have been victimized in a way most of us can't imagine: GEMS: Girls
Educational & Mentoring Services (<http://www.gems-girls.org/>) and Polaris
Project (www.polarisproject.org/). I also give some money to NYC arts
organizations (NY Philharmonic, etc), but that is mostly because I like the
benefits rather than out of any great philanthropic ideal.

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fbnt
I am a blood donor, but I never really donated money to any charity. After
witnessing a huge ONG meeting (non-governative organizations) and all the
businessy-feel that accompanied the whole event and how people managing
small/middle tier charities were visibly more interested in their personal
wealth rather than the cause they were working for, I came to the conclusion
that I'm not in favour of putting my hard-earned cash in their pockets,
charity shouldn't be a job. I'm sure not all of them are like that, and maybe
one day I'll change my mind, in the meantime I stick with blood donations
only.

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typicaljoe
My wife and I give. I think it is one of the most positive things you can do.
We give to several faith-connected charities, children's hospitals, etc. My
new "favorite" charity is charitywater.org. They have a lot of good things
going for it not the least of which is that they are about as close as it
comes to a "startup" charity in terms of innovation, marketing, etc.

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ajdecon
Yes, mostly local organizations: humane society, anti-poverty programs, etc.
And Child's Play, every December.

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rmc
I have frequently volunteered out in Africa with Camara
(<http://www.camara.ie>), a charity that sends second hand computers to
schools in Africa. They are taking the long view of how to help Africa develop
as a region, education is the key.

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exline
March of Dimes, both my wife's pregnancies almost ended with premature births
( months of bed rest, hospitalization, etc.) We toured the NICU and saw babies
born months early. We say the doctors and nurses who work in this area while
staying in the hospital for 30 days.

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_delirium
Does political stuff count? I give some money to the EFF, because with the
amount of money I'm able to spend on those issues, I feel they can spend it
more effectively than I could as an individual.

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jeffepp
Kiva.org and Make A Wish Foundation. Both are pretty self explanatory, seeing
helpless kids with horrible circumstances breaks my heart.

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lukevdp
yes Kiva. It seems to me to be the smartest charity and awesome way to help
people.

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kranner
Wikipedia.

