

Get Exec to Volunteer for Charity on your Behalf - justin
http://blog.iamexec.com/post/27985240814/get-exec-to-volunteer-for-charity-on-your-behalf

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jessepollak
Thought question: is it better to pay $50 for 2 hours of volunteer time to a
charity or just donate that $50 to the charity?

I honestly don't know the answer, but would love to hear what other people
think.

My quick take is that it's probably better to give the $50 to the charity
because they are better prepared to make a decision on how it should be used.
With that being said, I can see how a lot more people might be willing to pay
Exec for volunteer hours because of the _feel good_ factor.

Regardless, I think it's an great initiative.

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arjunnarayan
Give $50 to the charity. If they prefer 2 hours of volunteer time to $50, then
they can go out and buy that.

Call options have value.

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ajasmin
Buy volunteer time?

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jessepollak
i.e. hire people to work for the charity—probably at a significantly cheaper
rate than $25/hour.

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keeptrying
This is so stupid I don't know what to say.

If you believe in the charity then give them the money directly.They can find
much more efficient and creative uses for it.

If you don't believe in the charity then don't give them the money and don't
give exec to give money to give to the charity.

This is a gimmicky stupid idea that is just preying on your guilt.

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drusenko
This is _awesome_. We (Weebly) give out a $50 Exec credit every month to all
of our employees to help with random life tasks. It's widely used and
appreciated.

Some of our employees, though, are further out from SF, and it can be harder
to use that credit. The second they got the email this morning, they found a
great way to use the credits!

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sequoia
"We’ll be supporting this program for the next month (now through the end of
August), and we’ll be donating 100% of all proceeds raised."

I'm confused, do the proceeds go to the charities or to pay the temps? If the
former, are the temps just volunteering? If the latter, what do you mean
"we’ll be donating 100% of all proceeds raised?" Does my $50 yield 2hrs of
work _and_ $50 to a charity? Because that would be a great deal!

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jluxenberg
FYI: Exec appears to be invite-only right now, but if you sign up via the
"give to charity page" you can get an account.

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rprasad
Getting someone else to do your "charity" work for you is not
charity...They're not volunteers b/c they're getting paid (by you) to do the
work. You're not volunteering b/c you're not doing anything (and you're not
even treated as making a donation which would be deductible for tax purposes).

If you are going to use Exec to "volunteer" for you, you might as well just
give the money directly to the charity. They can use it on their charitable
activities without wasting any time training your Exec "volunteers".

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jsmcallister
Manpower is a priceless commodity for a lot of charities. I know plenty of
people who run charities who would pass on a $100 donation in exchange for two
hours of idle hands.

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drewsears
If that's what they want, then let them use the money to hire an Exec. If not,
don't force it on them.

This just limits the charities options, and only benefits exec.

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pavel_lishin
Is it possible that after various administrative costs, they don't end up
getting $100 worth of labor out of someone, vs. $100 worth of labor by hiring
Exec?

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rprasad
Exec also takes administrative costs out of that $100. Either way, the charity
will have to train the person. But the person the charities hires is likely to
come back, so that time is not wasted. The Exec worker may never come back,
rendering all of the time spent training them wasted.

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samstr
Ridiculous

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simplekoala
Brilliant idea!

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plusbryan
Brilliant! I'm sure this concept will really appeal to all the overworked but
socially conscious professionals out there.

