Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 162 posts

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#121

Post by chailatte »

abstractbill wrote: post #118
chailatte wrote: post #45

Careful, you might make new YC companies' head explode. (YC S11) Interviewstreet is disrupting the recruitment space and create a place where the best hackers get the best jobs (YC S11) Splitterbug private beta: track expenses with friends from your phone Munch On Me (YC S11) Helps You Discover Tasty Dishes Stypi (YC S11) Is Etherpad Reborn Parse (YC S11): A Heroku For Mobile Apps Envolve (YC S11) Launches An API For…

And.....drumroll........ ZeroCater (YC W11) Raises $1.5 Million For No-Hassle Office Lunches Thanks. My head has not exploded. Here's why: - Employees love us. Often they go from getting no free lunch, to getting daily hassle-free meals without having to lift a finger, just because we make it so much easier for the companies we serve. - Companies love us. See above. Often we enable free food as a completely new emplo…

"I couldn't believe some of the responses. There were tons of people saying that their iPhone apps were because they made it easier to find restaurants.. or that their B2B social media marketing startup was because it was improving productivity for marketers. I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of many of the responses. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for people who have successful typical startups. But that said, I think people sometimes are extremely sheltered if they think that those sorts of problems are really impacting lives."

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#122

Post by cjbprime »

The best thing you can do is probably to donate a significant percentage of your income to an effective international aid organization, like VillageReach or Oxfam. The money you're earning performing your standard job is simply able to produce more good than having you fly around the world attempting to do things to help (usually in an inferior way to locals) would.

I've been doing this for a few years: http://blog.printf.net/articles/2010/11/26/giving-thanks

And I've come to rely on GiveWell, which is an organization performing quantitative review of which charities produce the most good per dollar donated: http://www.givewell.org/

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#123

Post by Khroma »

tomjen3 wrote: post #93
gnosis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem." It's certainly not an unpopular opinion on HN, home to hordes of corporation-loving, free-market worshiping libertarians.

I have downvoted you because your comment is an unwanted personal attack on this sites users. If you disagree with his, in my opinion correct, assumption then please argue such so that we can all be smarter. Thank you.

I didn't read it as a personal attack. The OP's post is not that "unpopular" on this site because this website is full of libertarians. pg is one, I believe. Most entrepreneurs of course, support capitalism and free markets. In fact the proposition that "a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem" likely resonates with a majority of users, although I can't really provide a figure, this is from my general experience with the site.

I don't think that the parent post is supposed to be an attack on the opinion, but pointing out that it's actually popular.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#124

Post by damienkatz »

I'm late to this thread, but I'd like to add that just doing your job very well is a great way to give back to the world.

I design database software. I do it because I think it's cool, and I think it's important to have easy to use software that solves IT problems. My software is now being used in rural hospitals in Africa to update patient records, and in disaster areas to help reunite lost children and parents. I had nothing to do with those things, I just design and write database software, but they built on my work, because I did my job well.

Doing your job well can inspire, make people happy, provide a base, provide stability, etc. It can help others do those things that put a happy tear in your eye, that you know made a profound difference in someones life, you don't need to be the actual hero to do good in the world, to make a real difference.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#125

Post by noahfradin »

Companies that do good are becoming more and more popular as companies like TOMS shoes and Ethos water prove the value of cause based marketing. Also, incorporating giving into an existing business is becoming easier. My company, CherryCard, connects charitable giving with everyday purchases by enabling companies to give a percentage of their sales to the charities of their customers' choice. We believe that whenever money changes hands a little bit should go to charity. You'll get 25 cents to give to the charity of your choice for free when you sign up at CherryCard.org so that you can try it out and get a feel for the service. I feel very strongly about the importance and potential of incorporating giving into business, which is why we have built CherryCard to give companies an effective turnkey cause marketing solution and built incentives for companies to give more. If you ever want to chat about the place for giving in business shoot me an email at noahfradin@cherrycard.org. Oh and you should definitely all sign up and give your free 25 cents to The World Food Program. They need the money right now and 25 cents can give a starving child a meal.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#126

Post by daguar »

temphn wrote: post #28

This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem. Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact. There are exceptions…

"a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem."

Different domains of problems: a NFP (not for profit) org may not be as _efficient_ as a FP org pursuing the same goal, but you are ignoring that many goals will never be pursued by a profit-seeking entity.

Provision of many "social goods" like shelter for the homeless, health care for poor children, or help for people with severe disabilities (components of the "safety net") will simply never yield a profit margin by virtue of the nature of the underlying problem. This is precisely because if we want to provide such services for people who lack the _ability_ to pay for it, there will be no demand for it.

So, instead, NFPs make a value proposition to _philanthropists_ who want to provide the goods there is no market incentive to provide.

In the public sector corollary, politicians make value propositions to voters, and whichever programs they like (through the mucky, revealed-preference process we call democracy), and the social goods demanded via that process are then implemented through public financing (spreading costs among everyone).

It is the underlying problem -- not the organization type -- that governs whether a venture can be profitable, or even sustainable.

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#127

Post by [deleted] »

Tichy wrote: post #87
temphn wrote: post #28

This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem. Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact. There are exceptions…

Also, the nonprofit is not under evolutionary pressure to actually solve the problem. They are just under pressure to make people believe they are doing a good thing.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#129

Post by daguar »

Tichy wrote: post #113
justincormack wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations dont tend to rationally shut down when their market goes away either, there are inefficiencies in the corporate model. Charities do change as demand changes though.

Eventually the corporation will be bankrupt, though. Still, I don't claim that corporations are without fail. It is still necessary to think about "morals" (I don't like morals, because I think they are only necessary if you don't understand what is really going on). Otherwise, why not join the Mafia and make millions selling drugs?

It's a similar failing: there's a gap between the ultimate good provided by a non-profit and its metric for funding (which is why grant-writing is a much more sought-after skill than most programmatic work).

For corporations, there's often a gap between financial performance (particularly short-term) and real shareholder/owner value.

It's ethically important to see not just private gain (compensation) but also try to honestly assess one's positive impact on the world (though this does not discount, for example, donations to charitable causes, or the contribution to public goods through taxation).

Re: Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

#130

Post by sbkirk »

I'm the co-founder of TechiesGiveBack (techiesgiveback.org). We are aimed at helping the NY tech community give back to charity. We've considered different ways for how to approach this problem. I've also been approached or spoken to a variety of different companies looking to make a difference - Crowdrise, IndieGoGo (which we used for a recent fundraising campaign), Let's Give, and others.

Just spoke to Gabriel Weinberg about his open source tithing effort this morning (http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/11/help-me-start-a-...).

We are working on our own new initiative which will allow mature startups and tech companies to let their employees donate a little bit of their paycheck to charity. I'd be happy to talk about that over email...

(We don't take any money for ourselves - we do it pro bono and all work in tech. We raise money for other charities).

Post reply on HN