Build state capacity, pay taxes.
Donate Unrestricted
11–20 of 301 posts
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#12> Which means a restricted donation is inherently suboptimal Maybe so, but maybe it's a compromise as well. If not, no funding at all would have been given which maybe would be a net-loss long-term. Receiving money to do research might not always include research you want to do, but you'll gain more experience overall and do better once you get to the research you want to do. I'm thinking from the perspective that if…
At least in AZ, we have several tax credits that allow you to donate to organizations in certain categories. Unfortunately it’s a fixed dollar amount and not a percentage of liability.
I agree, it would be nice to control where more tax money was directed.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#13I would also suggest donating only to non-profits that make
everything they do as open/transparent/public domain as
possible.
In my limited experience there seems to be a correlation between an organization's productivity in solving their existential problem and how open the org is.
The more secretive the organization (and the less public domain content it produces) the more likely it spends a significant amount of its resource on fundraising and cushy salaries for its management.
Allen Institute, Wikimedia, Internet Archive, are examples where $1 in inputs leads to $100 in public domain output.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#14100% this.
SO much of what is considered "non-profit dysfunction" is a direct result of funders restricting donation utilization.
Only X% for opex, y% for capex, z% for comms, where x+y+z == around 5% of funds donated.
Can't run an organization like that well.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#15Kudos to MacKenzie Scott for helping bring this issue to light with her massive unrestricted giving.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#16I would also suggest donating only to non-profits that make everything they do as open/transparent/public domain as possible. In my limited experience there seems to be a correlation between an organization's productivity in solving their existential problem and how open the org is. The more secretive the organization (and the less public domain content it produces) the more likely it spends a significant amount of i…
In the US, you can look up every single non-profit's finances.
The 990 form has almost everything you would want, though, not line-item level of detail.
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/tax-exempt-organiz...
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#17Very true. I've been running non-profits to help the security of journalists and human rights defenders for years ( https://www.secfirst.org ). One of the big issues is that donors often only want to fund projects which means core costs (accounting, IT or whatever) often are not covered or are only partly covered. To an extent project specific funding also means that some organisations have to make sacrifices or do p…
This. 100% this.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#18He didn't mention the little problem of the fungibility of money. If a school gets two $100k donations, and one comes with a "no stem cell research" restriction, then it usually isn't a problem to spend the other donation on that, and the restricted one on the road maintenance that would have been done anyway. So a restricted donation is really only effectively restrictive if it significantly outweighs the rest.
I wouldn't donate to universities in general. The have growing endowments which they don't spend. It also adds the income inequality in the US, you are essentially donating to the education of rich people.
Note that PG talks about non-profits not schools.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#19> Which means a restricted donation is inherently suboptimal Maybe so, but maybe it's a compromise as well. If not, no funding at all would have been given which maybe would be a net-loss long-term. Receiving money to do research might not always include research you want to do, but you'll gain more experience overall and do better once you get to the research you want to do. I'm thinking from the perspective that if…
At least in AZ, we have several tax credits that allow you to donate to organizations in certain categories. Unfortunately it’s a fixed dollar amount and not a percentage of liability. I agree, it would be nice to control where more tax money was directed.
Elections are how you control where your tax money goes.
Micro-earmarks by voters would create enormous imbalances. Police get so much money for equipment that they can’t spend it all, while public defenders go unfunded.
Re: Donate Unrestricted
#20Build state capacity, pay taxes.
Yes, but until then, the dam is still leaking like a sieve, and any hole that can be plugged needs to be plugged.