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Donate Unrestricted

paulgraham.com

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Re: Donate Unrestricted

#171

Post by temp8964 »

arp242 wrote: post #141
lowercased wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11... I dug in a bit and found that and... as progressive as I would like to think I am, I'm 100% confused as to how "focus on getting the 'right' answer" and "independent practice is valued over teamwork" is... 'white supremacy' showing up in math. HN may not be the place to discuss this, but... am I missing something obvious?

A number of these things are just good general advice. Others a bit less so. The explainer on "focus on getting the 'right' answer" (page 65) is actually pretty okay. For example it encourages to "Engage with true problem solving" such as "What are some strategies we can use to engage with this problem?". That seems pretty good to me. It goes on to say that "teaching math isn't just about solving specific problems. I…

The good things you found in there have nothing to do with race. Also they are well known in math education. It's not like the authors discovered / created those pedagogical insights. They are using those pedagogical insights to push their political agenda.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#172

Post by Ericson2314 »

Wow, P.G. almost gets it. The most unrestricted donation is paying your damn taxes. Get rid of the philanthropy loophole, raise the taxes, and lets invest our surplus democratically.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#173

Post by joshuamorton »

furyofantares wrote: post #136
ralmidani wrote: post #94

Over the years my opinion of non-profits has become less, shall we say, “charitable”; society has a tendency to glorify non-profits because they “don’t have shareholders” but, in reality, a lot of non-profits give peanuts to those at the bottom (with some even working for free) while executives get far more than a living salary. And whether you’re an educational institution, an insurance provider, or an NGO, being an…

> If I wanted to donate a large amount of money to a non-profit, I would structure it as a zero-interest loan, and would just keep deferring the repayment of the loan as long as the org stays true to its mission, compensates executives in reasonable proportion to regular employees, etc. Not sure if I'm missing something, but this sounds totally ridiculous to me. You give 1M to someone you think is going to spend it w…

No organization would accept a donation of this form. If the size of the donation was large enough to be compelling, it would also put the organization at risk. Having a looming loan of millions of dollars at risk if you upset someone isn't viable, especially given that the implication is that this would last indefinitely. A nonprofit that took loans like this over time would very quickly end up with potential debts much, much greater than they could ever hope to repay.

Op mentions sunset provisions in a sibling, but at that point the difference between this and a recurring donation is marginal.

Just donate a smaller amount on a recurring basis. You reduce your risk that the nonprofit will upset you, without making their existence tenuous.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#175

Post by sjg007 »

danans wrote: post #46
sjg007 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Successful schooling involves a parental component. We probably need a way to pay parents to help their kids with school. The other thing I noticed with the pandemic and distance learning is that kids do really well in small groups (2-4 kids) and extremely well 1:1. This is a tutelage model. I felt that the classes that went best for my kids incorporated the small group style. In this model, the general education its…

> The other thing I noticed with the pandemic and distance learning is that kids do really well in small groups (2-4 kids) and extremely well 1:1. Small group learning has been a standard part of education for a few decades. It is way too early to make claim that the pandemic version of this has improved things. Anecdotes thus far have pointed to some kids doing well in pandemic small groups and 1:1 while others are…

It's always way too early or way too late in the let's do nothing world.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#176

Post by rvnx »

ralmidani wrote: post #94

Over the years my opinion of non-profits has become less, shall we say, “charitable”; society has a tendency to glorify non-profits because they “don’t have shareholders” but, in reality, a lot of non-profits give peanuts to those at the bottom (with some even working for free) while executives get far more than a living salary. And whether you’re an educational institution, an insurance provider, or an NGO, being an…

55 million USD just in salaries at Wikipedia per year, that's plenty of money to swim into :)

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#177

Post by rdiddly »

The one restriction I insist on is that they leave me off their mailing list! I get it, the odds are good that a previous donor will donate again, but especially for small donations it ends up feeling like all I accomplished was to purchase a bunch of spam & kill some trees!

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#178

Post by sjg007 »

temp8964 wrote: post #47
sjg007 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Successful schooling involves a parental component. We probably need a way to pay parents to help their kids with school. The other thing I noticed with the pandemic and distance learning is that kids do really well in small groups (2-4 kids) and extremely well 1:1. This is a tutelage model. I felt that the classes that went best for my kids incorporated the small group style. In this model, the general education its…

> We probably need a way to pay parents to help their kids with school. Check this great interview: Glenn Loury & Roland Fryer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL1peNBAnns

That was a great interview. I wonder if we could engage college grads and college students with tutoring jobs that reduce their student loans at the national level. You could do some amount of tutoring and get a credit reduction. This way you don't have to do a Teach for America type job or work for a nonprofit but maybe get a little help paying things down.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#179

Post by bradleyjg »

xirbeosbwo1234 wrote: post #84
jasode wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>complexity was in keeping track of each dollar's origin, and making sure that it was spent on only what the source approved it to be spent on. [...] they all had strong opinions on what the money could be spent on. Understand your frustration but the public was outraged when $1 million of a librarian's donation was used for a football scoreboard.[1] Yes, the university did comply to the exact letter of his will (onl…

The problem with that is, in part, that they ignored the spirit of the donation, but also that the proper amount for a university to spend on a scoreboard is twelve dollars and thirty-seven cents. OK, that's a bit unrealistic. I could build them one for a few hundred, though, and they could pay a student $50 to flip over the numbers during the game.

The proper amount to spend is zero. There’s no reason for universities to be running minor league football teams with unpaid labor. On the contrary that’s the exact opposite of “charitable”.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#180

Post by bradleyjg »

closeparen wrote: post #144
ralmidani wrote: post #94

Over the years my opinion of non-profits has become less, shall we say, “charitable”; society has a tendency to glorify non-profits because they “don’t have shareholders” but, in reality, a lot of non-profits give peanuts to those at the bottom (with some even working for free) while executives get far more than a living salary. And whether you’re an educational institution, an insurance provider, or an NGO, being an…

Shareholder return and the wages of skilled labor/management are very different things! No one is getting rich off a nonprofit merely for putting capital into it, is the point. Nonprofits still buy things that are expensive, including the efforts of skilled and effective people.

How do you understand law firm partnerships in this wages vs capital model?
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