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

Donate Unrestricted

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 301 posts

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#271

Post by dualscyther »

capableweb wrote: post #7

> 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…

Right, but that's why the article is telling donors not to restrict their donations, as opposed to telling charities to prohibit restricted donations.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#272

Post by analog31 »

websites2323 wrote: post #264
colinmhayes wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lottery is a choice. No one is forcing anyone to play. People are going to gamble though, so the state might as well take a cut as a way to discourage it.

The state doesn’t discourage it, they promote it. That’s the problem. Gambling is entertainment for people who don’t understand statistics. It’s a tax on the poor.

It can also be an addiction.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#273

Post by smt88 »

saurik wrote: post #217
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…

I mean, when funds are unrestricted, they "should" become fungible; so, when I give unrestricted donations I also make it clear that I don't want them to try to tell me "we used your money to do X"... that way, I can look at anything I want on campus that was improved and think "I did that :)". If the university is spending money on bullshit, then probably they just don't deserve donations at all :/.

Every large org spends at least some money on bullshit, usually amounts that would shock the typical person.

It's just one of the many inescapable inefficiencies that happen when humans try to create a large organization.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#274

Post by Bedon292 »

xirbeosbwo1234 wrote: post #82
flaque wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of these articles is really unfortunate. Very much positions the donors as bad guys, their own admission of failure as proof that they’re bad guys, and that the problems are fundamentally unsolvable and that we shouldn’t do anything. It’s fine to note programs that don’t work; but schadenfreude in fully-funded experiments with the goal to help children is counter-productive.

Well, Gates is a bad guy. He was a robber baron who decided that stealing a whole lot of money makes him the world's leading expert on everything. He has no training in pedagogy, epidemiology, sanitation, or really anything else relevant to the missions of his organization, yet he seems to actually believe he's a Great Scientist Using Evidence-Based Approaches to Save the World. He lives in a $200 million house yet h…

You can certainly make the argument that he was a bad guy, but I don't know if I can continue to draw that conclusion. He built that house over 30 years ago for $60M. While that is certainly excessive, its not like he just bought a $200M house while trying to be philanthropist. At least $45B in charitable contributions, so the house is worth 0.4% of that. Is the house really relevant?

Isn't it possible he has changed since then? What you call a "billion-dollar propaganda campaign" I call billions of dollars worth of charitable contributions. He may not have formal training any any of those things, but he can pay people with the training to advise him and make the decisions. Do you think he is just making all of them in a vacuum? Money can buy you a lot of experts to consult.

What would you prefer him to do with the money, if not attempt to do some good with it?

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#275

Post by closeparen »

bradleyjg wrote: post #236
closeparen wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a good question. I think it’s one of the few ways to convert labor to (meaningful) capital, comparable to being a founder or early employee. The CEO of a nonprofit may be a well paid associate, but he is still just an associate. The kind of excess revenue that would flow to a partner’s profit sharing check has to be reinvested in the mission instead of disbursed to somebody in cash just because.

Does it? I know hospital system CEO’s get performance pay. Maybe if the numbers were sufficiently egregious and a newspaper (if a local one still exists) decided to do an expose the attorney general would intervene but I think in general some of these non profits are better modeled as perpetual partnerships run for the benefit of partners than they are as mission driven organizations.

Performance with respect to what goals?

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#276

Post by ISL »

rossdavidh wrote: post #59

I worked in Accounting (the dept that did it, not the one that taught it) IT at a major public university for several years. Something like half of the software 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. Whether the source was the federal government, the state, corporate donors, or wealthy individuals, they all had str…

The problem is even worse than that: The desire for fiscal accountability within universities is so high, there is little room for trust.

My documentation and compliance burden was as high for a $5 purchase as a $5k purchase. My estimate of the salary cost (neglecting overhead) of approving a single purchase (my approval, electronic documentation, paper documentation, front-office approval, and PI oversight) was ~$80. That doesn't account for the impact of lost time on other tasks. For a $5 purchase.

The true accountability -- If I consistently spent money on something contrary to the aims of the lab? I'd be either out of a job or deprived of tools necessary to get the work done.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#277

Post by chii »

bradleyjg wrote: post #182
notsureaboutpg wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge fallacy where people believe that non-profits are supposed to be inherently more equitable and nicer than for-profit companies. And people who believe this fallacy get upset by executive pay at non-profits and turn to sites like Charity Navigator to find charities where 99 cents of their dollar goes to charity. But the fact of the matter is that paying salaries to people who bring in more money than th…

> can raise awareness exponentially Is there anyone left that isn’t aware of breast cancer? What is more awareness spending getting anyone at this point (aside from non profit executives)?

Is anyone left that isn't aware of the coca cola brand?

It's the same for charity.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#278

Post by chii »

analog31 wrote: post #21
hirundo wrote: post #6

He 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.

Indeed, that happened in the state where I grew up. When they started the state lottery, it was with the promise that the money would be spent on "education." Sure enough, the lottery money went to the education fund, and the contribution from the general fund was reduced by the same amount.

> contribution from the general fund was reduced by the same amount.

which sucks - but it points to a problem of under-specifying the "rules".

The original intend is to ensure that the proceeds of the lottery added to the education fund. But the wording of the rule only specified where the lottery money got spent, rather than specifying the desired outcome (that schools got $X more funding).

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#279

Post by brnt »

heliodor wrote: post #134
brnt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody who's discussing the quite unique tax situation around charity in the US, should give Dark Money by Jane Mayer a read. This uniqueness isn't by accident, and only is called charity as a minor, inconvenient side effect.

What uniqueness would that be?

The role and scope of it, as well as its function in tax evasion and political control. The book is worth a read if you're interested.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#280

Post by User23 »

smt88 wrote: post #273
saurik wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, when funds are unrestricted, they "should" become fungible; so, when I give unrestricted donations I also make it clear that I don't want them to try to tell me "we used your money to do X"... that way, I can look at anything I want on campus that was improved and think "I did that :)". If the university is spending money on bullshit, then probably they just don't deserve donations at all :/.

Every large org spends at least some money on bullshit, usually amounts that would shock the typical person. It's just one of the many inescapable inefficiencies that happen when humans try to create a large organization.

True, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.
Post reply on HN