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Donate Unrestricted

paulgraham.com

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Re: Donate Unrestricted

#281

Post by kmonsen »

rsj_hn wrote: post #269
cortesoft wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there should be no sports at all at schools? What about other extra curricular activities? No band, no drama club, nothing but academics? I get not wanting to have a minor league football team with unpaid labor, but even rec league basketball needs a scoreboard.

In other countries, things not tied directly to a university's educational mission are still available, but as local community organizations. There are drama clubs, sports clubs, but available to the entire community, not just college students. There is no reason why the state should spend its educational subsidies on funding auxillary recreational activities solely for the benefit of university students when a good…

I think most countries have some form of student sports as part of universities, just not the kind of professional ones like in the U.S. students study better if they have something else in their lives.

The problem is that it is really hard to know where to draw the line and the US as usual takes it fully to the extreme.

All that being said, I thought the big sports were a revenue driver for the schools that chose to participate in the bigger leagues?

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#282

Post by GoodJokes »

breck wrote: post #13

I 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…

Would you demand the same of a for-profit company? The paternalism is dripping in this thread.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#283

Post by GoodJokes »

temp8964 wrote: post #28

The article mentioned the Gates foundation which has terrible records in education initiatives: - The big failure in small schools initiative: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/th... - The big failure in teacher evaluation initiative: https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-melinda-gates-foundatio... - The big failure in Common Core initiative: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/…

anti-racist math INSTRUCTION. Not math itself. Perhaps read your own links.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#284

Post by saagarjha »

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…

Clearly he's not out there doing the surgeries himself; he hires people to do that.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#285

Post by davidgerard »

This is basically correct. Restricted donations are a goddamn pain in the ass. If you trust a charity is doing stuff you like, just trust them to spend the money doing stuff you like.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#286

Post by JoeAltmaier »

yboris wrote: post #256
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #41

I like to donate when I know a person involved. I find it hard to trust an organization or title. I donate cash to the local food bank, which is run by neighbors. I donate to my son's college student organization, run by folks he knows. I donate to a guy I see on the street frequently, who has been camping since he became homeless in 1985.

It's wonderful that you're already donating non-trivial amounts. Would you have more trust if an independent charity evaluator spent over a decade vetting charities - picking only ones transparent enough that can be scrutinized, and then choosing only the most cost-effective ? See GiveWell for their research. When giving internationally, you can multiply the positive impact a thousand-fold (because it's much more exp…

I'm sure others are doing that. For my part, I take care of my neighbors. Because if we are never careful to do that, then it may never happen at all.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#287

Post by bradleyjg »

closeparen wrote: post #275
bradleyjg wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Profit or close proxies for profit.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#288

Post by bradleyjg »

chii wrote: post #277
bradleyjg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The call to action for a Coca Cola commercial is go out and buy Coca Cola. What’s the call to action for NFL players wearing pink gloves?

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#289

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

the nassim taleb heuristic here comes in handy:

When solicited for charity funding on the literal street, usually by a young person, he always asks the that young person

"are they paying you to work here?"

If yes, he won't donate. The simple logic is, if the charity's mission is strong enough, someone will volunteer his/her own time to solicit donations. Being paid to stand there is a signal (a filter) that the cause is not strong enough. Therefore, you pass.

Re: Donate Unrestricted

#290

Post by throwawaygh »

scrose wrote: post #268
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you expect that someone just wants to steal your money (and I am not saying such expectation is always wrong), perhaps you just shouldn't give them any. This is indeed the approach I've been taking with some climate change charities: most of them have an "advocacy" component, and while I'd like to support effective emissions reduction projects, I'm not willing to contribute to the preaching for individual asceti…

‘Advocacy’ is very broad. I hope you’re not discounting donating to places because you think it can only mean one thing!

In particular, drawing on an example from OP, advocacy sometimes includes things like "doing the legwork to be part of employer matching programs".
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