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Dollar a Day

dollaraday.co

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Re: Dollar a Day

#81

Post by vacri »

lotharbot wrote: post #80
vacri wrote: post #74

"all donations are 100% US tax-deductible." The tax-deductability of charitable donations has always sat weirdly with me. It's not exactly charitable if you're not actually sacrificing anything; it's more a rearrangement of your tax allocation. That can be a good thing in and of itself, but if you're going to claim donations on tax, it's not really something you should get a warm, fuzzy feeling for (in my opinion). I…

> "It's not exactly charitable if you're not actually sacrificing anything" Tax-deductible doesn't mean that the money comes straight out of taxes, it means that you don't pay taxes on the donation. So you give $1.00 to get out of your marginal rate, something like $0.28 or $0.35, in taxes. In order to eliminate your entire tax burden (per your libertarian comment), you would have to donate considerably more than you…

Ah, yes, my misreading of the IRS article [1]. It's still meaning that you're paying less tax, should you want to give to charity.

[1] http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable-Organi...

Re: Dollar a Day

#82

Post by mertd »

Once or twice a year, I go to http://www.charitynavigator.org/ to do my own research and donate to a charity that I think will make good use of the money.

Lump sum method has two advantages:

1) Easier to keep track of for tax filing.

2) Your employer might have a donation match program. Again it is easier to file a form and tell them to make a matching donation.

Re: Dollar a Day

#83

Post by nedwin »

wbandxx wrote: post #79

I must ask this question and someone please enlighten me but -- 1. Where does money come from to support these Organization ( e.g. dollaraday or Watsi ? 2. How do these Organizations pay for developer costs , website, office maintenance and employee salary ? Do they take cut from donation and donate rest of the money ? If that's the case then its pretty much scam. Susan Komen for women's breast cancer collect million…

Firstly the people running this are already incredibly wealthy by themselves. They more than likely funded the startup costs themselves, or through wealthy benefactors.

They pay operational expenses from a percentage of the money they raise.

Just because they pay operational expenses doesn't make them a scam - that's how any non-profit operates.

The best non-profits contribute the greatest percentage of their revenue to helping people. I believe this is the case here.

Do you want the best person running a company like this? Or would you prefer the cheapest person running a company like this?

Re: Dollar a Day

#86

Post by wtracy »

richbradshaw wrote: post #43
wtracy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless they start donating to ISIS or KKK Or an organization that provides family planning support, or that funds stem cell research.

At first I thought you were joking, then realised you likely live in the US. I guess each country has it's share of things that other countries don't understand!

I'm quite serious.

http://www.salon.com/2014/08/21/cincinnati_archdiocese_to_ca...

The article quotes a vatican directive about stem cell that uses the phrase "cooperation in evil".

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/28/protesters-gathe...

The article mentions a 1994 incident in which a gunman murdered two people and injured five more in attacks at three different clinics that provided family planning services.

Re: Dollar a Day

#87

Post by IkmoIkmo »

icebraining wrote: post #64
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They actually use a payment processor and the full charge is 4%. It states they also disburse the donations, which may actually end up being a rather good deal. That is, collecting money via creditcard AND getting that money to a local NGO in Mali is not going to be cheap. But regardless, 4% does sound like a lot, especially if they disburse to e.g. US based organisations that work abroad. If the bitcoin ecosystem ma…

The 4% also shocked me, since even PayPal has much better fees. There's a couple of posts on GiveWell about that payment processor (Network for Good): http://blog.givewell.org/2007/02/10/network-for-what-now/ http://blog.givewell.org/2007/02/17/quick-update/

Thanks for posting that. I still wonder though whether NFG is able to deliver money to charities abroad, included with that 4%.

For example, an average remittance payment is about 9.3%. In some places it's 14%, because the financial infrastructure to get payments to some of the remote places on earth is really, really tricky. So if that's all included in the fee, it's a bargain.

If not (and it's just pure payment processing without subsequent delivery outside the US) it's really terrible. Paypal, Google, Stripe, they all beat it. Especially as there's often deals for non-profits, e.g. Bitpay/Coinbase will process charitable donations for free. Kiva's creditcard fees for example are waived if I remember correctly.

Re: Dollar a Day

#88

Post by stonemetal »

briandear wrote: post #68
scotje wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know if there a legal/tax impediment to getting the pass-through classified as a not-for-profit? Or did you just mean it makes it harder to implement as a traditional startup?

The pass-through would have to set up as a foundation that then issues grants to other non-profits. That isn't an easy process. I won't donate anything unless there's a tax advantage. The reason is that non-profits that are registered 501 3(c)'s have certain reporting requirements. If they aren't registered, there's little accountability.

From their site:

We’re a nonprofit too! Dollar a Day makes no money, in any way, from donations on this site. Dollar a Day was built by a team of (almost entirely) volunteers.

Re: Dollar a Day

#90

Post by menzoic »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #73
briandear wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, not every charity is worthy. Some charity wasting my money on CO2 mitigation has a different value to me than a charity helping battered women escape abuse. ..as an example.

Now think for a minute which one of these actually matters more for continous well-being of mankind, and you'll see why effective charity is a hard problem.

Diversifying your donations increases the chances that you will be funding a worthy cause / charity.
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