6 ms·

How Silicon Valley Nonprofits Lure Tech Donors

25 points by ss2003 8y ago

drb91 8y ago
Yes, exactly what we need charities to optimize for: short term returns.
maym86 8y ago
With the Elon musk submarine story all I kept thinking throughout is that he's a billionaire and if he really wants to help people so much give money to people who need it. Charities actually know what to do with it and are far more effective than clumsily trying to do it directly. Out of everything this is what bothered me most because he really can help people and there is already a clear way to do it for someone with his means.
- mLuby 8y ago
  Objectively speaking of course you're right, but maybe he values his intelligence/work ethic more highly than his money (the latter being largely a result of the former + luck).
  - maym86 8y ago
    Yes but that's exactly the problem. He's focuing on himself. He has huge resources beyond his mind (ego). It lacks self awareness to think only you can solve problems and as a manager of multiple companies he must know other people are better at some things especially when they are 100% focused on the problem. He could also use his media reach to publicize some charities and not just focus on himself.
  - CompelTechnic 8y ago
    Elon has signed Buffett's giving pledge. So (if he's true to his word) eventually he will donate the vast majority of his wealth to charity. In the meanwhile, most of his net worth is tied up in shares of his companies. Selling or directly donating shares means giving up more control, and if he believes his companies will outperform other investments (or even just that it beats inflation), there is a non-clear moral tradeoff even for a strict altruist- do I donate now to solve problems now, or do I hold onto my money so it can grow and solve more problems when I donate later?
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Then that's worse, cause now, instead of listening to the people who have actually worked with and studied these things, he's acting like he's some kind of Jesus figure, where "only he can fix things."
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > Charities actually know what to do with it and are far more effective than clumsily trying to do it directly. What gives you so much faith in charities? What do charities know about being efficient that other people don't? Why would they be the only ones with good ideas? Being a charity is just a way to set up an organisation. Having that status doesn't inherently make you a force for good.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - wcarron 8y ago
    Not OP; just thought I'd chip in organizations like GiveWell. They're a non-profit dedicated to reviewing and researching charities to find the "best", most efficient, cost-effective ones in need of funds. Their website explains better: https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ Seems like the charities they've selected are well versed in the issues they attempted to address and have done a lot of work finding the best way to address them. After all, the employees of these charities are dedicating their lives and careers to solving a specific problem. Note: I am not affiliated with GiveWell or their charities in any way besides having used them to donate.
    - js2 8y ago
      GiveWell was discussed a bit on HN a couple years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13243780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13243780
  - maym86 8y ago
    Believe it or not people actually assess the effectiveness of charities and you can choose good ones. https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities Some charities are more effective than others and obviously some are used for other reasons (like avoiding tax which silicon valley knows all about). There are good charities that do good work and if you want to help people they already exist. It's not about "good ideas" but actually having the infrastructure and staff to do something that is known to work (e.g. vaccinating people, educating people, housing people, clean water etc.). Your focus on "good ideas" is the problem with Silicon Valley style thinking in this area. It's not the case that if only charities had better ideas they'd be more effective. The ideas and organisations are there. What they need is money and resources. That's where people with money, like Elon Musk, can really help. He could also publicize some charities and not just focus on himself.
- flopdrol 8y ago
  Daily Socialist Drivel: > Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. - Oscar Wilde Be sure to leave your political nonsense in the comments.
edgarvaldes 8y ago
For me, philanthropy is about money, cooperation and identification and selection of causes. Has Silicon Valley helped in those areas to improve philanthropy?
- djohnston 8y ago
  those may well constitute philanthropy, but there is a hierarchy of organizations who have the same values on this tuple and execute with greater or lesser efficiency.
petermcneeley 8y ago
A much more interesting article by the Atlantic on this same topic https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/the-problem-with-philanthropy/520989/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/the-pro...
imh 8y ago
I love the premise behind data driven giving, but it's really hard. In tech, we are all used to running experiments to determine whether things really work. But experimental design is not trivial and really benefits from expensive specialists. Bad analysis and experimental design has many silent failure modes in both the false positive and false negative directions. I have to imagine that these reports that OP talks about charities sending their donors are full of broken methodology. "We caused 10k kids to graduate high school!" when 9990 would have graduated anyways. If anyone knows of a way for a charitably minded data scientist to donate time and expertise, I'd love to hear about it.
tinalumfoil 8y ago
> He started adding on educational and vocational training programs to prepare kids to work in Silicon Valley > Donors often give to causes they have a personal connection to > ...recommends not talking about “charity” and meeting immediate community needs > Groups like food banks, for instance, which provide an essential emergency service to low-income people, aren’t exactly disrupting poverty I'm cherry-picking but this article paints a concerning picture for the future of corporate philanthropy. I couldn't stretch laffy taffy as far as you'd need to stretch the word philanthropy to include offering job training for work you need workers for.
secfirstmd 8y ago
Based on my experience working on and building tech/human rights related NGO startups from scratch. One of the problems is also that there is shift in philanthropy, in particular towards slightly safer, less controversial (but still worthy) issues. For example, very few tech donors will touch some of the hard human rights related issues, as they feel it will court controversy or affect their businesses. In the current political climate, it is more important than ever that the future tech version of George Soros emerges. E.g someone who is willing to fund movements and organisations that are willing to fight for the spread of the liberal human rights focused international order. Another issue that the nonprofit sector really lacks the dynamism of the startup space. There are a significant amount of bloated large NGOs that no longer fulfil their mission effectively and/or at a proper cost model. The effect is tricky as these end up hoovering up funding, even though many are often de facto zombies when it comes to their mission. If they were commercial businesses, many of these would already have been allowed to die, however their large scale and name recognition allows them to access traditional, safe funders. This effectively blocks out newer, smaller leaner ideas, organisations etc. The concepts of mergers, acquihires takeovers are fairly alien to the nonprofit space. Also many nonprofit startups are trapped by things such as the outlay, funding and costs of applying are very very high (esp compared to the returns in many cases) and many traditional funders have strange stipulations whereby they won't fund organisations unless they are 3-5 years old...Imagine a VC in the Valley saying that!

25 points by ss2003 8y ago

Yes, exactly what we need charities to optimize for: short term returns.

With the Elon musk submarine story all I kept thinking throughout is that he's a billionaire and if he really wants to help people so much give money to people who need it. Charities actually know what to do with it and are far more effective than clumsily trying to do it directly. Out of everything this is what bothered me most because he really can help people and there is already a clear way to do it for someone with his means.

mLuby 8y ago
Objectively speaking of course you're right, but maybe he values his intelligence/work ethic more highly than his money (the latter being largely a result of the former + luck).
- maym86 8y ago
  Yes but that's exactly the problem. He's focuing on himself. He has huge resources beyond his mind (ego). It lacks self awareness to think only you can solve problems and as a manager of multiple companies he must know other people are better at some things especially when they are 100% focused on the problem. He could also use his media reach to publicize some charities and not just focus on himself.
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  Elon has signed Buffett's giving pledge. So (if he's true to his word) eventually he will donate the vast majority of his wealth to charity. In the meanwhile, most of his net worth is tied up in shares of his companies. Selling or directly donating shares means giving up more control, and if he believes his companies will outperform other investments (or even just that it beats inflation), there is a non-clear moral tradeoff even for a strict altruist- do I donate now to solve problems now, or do I hold onto my money so it can grow and solve more problems when I donate later?
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Then that's worse, cause now, instead of listening to the people who have actually worked with and studied these things, he's acting like he's some kind of Jesus figure, where "only he can fix things."
chrisseaton 8y ago
> Charities actually know what to do with it and are far more effective than clumsily trying to do it directly. What gives you so much faith in charities? What do charities know about being efficient that other people don't? Why would they be the only ones with good ideas? Being a charity is just a way to set up an organisation. Having that status doesn't inherently make you a force for good.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- wcarron 8y ago
  Not OP; just thought I'd chip in organizations like GiveWell. They're a non-profit dedicated to reviewing and researching charities to find the "best", most efficient, cost-effective ones in need of funds. Their website explains better: https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ Seems like the charities they've selected are well versed in the issues they attempted to address and have done a lot of work finding the best way to address them. After all, the employees of these charities are dedicating their lives and careers to solving a specific problem. Note: I am not affiliated with GiveWell or their charities in any way besides having used them to donate.
  - js2 8y ago
    GiveWell was discussed a bit on HN a couple years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13243780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13243780
- maym86 8y ago
  Believe it or not people actually assess the effectiveness of charities and you can choose good ones. https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities Some charities are more effective than others and obviously some are used for other reasons (like avoiding tax which silicon valley knows all about). There are good charities that do good work and if you want to help people they already exist. It's not about "good ideas" but actually having the infrastructure and staff to do something that is known to work (e.g. vaccinating people, educating people, housing people, clean water etc.). Your focus on "good ideas" is the problem with Silicon Valley style thinking in this area. It's not the case that if only charities had better ideas they'd be more effective. The ideas and organisations are there. What they need is money and resources. That's where people with money, like Elon Musk, can really help. He could also publicize some charities and not just focus on himself.
flopdrol 8y ago
Daily Socialist Drivel: > Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. - Oscar Wilde Be sure to leave your political nonsense in the comments.

edgarvaldes 8y ago

For me, philanthropy is about money, cooperation and identification and selection of causes. Has Silicon Valley helped in those areas to improve philanthropy?

djohnston 8y ago
those may well constitute philanthropy, but there is a hierarchy of organizations who have the same values on this tuple and execute with greater or lesser efficiency.

petermcneeley 8y ago

A much more interesting article by the Atlantic on this same topic https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/the-problem-with-philanthropy/520989/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/the-pro...

imh 8y ago

I love the premise behind data driven giving, but it's really hard. In tech, we are all used to running experiments to determine whether things really work. But experimental design is not trivial and really benefits from expensive specialists. Bad analysis and experimental design has many silent failure modes in both the false positive and false negative directions. I have to imagine that these reports that OP talks about charities sending their donors are full of broken methodology. "We caused 10k kids to graduate high school!" when 9990 would have graduated anyways. If anyone knows of a way for a charitably minded data scientist to donate time and expertise, I'd love to hear about it.

tinalumfoil 8y ago

> He started adding on educational and vocational training programs to prepare kids to work in Silicon Valley > Donors often give to causes they have a personal connection to > ...recommends not talking about “charity” and meeting immediate community needs > Groups like food banks, for instance, which provide an essential emergency service to low-income people, aren’t exactly disrupting poverty I'm cherry-picking but this article paints a concerning picture for the future of corporate philanthropy. I couldn't stretch laffy taffy as far as you'd need to stretch the word philanthropy to include offering job training for work you need workers for.

secfirstmd 8y ago

Based on my experience working on and building tech/human rights related NGO startups from scratch. One of the problems is also that there is shift in philanthropy, in particular towards slightly safer, less controversial (but still worthy) issues. For example, very few tech donors will touch some of the hard human rights related issues, as they feel it will court controversy or affect their businesses. In the current political climate, it is more important than ever that the future tech version of George Soros emerges. E.g someone who is willing to fund movements and organisations that are willing to fight for the spread of the liberal human rights focused international order. Another issue that the nonprofit sector really lacks the dynamism of the startup space. There are a significant amount of bloated large NGOs that no longer fulfil their mission effectively and/or at a proper cost model. The effect is tricky as these end up hoovering up funding, even though many are often de facto zombies when it comes to their mission. If they were commercial businesses, many of these would already have been allowed to die, however their large scale and name recognition allows them to access traditional, safe funders. This effectively blocks out newer, smaller leaner ideas, organisations etc. The concepts of mergers, acquihires takeovers are fairly alien to the nonprofit space. Also many nonprofit startups are trapped by things such as the outlay, funding and costs of applying are very very high (esp compared to the returns in many cases) and many traditional funders have strange stipulations whereby they won't fund organisations unless they are 3-5 years old...Imagine a VC in the Valley saying that!