9 ms·

This is not universally true. I'm sure its true for food banks where That $1 you spent on tuna could have purchased $4 worth of tuna if put in the hands of non

• bluedino 7y ago
  We had a food drive once, around Thanksgiving time. The most common item was canned cranberry sauce. A lot of people don't eat it, or really know what to do with it. The other big failure was someone who donated 50 frozen turkeys. We had to give them away immediately, as we couldn't store them. Later on we had people tell us the turkeys didn't come out right, or they didn't have the right roasting pan or even oven to cook one in. You can't microwave a turkey or cook it on a hot plate.
  • javagram 7y ago
    https://fox8.com/2018/11/21/but-can-you-actually-microwave-a-turkey-butterball-says-yes/ https://fox8.com/2018/11/21/but-can-you-actually-microwave-a... But yeah, I get your point! I do know someone whose charity gives away turkeys every year for thanksgiving dinner successfully (along with ingredients for the rest of a thanksgiving dinner) but it’s planned in advance and families come knowing what they are going to get.
    • munk-a 7y ago
      I've been part of volunteer groups that have specifically been drafted to help cook and hand out these sort of holiday meat splurges - in Boston there was a good amount of warning and people would register their donations ahead of times so that we could make sure the turkeys get to shelters that can cook them and they didn't end up lying in a freezer because no one had the time to babysit them - or thrown out because a shelter over-estimated how much traffic they'd get. And, while a lot of time the safety of food that is consumed is questionable, shelters really don't want to hold onto meat beyond its shelf-life and end up giving everyone food poisoning.
    • bluedino 7y ago
      Also funny are the employers who give out frozen turkeys they day before Thanksgiving...they won't thaw so you have to save them for Christmas.
      • graywh 7y ago
        my employer gives them out 2 weeks after Thanksgiving
        • giggles_giggles 7y ago
          The only thing any employer has ever given me on Thanksgiving was a shift on the help desk.
          • megablast 7y ago
            Wow, you didn't even get paid for it? Crazy.
    • efa 7y ago
      Our church foodbank gives away all the fixings along with a coupon to get a turkey at the local grocery store.
      • DonHopkins 7y ago
        Thanks to the people who donated money to pay for the coupons.
  • stronglikedan 7y ago
    > A lot of people don't eat it They will when they get hungry enough.
    • babyloneleven 7y ago
      This is cruel. Someone that is donating should think about the welfare of the recipients. Otherwise it's just massaging one's own ego.
    • dang 7y ago
      Please don't post flamebait here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • DonHopkins 7y ago
    At least they didn't drop them from a helicopter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf3mgmEdfwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf3mgmEdfwg
  • avar 7y ago
    > You can't microwave a turkey or cook it on a hot plate. Yes you can, you'd slice it up and cook it like bacon. Other parts you can use for stews etc. You can't cook the whole bird all at once, but if the alternative is no turkey at all I bet a lot of people were happier with it than without.
    • s1artibartfast 7y ago
      > I bet a lot of people were happier with it than without. And a lot of Turkeys will end up in the dumpster as well.
  • s1artibartfast 7y ago
    Based on the experience you shared, I think the may find the podcast linked below interesting. http://www.econtalk.org/canice-prendergast-on-how-prices-can-improve-a-food-fight-and-help-the-poor/ http://www.econtalk.org/canice-prendergast-on-how-prices-can... Here is the description: "If you have 250 million tons of food to give away every year to local food banks how should you do it? Canice Prendergast of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about how he and a team of economists created an artificial currency and a daily auction for the national food bank Feeding America so that local food banks could bid on the types of food that were the most valuable to them. Prendergast explains the results of the new system and the cultural and practical challenges of bringing prices, even artificial ones, to a world accustomed to giving things away."
  • ataturk 7y ago
    I would categorize that under "poor people are also kinda stupid." My family volunteered at a local food bank quite a few times. At some point I threw up my hands. I wouldn't say I'm angry, but it's like dealing with little children. It seems to me that most of the people getting food at the "free grocery store" have money for cars, cigarettes, booze. Dare I say, drugs? They have money for all kinds of things somehow just not food. Know what? Put on your big boy and girl pants and get your priorities straightened out. And please stop depriving your kids due to your bad habits, that's just asshole behavior right there. My take away is that there are a few needy people in our community, people with mental issues or actual handicaps and some who are genuinely down on their luck. But then there is the army of childish bullshit artists from far and wide who just take advantage of generous Christians. It's...tiring. They're playing the heart strings of guilt-ridden citizens who believe it is their job to help everyone without passing judgement. That's a nice concept, but it's out of touch with reality. I get up every day at 5:40am to saunter off to work for 8-9 hrs each week day. Somehow, I'm the fool. See the problem? It used to be understood that in the process of trying to make the world a better place that you set an example and you held that high ground. The "cultural relativistic" approach is not working.
• karthikb 7y ago
  Sounds like a great idea for a tech nonprofit. All in one inventory and credit card donation solution, as well as a distributor function that negotiates with the food suppliers like Sysco, A&W etc in bulk. Frees up the smaller banks to focus on what can’t be automated like community outreach.
  • blaser-waffle 7y ago
    > Frees up the smaller banks to focus on what can’t be automated like community outreach. Or Last-Mile delivery, getting the food to the people who actually need it. They're not always in shelters, and not always amenable to regular schedules or fixed feeding times.
    • karthikb 7y ago
      Exactly. The food banks should be able to focus on the high touch unique needs of their community, not trying to replicate the same backend process.
• tptacek 7y ago
  That's not the only reason he provides for not donating cans: * Cans have to be sorted and warehoused, which costs money. * Can donations are effectively randomized, which makes it harder to fit them into a coherent meal plan. It's really hard to see how cans could ever be better than cash.
  • falcolas 7y ago
    Cans last (almost) forever. High nutrient food in packaging that preserves it. A surge of can donations in 2019 can be used in a donation slump that occurs in 2025.
    • tptacek 7y ago
      The argument isn't against cans, it's against donations of cans. Instead, donate money, so the food bank can buy the cans it needs, rather than the cans you decide to throw at them.
      • falcolas 7y ago
        Fair - but isn't it better to donate cans than nothing at all, which is probably the more common usecase? Also, as I've noted in a separate comment, the food banks themselves often sit outside grocery stores with shopping lists that can be comprised of 80% cans.
        • munk-a 7y ago
          That's actually exactly why they sit outside the grocery stores - they'd much prefer to get cash from people to spend as needed but a lot of the people who end up donating cans would never have donated cash.
        • wccrawford 7y ago
          In our area, the charities actually ask people to put random foodstuffs in a certain bag and leave it on the porch for volunteers to pick up later. If they didn't want that food and would prefer money, it'd be a lot easier to ask for that. That leads me to think that they do want the food, but also that you're probably correct in thinking that people aren't likely to donate at all if it's not food directly.
• LoSboccacc 7y ago
  there's another effect, you donate food, it's food and it's most likely going to be used as food[1], if you donate money there's zero guarantee that those money will be used toward the purchase of food. it might be used toward a fundraiser, for a greater total effect in the best case scenario, but still, giving food is a statement of intent that a charity cannot convert in liquidity assuming the worst case scenarios. [1]there's a lot of stuff actually going on behind charity, for example here clothes bank don't donate clothes around to the poor, clothes get sold in bulk by weight and the earning go toward sustaining the charity operations first and what's left is sent to the poor in various ways. which is fine, as long as 'operations' are kept lean, but nobody really looks so there's a bit of everything going on.
• skybrian 7y ago
  If you know what they want and buy in bulk, this could be more of a "shop for charity" volunteer opportunity. The key is that someone is making a shopping list based on demand, rather than guessing.
• justin66 7y ago
  > in a lot of rural areas they don't have the people to purchase this stuff or the time. Do you know this to be true? Time spent purchasing seems like it would be dwarfed by stocking shelves, dealing with the public, and administrative tasks.
  • protomyth 7y ago
    Yes, I do know it to be true. I think people are thinking of some dedicated operation as opposed to operations run by churches or non-profits in the area. Frankly, they use money for other things like keeping the lights on and paying bills. The food (and other needs like children's items) is donated by the community.
    • justin66 7y ago
      > Yes, I do know it to be true. I think people are thinking of some dedicated operation as opposed to operations run by churches or non-profits in the area. sigh > Frankly, they use money for other things like keeping the lights on and paying bills. The food (and other needs like children's items) is donated by the community. Money is fungible. If people donate cash instead of cans, it becomes practical for someone to spend their time buying. (there is nothing evil about paying someone to do the work in addition to using volunteers, and plenty of churches operate that way) If the efficiencies sited in the article are anywhere close to being correct, it's worthwhile.
      • protomyth 7y ago
        They are only close to being correct if you are running a bigger organization. There is a rather large difference between large charities and community centered groups trying to help their fellows. People should know the actual situation and needs of the specific charity and skip following generic advice. Know what is really going on. I have no idea what the sigh was about.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
• jseliger 7y ago
  One open secret of nonprofits is that donations of goods or time are usually much, much less efficient, desired, and effective than donations of money: http://seliger.com/2014/04/20/volunteers-nonprofits-really-want-their-money-not-their-bodies/ http://seliger.com/2014/04/20/volunteers-nonprofits-really-w.... Nonprofits still need to cultivate volunteers, as volunteers tend to also be donors and volunteers want a tangible sense of community, but if you're really looking at cost-benefit, focus on money.
  • munk-a 7y ago
    Which really brings up the question of having a charity based social support structure instead of just delegating that to the government and letting a few hundred million required to run the entire thing be written off as a sig fig error of the military budget.
    • harryh 7y ago
      Annual donations to charity per year in the US are in excess of 400 Billion (so about 1000x more than your off the cuff estimate). Rather than being a rounding error in the military budget, this is about 2/3rds of total.
      • lmm 7y ago
        > Annual donations to charity per year in the US are in excess of 400 Billion Yes, but how much of that is "social support" versus, say, wealthy people structuring expenditures they were going to make anyway to be more tax efficient.
        • harryh 7y ago
          There are some stats here on where the money goes: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&... I'm not really sure what "wealthy people structuring expenditures they were going to make anyway" even means.
• mr_crankypants 7y ago
  I believe you may be conflating food banks and food pantries. Food pantries are places that distribute food directly to people. Food banks are centralized places that distribute to soup kitchens and food pantries, not to individuals. They exist to solve exactly the problem you're describing: Allowing a large number of small organizations to achieve economies of scale by pooling their resources.