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As a kid who grew up in a family that needed foodstamps and foodbank runs I guarantee you what you get at a food bank is a hundred times better than what you pa

As a kid who grew up in a family that needed foodstamps and foodbank runs I guarantee you what you get at a food bank is a hundred times better than what you parents are going to have to invent with frozen peas mayonnaise and bread. Also keeping the donations as food ensures the donations go directly to helping your community. Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. Most of the foodbanks we went to were churches and local groups. They weren't interested in managing accounts for foodbank replenishment they just did drives when the needed more. It's immediately easier. When you give a physical thing it has purpose. It's not 5 dollars going who knows where. You know someone somewhere got a can of creamed corn. Most of these people donating I would say aren't going to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. But they will look in their pantry and see if there is anything they are not using. Depending on the source they bought it from, that money also goes directly back to the community. So there are a lot of benefits to donating food. If you want to donate money fine. But I'd wager if the only choice was donating money less people would donate.

brlewis 7y ago
>Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. Do you think this factor outweighs the efficiency factor from the article? Worst of all, the average consumer is buying their canned goods at four to five times the rock-bottom bulk price that can be obtained by the food bank itself. That $1 you spent on tuna could have purchased $4 worth of tuna if put in the hands of non-profit employee whose only job is to buy food as cheaply as possible. The savvy buyers at the Calgary Food Bank, for instance, promise that they can stretch $1 into $5.
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  Yes considering depending on the nonprofit large percents of that one dollar donation go to other things like advertisements posters shirts etc. By the time you cut that out you are only going to get two cans worth. So what's more important getting someone off their feet to participate in their community or money.
  - al2o3cr 7y ago
    By the time you cut that out you are only going to get two cans worth. Bullshit. In the US, charities are required to file detailed financial statements and tracked by sites like Charity Navigator. One that was spending 50%+ on overhead would be a major outlier. For some real data, I typed in "food bank" on Charity Navigator and picked the first result: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=9682 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar... 97.3% spent on programs and services delivered.
    - CodiePetersen 7y ago
      Right and their program expense is "Distributing food". What do you think that vague description of a program encompasses. Paying drivers? Paying the manager of the drive by the hour? It tells you very little of what your money is actually going to. Now I don't mean to knock the people of Brazos Valley Food Bank, they might all be volunteers and they might all work out of a volunteers garage, in which case you bet your ass if I knew for a fact I would be donating hard cash and probably even volunteer when and what I could if that was my neighborhood. But I'm not going to donate to some giant entity that can "scale". My entire point of the comment was that the author paints a picture that your food donation hinders operations and youd be better off to donate just one dollar instead of one can. So I pointed out all of the local cases where your donation goes just the right amount and from volunteers and for people who aren't going to complain about what efforts you are going to put in.
      - lidHanteyk 7y ago
        I picked a food bank that I remember volunteering with when I was in high school: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6419 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar... "Food distribution" here is everything that the food bank does to put food in front of people. Storage, logistics, networking. As an example, I worked in a warehouse alongside forklift operators, carrying boxes of food between refrigerators and packing distribution boxes destined for delivery. As another example, this food bank owns and operates community gardens. They also have a dedicated "Meals on Wheels" program for taking prepared meals out to senior citizens and the infirm. The fantasy of working out of a garage is crushed by the basic nutrition needs of human beings. A single working garden is half a garage on its own, and a walk-in fridge is another half a garage. We generally want to imagine a food buffer of two weeks. A single block-sized warehouse can be far more practical for county-sized food banks than a network of restaurants, garages, church basements, or other small repositories. Edit: While I might not have been compensated with cash, the forklift operators were employed. Many volunteers were, like me, in various programs that required that they volunteer with the community. Employment with the food bank generally meant additional responsibilities; they couldn't ask volunteers to do certain kinds of dangerous things.
- hinkley 7y ago
  In high school I was part of a club that was, in retrospect, very well run. And yet some things were a new adventure every time. For their annual events they would go around trying to get local businesses to donate goods or at least sell us supplies at wholesale prices. In some cases they could write it off. And we'd do the same thing every year, starting with places we had previous success with, but often with different people on both ends of the transaction. It was a crap shoot, and every year the game plan was a little different depending on what we got and how much. Now if I were much bigger, and I needed 100,000 cans of something, and I wanted that to be reliable so people don't starve, I skip the locals and I go to the manufacturer. Now my alternatives are 'free or 75% off' instead of 'free, 10% (employee discount) or 50% off'. I could end up saving $20,000 a year just on peas. You going to begrudge someone drawing a salary looking for deals and relationships like that? Logistics is hard. Everyone discounts just how hard, but Software Developers are exceptionally bad actors about this. Reminds me of a story I read about Microsoft millionaires starting their own companies and totally screwing the pooch on logistics because the MS logistics machine worked so well that it was invisible. Out of sight, out of mind. Offices don't magically appear for new employees. Neither do desks or machines or ethernet jacks. All that shit is some support person dotting a lot of i's and crossing an exhaustive (and exhausting) number of t's.
scott_s 7y ago
> Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. This attitude frustrates me. Having the infrastructure in place to redistribute goods is work. It takes people's time and effort, and that does not come for free. The larger the scale at which a charity operates, the more true this becomes. If you're concerned that a particular charity is abusing your goodwill and not using enough of its funds for its mission, research it on https://www.charitynavigator.org https://www.charitynavigator.org.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > This attitude frustrates me. Having the infrastructure in place to redistribute goods is work. It takes people's time and effort, and that does not come for free. Neither does the work of the people donating food and/or money.
  - scott_s 7y ago
    I can't figure out how that relates to my point? We're operating under the assumption that people are donating something, which implies they worked, gained from it, and then decided to pass on their gain to someone else. My point is about the efficiency of that donation, and the expectations we should have of the people who enable that donation.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      > We're operating under the assumption that people are donating something, which implies they worked, gained from it, and then decided to pass on their gain to someone else. Precisely. And they don't like the idea that some middle man is profiting off of what they're giving. It's really that simple. Tell me my money goes to some administrator who's organizing a bunch of volunteers to distribute donations and I'm wondering why the hell that guy isn't a volunteer.
      - Klathmon 7y ago
rchaud 7y ago
> Also keeping the donations as food ensures the donations go directly to helping your community. This is addressed in the article. Charities specifically do not outright ban food donations because they don't want to dictate to people how to donate. But receiving a bunch of random food items is logistically harder to organize, store and transport. They prefer monetary donations because they hire logistical specialists who can buy bulk food items at far lower rates than what consumers pay at the grocery. > Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. You should look into the annual reports of your local nonprofit; you may be conflating what CEOs of national/global orgs like Doctors without Borders or United Way get paid vs what a local charity head does. You'll probably also notice that a significant portion of NPF revenue comes from corporate donations. Guess what? They don't give out of the goodness of their hearts. They give because the suits have connections with people in those spheres, and convince them that giving is good for their brand.
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  >>This is addressed in the article. Right and I addressed it at the end of that comment. Saying its fine to donate money if you want. But people shouldn't be ashamed of donating canned food. >>You should look into the annual reports of your local nonprofit; This whole article was about efficiency and how much further your money goes if you donate cash. Putting any middle man in there with any budget for operation cuts away from the gains. And if they are getting donations from corporations, then fine, use that money for operations. My money won't be going to them. I'll donate to a church or whoever who is actually doing it from the goodness of their heart. (Note I keep referencing churches, but there are other non religious groups that do it for free not under a non profit corporation, specifically I know for a fact in LA at venice beach there is a group that helps homeless youth by feeding them and offering them a place to sleep, they even hand out condoms.)
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    There's a smallish movement of people who are trying to figure out how to do the most good for the least cost in absolute terms, and the conclusion seems to be that what feels good isn't what actually works well. This is an essay that sort of explains why some people are moving in that direction: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f... -- Regarding your objection to leaders making an income on your donations (an objection I used to share), what if it could be proven that more people are helped more effectively that way? Would that change your mind?
justin66 7y ago
> If you want to donate money fine. But I'd wager if the only choice was donating money less people would donate. If the figures in the article are correct, three out of four people would need to stop donating in order to make that a net loss. (Three out of four people would not stop donating. Give them an easy way to pay and those contributing to a food drive appreciate not schlepping around food.)
drwl 7y ago
Consider watching this video on rethinking charities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfAzi6D5FpM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfAzi6D5FpM
fortran77 7y ago
A lot of time I buy more canned food than I need, especially when preparing for holiday cooking. Donating it is really the only way to make use of it. Otherwise it will sit in my cabinet and maybe I'll remember to use it. I get that money's always bets, but also encouraging people to get rid of excess purchased food before it expires and goes to waste can't be a "bad thing" altogether.
- duskwuff 7y ago
  Donating excess food is fine! The problem addressed in the article is people going out to a store and buying random canned food for the sole purpose of donating it.
javadocmd 7y ago
> You know someone somewhere got a can of creamed corn. But the point was you don't know that. If they get deluged with creamed corn, it might just sit in a warehouse, get shipped to a different community, or even get trashed. Donate a can if you prefer, just don't fool yourself with false guarantees.
patrickyeon 7y ago
This is extremely wrong-headed. To begin with, you're stating "downsides" which the original article specifically said "hey, people think this and they're wrong". Downthread you bring up worries like "spending money on advertising", but as I understand it most advertising that charities get, especially non-national level charities, is donated by the companies that own the advertising space (in-kind donations), so they're also not spending money on that. I've volunteered at the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Do you want to know where your churches and local groups get their food? They come to a central food bank like the ACCFB, where they can load up. The ACCFB does not directly distribute food to people in need, instead trusting smaller groups to know their community's needs better, so they invite those groups to come get food. Staples, fresh produce, baby food and formula at exactly zero dollars all day long, more "premium" products at a heavily subsidized price. Do you know what the ACCFB spent money on that wasn't food? A gi-fucking-gantic walk in fridge and freezer, so that they don't have to worry about bulk donations/purchases spoiling. And a large warehouse so that they can take in fresh produce from farmers (often stuff that cosmetically won't sell well) and re-sort it in a way that local organizations can use. You can see what the executives of non-profits make. The Executive Director of the ACCFB was paid $256K in 2017, for overseeing an organization with $64M in revenue. The rest of the individuals on the Form 990 were in the $103K-$150K range. For full-time Chief/Director work IN THE BAY AREA. In case you've been living under a rock, that's not a good salary. Every "benefit" to donating food is that you get to feel like stopped someone from tricking you and you're smarter than "all of those rubes" who gave cash. Turns out you're actually being the least helpful donor, and now write smug comments bragging about how you're the least helpful donor trying to reduce the helpfulness of other donors. ACCFB's Form 990 for 2017: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942960297/201920939349300417/IRS990 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942...
- misterprime 7y ago
  I found the details you provided helpful in shaping my understanding and opinion on this issue. Thank you for taking the time to write them out. My personal bias had previously been shaped by the example of the the Susan G Komen for the Cure scandal. In my recollection they were hardly donating any of the funds raised. Perhaps I am mis-remembering at this point. Distributing food and clothes is much easier to do and measure than "cure cancer" so I'm not sure why I thought the outcomes would be similar.
rgbrenner 7y ago
1. If you spend $5 on food, and the foodbank could have bought $25 with that same money, but would instead buy $15 worth of food and $10 spent on salary for the person buying food, management, etc... it was still more efficient to give the $5. 2. Margins on food are VERY thin. The local supermarket makes a few percent in profits. Unless you're buying directly from the farmers (most arent), that money isnt staying in your community. It's going to go thousands of miles away where it's being grown.. and then the remainder is going to go to Kroger/Walmart/etc corporate bank account so that they can pay their managers that 100k+/year that you so oppose charity workers making.
- yoz-y 7y ago
  While I see your point your math does not add up. You can’t take $5, then transform it to $25 worth of food and then again to $25 in cash so you can give a $10 salary. Unless of course you would resell the food you buy at a massive margin.
  - Buttons840 7y ago
    Perhaps 2$ of the 5$ goes towards buying 10$ worth of food, and then 3$ of the 5$ goes to administrators, thus leading to two seemingly contradictory truths: most of the money you gave went towards paying administrators, and the charity used your 5$ towards your desired goal more effectively than you could have yourself.
- baddox 7y ago
  If the charity can take a $5 cash donation, turn it into $15 of food and $10 cash, then instead of paying the $10 cash to management, why not split it into two more instances of $5 cash and repeat the process?
  - patrickyeon 7y ago
    Because this isn't a magic fantasy world where you're literally turning cash into bigger cash. When someone says "$5 cash becomes $15 worth of food", they mean "I can spend the $5 to get what would cost you $15 to spend". And when it's broken down into "of the $5, $3 goes to paying for food, and $2 goes to paying people", that $2 pays the people who can use the $3 as effectively as the original person could use $15. If you decide to get rid of those people, and just spend the $2 directly on food, you can no longer use it effectively.
kevin_b_er 7y ago
You might wish to go back and look at those "churches and local groups" you got your food from your childhood. Or go to similar ones that are around you where you live now. Ask them how they get their food to give out to the needy. There's a good chance they got much of their food from a warehouse. Now, you might not have heard of them until now, but read this description of how a lot of food bank systems work: https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/food-bank-network https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/food-bank-network That's Feeding America, a massive network of food banks as in #2 charity in the United States in 2018. What's bigger? United Way. The churches and local groups? They're name in this model is a "food pantry". Somewhere, especially in metropolitan areas, is one or more organizations that are basically giant warehouses of food. They're the "food bank" of the model. They take in donated food and donated money, buy huge amounts of food in bulk, and distribute it to the "food pantry". What happens is the food bank takes a $10 donation and buys 100+ cans at wholesale prices, then distributes them to the food pantries, sometimes for a tiny fee (think: pennies) to discourage waste. Its one thing when you clean out your cupboard of cans and another when you willingly buy a few cans at the grocery store to donate. The latter is wasted a bit, because you didn't get a good deal compared to what the food bank could get in bulk. The entire article is on this. A picture in the article is the perfect example of this. These people wanted to "feel good". Well, even with a few percent of overhead for the "CEO cost", that warehouse-level food bank could've probably bought double the food with $500. I get it is feel good for sure and I get the anti-corruption angle. But an honest to goodness food bank known to service an area, one that is well audited(!!) should be on your cash donation list. They're the ones supplying the small local groups with the food you got.
neves 7y ago
In Brazil, [Herbert de Souza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_de_Souza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_de_Souza) mobilized the society with a campaign called "Christmas without Hunger". One of the foundations of the program was that it wouldn't accept money, just non-spoilable food. Money would never reach who needed it. It was one of the most effective social campaigns we ever had.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

brlewis 7y ago

>Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. Do you think this factor outweighs the efficiency factor from the article? Worst of all, the average consumer is buying their canned goods at four to five times the rock-bottom bulk price that can be obtained by the food bank itself. That $1 you spent on tuna could have purchased $4 worth of tuna if put in the hands of non-profit employee whose only job is to buy food as cheaply as possible. The savvy buyers at the Calgary Food Bank, for instance, promise that they can stretch $1 into $5.

CodiePetersen 7y ago
Yes considering depending on the nonprofit large percents of that one dollar donation go to other things like advertisements posters shirts etc. By the time you cut that out you are only going to get two cans worth. So what's more important getting someone off their feet to participate in their community or money.
- al2o3cr 7y ago
  By the time you cut that out you are only going to get two cans worth. Bullshit. In the US, charities are required to file detailed financial statements and tracked by sites like Charity Navigator. One that was spending 50%+ on overhead would be a major outlier. For some real data, I typed in "food bank" on Charity Navigator and picked the first result: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=9682 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar... 97.3% spent on programs and services delivered.
  - CodiePetersen 7y ago
    Right and their program expense is "Distributing food". What do you think that vague description of a program encompasses. Paying drivers? Paying the manager of the drive by the hour? It tells you very little of what your money is actually going to. Now I don't mean to knock the people of Brazos Valley Food Bank, they might all be volunteers and they might all work out of a volunteers garage, in which case you bet your ass if I knew for a fact I would be donating hard cash and probably even volunteer when and what I could if that was my neighborhood. But I'm not going to donate to some giant entity that can "scale". My entire point of the comment was that the author paints a picture that your food donation hinders operations and youd be better off to donate just one dollar instead of one can. So I pointed out all of the local cases where your donation goes just the right amount and from volunteers and for people who aren't going to complain about what efforts you are going to put in.
    - lidHanteyk 7y ago
      I picked a food bank that I remember volunteering with when I was in high school: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6419 https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summar... "Food distribution" here is everything that the food bank does to put food in front of people. Storage, logistics, networking. As an example, I worked in a warehouse alongside forklift operators, carrying boxes of food between refrigerators and packing distribution boxes destined for delivery. As another example, this food bank owns and operates community gardens. They also have a dedicated "Meals on Wheels" program for taking prepared meals out to senior citizens and the infirm. The fantasy of working out of a garage is crushed by the basic nutrition needs of human beings. A single working garden is half a garage on its own, and a walk-in fridge is another half a garage. We generally want to imagine a food buffer of two weeks. A single block-sized warehouse can be far more practical for county-sized food banks than a network of restaurants, garages, church basements, or other small repositories. Edit: While I might not have been compensated with cash, the forklift operators were employed. Many volunteers were, like me, in various programs that required that they volunteer with the community. Employment with the food bank generally meant additional responsibilities; they couldn't ask volunteers to do certain kinds of dangerous things.
hinkley 7y ago
In high school I was part of a club that was, in retrospect, very well run. And yet some things were a new adventure every time. For their annual events they would go around trying to get local businesses to donate goods or at least sell us supplies at wholesale prices. In some cases they could write it off. And we'd do the same thing every year, starting with places we had previous success with, but often with different people on both ends of the transaction. It was a crap shoot, and every year the game plan was a little different depending on what we got and how much. Now if I were much bigger, and I needed 100,000 cans of something, and I wanted that to be reliable so people don't starve, I skip the locals and I go to the manufacturer. Now my alternatives are 'free or 75% off' instead of 'free, 10% (employee discount) or 50% off'. I could end up saving $20,000 a year just on peas. You going to begrudge someone drawing a salary looking for deals and relationships like that? Logistics is hard. Everyone discounts just how hard, but Software Developers are exceptionally bad actors about this. Reminds me of a story I read about Microsoft millionaires starting their own companies and totally screwing the pooch on logistics because the MS logistics machine worked so well that it was invisible. Out of sight, out of mind. Offices don't magically appear for new employees. Neither do desks or machines or ethernet jacks. All that shit is some support person dotting a lot of i's and crossing an exhaustive (and exhausting) number of t's.

scott_s 7y ago

> Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. This attitude frustrates me. Having the infrastructure in place to redistribute goods is work. It takes people's time and effort, and that does not come for free. The larger the scale at which a charity operates, the more true this becomes. If you're concerned that a particular charity is abusing your goodwill and not using enough of its funds for its mission, research it on https://www.charitynavigator.org https://www.charitynavigator.org.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> This attitude frustrates me. Having the infrastructure in place to redistribute goods is work. It takes people's time and effort, and that does not come for free. Neither does the work of the people donating food and/or money.
- scott_s 7y ago
  I can't figure out how that relates to my point? We're operating under the assumption that people are donating something, which implies they worked, gained from it, and then decided to pass on their gain to someone else. My point is about the efficiency of that donation, and the expectations we should have of the people who enable that donation.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > We're operating under the assumption that people are donating something, which implies they worked, gained from it, and then decided to pass on their gain to someone else. Precisely. And they don't like the idea that some middle man is profiting off of what they're giving. It's really that simple. Tell me my money goes to some administrator who's organizing a bunch of volunteers to distribute donations and I'm wondering why the hell that guy isn't a volunteer.
    - Klathmon 7y ago

rchaud 7y ago

> Also keeping the donations as food ensures the donations go directly to helping your community. This is addressed in the article. Charities specifically do not outright ban food donations because they don't want to dictate to people how to donate. But receiving a bunch of random food items is logistically harder to organize, store and transport. They prefer monetary donations because they hire logistical specialists who can buy bulk food items at far lower rates than what consumers pay at the grocery. > Non profit ceos make 100s of thousands of dollars a year. That money comes from cash donations. People don't want to line a ceos pockets they want to help their neighbor. You should look into the annual reports of your local nonprofit; you may be conflating what CEOs of national/global orgs like Doctors without Borders or United Way get paid vs what a local charity head does. You'll probably also notice that a significant portion of NPF revenue comes from corporate donations. Guess what? They don't give out of the goodness of their hearts. They give because the suits have connections with people in those spheres, and convince them that giving is good for their brand.

CodiePetersen 7y ago
>>This is addressed in the article. Right and I addressed it at the end of that comment. Saying its fine to donate money if you want. But people shouldn't be ashamed of donating canned food. >>You should look into the annual reports of your local nonprofit; This whole article was about efficiency and how much further your money goes if you donate cash. Putting any middle man in there with any budget for operation cuts away from the gains. And if they are getting donations from corporations, then fine, use that money for operations. My money won't be going to them. I'll donate to a church or whoever who is actually doing it from the goodness of their heart. (Note I keep referencing churches, but there are other non religious groups that do it for free not under a non profit corporation, specifically I know for a fact in LA at venice beach there is a group that helps homeless youth by feeding them and offering them a place to sleep, they even hand out condoms.)
- nitrogen 7y ago
  There's a smallish movement of people who are trying to figure out how to do the most good for the least cost in absolute terms, and the conclusion seems to be that what feels good isn't what actually works well. This is an essay that sort of explains why some people are moving in that direction: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-fuzzies-and-utilons-separately https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/3p3CYauiX8oLjmwRF/purchase-f... -- Regarding your objection to leaders making an income on your donations (an objection I used to share), what if it could be proven that more people are helped more effectively that way? Would that change your mind?

justin66 7y ago

> If you want to donate money fine. But I'd wager if the only choice was donating money less people would donate. If the figures in the article are correct, three out of four people would need to stop donating in order to make that a net loss. (Three out of four people would not stop donating. Give them an easy way to pay and those contributing to a food drive appreciate not schlepping around food.)

drwl 7y ago

Consider watching this video on rethinking charities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfAzi6D5FpM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfAzi6D5FpM

fortran77 7y ago

A lot of time I buy more canned food than I need, especially when preparing for holiday cooking. Donating it is really the only way to make use of it. Otherwise it will sit in my cabinet and maybe I'll remember to use it. I get that money's always bets, but also encouraging people to get rid of excess purchased food before it expires and goes to waste can't be a "bad thing" altogether.

duskwuff 7y ago
Donating excess food is fine! The problem addressed in the article is people going out to a store and buying random canned food for the sole purpose of donating it.

javadocmd 7y ago

> You know someone somewhere got a can of creamed corn. But the point was you don't know that. If they get deluged with creamed corn, it might just sit in a warehouse, get shipped to a different community, or even get trashed. Donate a can if you prefer, just don't fool yourself with false guarantees.

patrickyeon 7y ago

This is extremely wrong-headed. To begin with, you're stating "downsides" which the original article specifically said "hey, people think this and they're wrong". Downthread you bring up worries like "spending money on advertising", but as I understand it most advertising that charities get, especially non-national level charities, is donated by the companies that own the advertising space (in-kind donations), so they're also not spending money on that. I've volunteered at the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Do you want to know where your churches and local groups get their food? They come to a central food bank like the ACCFB, where they can load up. The ACCFB does not directly distribute food to people in need, instead trusting smaller groups to know their community's needs better, so they invite those groups to come get food. Staples, fresh produce, baby food and formula at exactly zero dollars all day long, more "premium" products at a heavily subsidized price. Do you know what the ACCFB spent money on that wasn't food? A gi-fucking-gantic walk in fridge and freezer, so that they don't have to worry about bulk donations/purchases spoiling. And a large warehouse so that they can take in fresh produce from farmers (often stuff that cosmetically won't sell well) and re-sort it in a way that local organizations can use. You can see what the executives of non-profits make. The Executive Director of the ACCFB was paid $256K in 2017, for overseeing an organization with $64M in revenue. The rest of the individuals on the Form 990 were in the $103K-$150K range. For full-time Chief/Director work IN THE BAY AREA. In case you've been living under a rock, that's not a good salary. Every "benefit" to donating food is that you get to feel like stopped someone from tricking you and you're smarter than "all of those rubes" who gave cash. Turns out you're actually being the least helpful donor, and now write smug comments bragging about how you're the least helpful donor trying to reduce the helpfulness of other donors. ACCFB's Form 990 for 2017: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942960297/201920939349300417/IRS990 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/942...

misterprime 7y ago
I found the details you provided helpful in shaping my understanding and opinion on this issue. Thank you for taking the time to write them out. My personal bias had previously been shaped by the example of the the Susan G Komen for the Cure scandal. In my recollection they were hardly donating any of the funds raised. Perhaps I am mis-remembering at this point. Distributing food and clothes is much easier to do and measure than "cure cancer" so I'm not sure why I thought the outcomes would be similar.

rgbrenner 7y ago

1. If you spend $5 on food, and the foodbank could have bought $25 with that same money, but would instead buy $15 worth of food and $10 spent on salary for the person buying food, management, etc... it was still more efficient to give the $5. 2. Margins on food are VERY thin. The local supermarket makes a few percent in profits. Unless you're buying directly from the farmers (most arent), that money isnt staying in your community. It's going to go thousands of miles away where it's being grown.. and then the remainder is going to go to Kroger/Walmart/etc corporate bank account so that they can pay their managers that 100k+/year that you so oppose charity workers making.

yoz-y 7y ago
While I see your point your math does not add up. You can’t take $5, then transform it to $25 worth of food and then again to $25 in cash so you can give a $10 salary. Unless of course you would resell the food you buy at a massive margin.
- Buttons840 7y ago
  Perhaps 2$ of the 5$ goes towards buying 10$ worth of food, and then 3$ of the 5$ goes to administrators, thus leading to two seemingly contradictory truths: most of the money you gave went towards paying administrators, and the charity used your 5$ towards your desired goal more effectively than you could have yourself.
baddox 7y ago
If the charity can take a $5 cash donation, turn it into $15 of food and $10 cash, then instead of paying the $10 cash to management, why not split it into two more instances of $5 cash and repeat the process?
- patrickyeon 7y ago
  Because this isn't a magic fantasy world where you're literally turning cash into bigger cash. When someone says "$5 cash becomes $15 worth of food", they mean "I can spend the $5 to get what would cost you $15 to spend". And when it's broken down into "of the $5, $3 goes to paying for food, and $2 goes to paying people", that $2 pays the people who can use the $3 as effectively as the original person could use $15. If you decide to get rid of those people, and just spend the $2 directly on food, you can no longer use it effectively.

kevin_b_er 7y ago

You might wish to go back and look at those "churches and local groups" you got your food from your childhood. Or go to similar ones that are around you where you live now. Ask them how they get their food to give out to the needy. There's a good chance they got much of their food from a warehouse. Now, you might not have heard of them until now, but read this description of how a lot of food bank systems work: https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/food-bank-network https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/food-bank-network That's Feeding America, a massive network of food banks as in #2 charity in the United States in 2018. What's bigger? United Way. The churches and local groups? They're name in this model is a "food pantry". Somewhere, especially in metropolitan areas, is one or more organizations that are basically giant warehouses of food. They're the "food bank" of the model. They take in donated food and donated money, buy huge amounts of food in bulk, and distribute it to the "food pantry". What happens is the food bank takes a $10 donation and buys 100+ cans at wholesale prices, then distributes them to the food pantries, sometimes for a tiny fee (think: pennies) to discourage waste. Its one thing when you clean out your cupboard of cans and another when you willingly buy a few cans at the grocery store to donate. The latter is wasted a bit, because you didn't get a good deal compared to what the food bank could get in bulk. The entire article is on this. A picture in the article is the perfect example of this. These people wanted to "feel good". Well, even with a few percent of overhead for the "CEO cost", that warehouse-level food bank could've probably bought double the food with $500. I get it is feel good for sure and I get the anti-corruption angle. But an honest to goodness food bank known to service an area, one that is well audited(!!) should be on your cash donation list. They're the ones supplying the small local groups with the food you got.

neves 7y ago

In Brazil, [Herbert de Souza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_de_Souza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_de_Souza) mobilized the society with a campaign called "Christmas without Hunger". One of the foundations of the program was that it wouldn't accept money, just non-spoilable food. Money would never reach who needed it. It was one of the most effective social campaigns we ever had.

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