6 ms·

Or I can donate to a church that is doing all of it for free. If the issue is efficiency then isn't it better to donate to individuals doing it for free.

scott_s 7y ago
Such small operations typically can't scale and have greater difficulty dealing with emergencies.
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  You don't need to scale. How many churches are in LA? When I was homeless over there when I was younger, there were spots all over the city that were feeding the homeless. You don't need one giant entity. You just need the community to care. If your community doesn't care no amount of money is going to fix it.
  - scott_s 7y ago
    Scale and agility matter during emergencies, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes. In such circumstances, the smaller local organizations are affected by the same problem.
    - CodiePetersen 7y ago
      We are not talking about an emergency though. We're talking about regular food drives. Donating to emergencies if a different matter. And if your city is underwater, get your ass out there and help.
    - CodiePetersen 7y ago
      I will say though, after the damage is done and its been x amount of time and there is no immediate danger. There is not too much physical donations that can help, but again that's not a food drive problem.
    - caseysoftware 7y ago
      While the article is about general food drives, emergencies do introduce a bigger problem of scale and management that come and go quickly. I volunteer with and donate to a group - https://adrn.org/ https://adrn.org/ - and that's what we do. When Hurricane Harvey hit, they (I was traveling) mobilized 150+ churches around central Texas to support the coast with food, supplies, and transportation immediately after it hit. Further, we've supported cleanup operations and helped get people back on their feet. One of the things I've helped with directly is developer our playbook so other groups worldwide can learn from what we've done and build the infrastructure and relationships to prepare in advance. By working with smaller organizations, the closest to the problem, you get great perspective but backed by larger teams who can coordinate across a city, region, or country. It's business management + crisis response.
  - objectivetruth 7y ago
    Yeah, they DO need to scale or there wouldn't still be people in LA and everywhere else going hungry. I'm a Christian who proudly supports our local church's food bank (no strings attached, walk in and take food) -- but I recognize that the Church can't do it alone.
munk-a 7y ago
Indeed, and in that case you need to check the morals of that church since a religious organization is more likely to meter out aide conditional on an alignment to their morals.
- dang 7y ago
  No religious flamewar please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sct202 7y ago
The church down the street from me has it's own food bank (with actual staff, the leader earns $57k according to guidestar) and is also partnered with a local food bank network. It's not like these things run in isolation of each other or are necessarily running that differently just because it's a church.
yellow_postit 7y ago
Free doesn’t imply better outcomes or efficiency (doesn’t imply the reverse either). Imagine a charity could hire someone that would 100x the amount of donations, whether that’s through more effective marketing, connections, etc. how much should a charity be willing to pay for that?
- ddingus 7y ago
  At that scale, aren't we talking more about systemic problems? The charity is about need. If it is also about that kind of growth, there is serious need. We may be better served by a policy change so that charity remains at a lean scale.
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago
    Yes, there are massive systemic problems everywhere. Feel free to go ahead and policy change away the war, disease, hunger, homelessness and so on if you can do that?
    - ddingus 7y ago
      That's exactly the progressives plan. We can't get at all of that, and for sure, not at once. But, there can be much better basics in place for people, and with those, a reduced need for charity to somehow perform at very large scale. It can target, operate locally more, all good. Disease, hunger, homelessness are all massive artifacts of long overdue policy reforms in the US.
- coryrc 7y ago
  Depends, are they just shifting donations from other non-profits doing work without paid overhead?
justin66 7y ago
> Or I can donate to a church that is doing all of it for free. People donate a ton of money to churches.

scott_s 7y ago

Such small operations typically can't scale and have greater difficulty dealing with emergencies.

CodiePetersen 7y ago
You don't need to scale. How many churches are in LA? When I was homeless over there when I was younger, there were spots all over the city that were feeding the homeless. You don't need one giant entity. You just need the community to care. If your community doesn't care no amount of money is going to fix it.
- scott_s 7y ago
  Scale and agility matter during emergencies, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and earthquakes. In such circumstances, the smaller local organizations are affected by the same problem.
  - CodiePetersen 7y ago
    We are not talking about an emergency though. We're talking about regular food drives. Donating to emergencies if a different matter. And if your city is underwater, get your ass out there and help.
  - CodiePetersen 7y ago
    I will say though, after the damage is done and its been x amount of time and there is no immediate danger. There is not too much physical donations that can help, but again that's not a food drive problem.
  - caseysoftware 7y ago
    While the article is about general food drives, emergencies do introduce a bigger problem of scale and management that come and go quickly. I volunteer with and donate to a group - https://adrn.org/ https://adrn.org/ - and that's what we do. When Hurricane Harvey hit, they (I was traveling) mobilized 150+ churches around central Texas to support the coast with food, supplies, and transportation immediately after it hit. Further, we've supported cleanup operations and helped get people back on their feet. One of the things I've helped with directly is developer our playbook so other groups worldwide can learn from what we've done and build the infrastructure and relationships to prepare in advance. By working with smaller organizations, the closest to the problem, you get great perspective but backed by larger teams who can coordinate across a city, region, or country. It's business management + crisis response.
- objectivetruth 7y ago
  Yeah, they DO need to scale or there wouldn't still be people in LA and everywhere else going hungry. I'm a Christian who proudly supports our local church's food bank (no strings attached, walk in and take food) -- but I recognize that the Church can't do it alone.

munk-a 7y ago

Indeed, and in that case you need to check the morals of that church since a religious organization is more likely to meter out aide conditional on an alignment to their morals.

dang 7y ago
No religious flamewar please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sct202 7y ago

The church down the street from me has it's own food bank (with actual staff, the leader earns $57k according to guidestar) and is also partnered with a local food bank network. It's not like these things run in isolation of each other or are necessarily running that differently just because it's a church.

yellow_postit 7y ago

Free doesn’t imply better outcomes or efficiency (doesn’t imply the reverse either). Imagine a charity could hire someone that would 100x the amount of donations, whether that’s through more effective marketing, connections, etc. how much should a charity be willing to pay for that?

ddingus 7y ago
At that scale, aren't we talking more about systemic problems? The charity is about need. If it is also about that kind of growth, there is serious need. We may be better served by a policy change so that charity remains at a lean scale.
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
  Yes, there are massive systemic problems everywhere. Feel free to go ahead and policy change away the war, disease, hunger, homelessness and so on if you can do that?
  - ddingus 7y ago
    That's exactly the progressives plan. We can't get at all of that, and for sure, not at once. But, there can be much better basics in place for people, and with those, a reduced need for charity to somehow perform at very large scale. It can target, operate locally more, all good. Disease, hunger, homelessness are all massive artifacts of long overdue policy reforms in the US.
coryrc 7y ago
Depends, are they just shifting donations from other non-profits doing work without paid overhead?

justin66 7y ago

> Or I can donate to a church that is doing all of it for free. People donate a ton of money to churches.