5 ms·
>complexity was in keeping track of each dollar's origin, and making sure that it was spent on only what the source approved it to be spent on. [...] they all h
by jasode 6y ago
>complexity was in keeping track of each dollar's origin, and making sure that it was spent on only what the source approved it to be spent on. [...] they all had strong opinions on what the money could be spent on.
Understand your frustration but the public was outraged when $1 million of a librarian's donation was used for a football scoreboard.[1]
Yes, the university did comply to the exact letter of his will (only $100k was restricted for library and the rest was unrestricted) ... but the public thinks the spirit of his donation was ignored.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=librarian+donation+used+for+football+scoreboard https://www.google.com/search?q=librarian+donation+used+for+...
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y agoThe problem with that is, in part, that they ignored the spirit of the donation, but also that the proper amount for a university to spend on a scoreboard is twelve dollars and thirty-seven cents. OK, that's a bit unrealistic. I could build them one for a few hundred, though, and they could pay a student $50 to flip over the numbers during the game.
- lrem 6y agoSee, they evaded a recurring cost!
- remote_phone 6y ago> I could build them one for a few hundred No, you couldn’t. It has to keep working for years/decades, be maintainable, survive bad weather conditions, etc. even if you made the scoreboard out of wood and painted it, it would have to be large enough so that the stadium could see, the paint would fade and it would take weeks to make it, etc.
- dan-robertson 6y agoSo rebuild it every time as necessary. It will take a long time to eat into $1MM
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y agoYou're right, I couldn't. But I could buy one off the shelf for $25k! That's how much scoreboards cost if you want to show the score, not play full-color video. LED panels are cheap if you only need to show text. It's keeping up with the Joneses that's expensive.
- bradleyjg 6y agoThe proper amount to spend is zero. There’s no reason for universities to be running minor league football teams with unpaid labor. On the contrary that’s the exact opposite of “charitable”.
- wpietri 6y agoDefinitely. One of my modest proposals that will never happen is that colleges go back to teaching, and football and basketball become more like baseball, where they have minor leagues as a way of getting players. The jumbling together of college and professional-in-all-but-name athletics is absurd, and egregious exploitation of "student" athletes to boot.
- throwawaygh 6y agoI mean, a few hundred for a score board seems right. Even a few thousand for a piece of infrastructure that can be used 20+ years for several different sports is not so unreasonable. Even rural middle schools will sometimes spend that much on scoreboards. In University I participated in a club sport "funded" exclusively through the student government -- really more of a tax rebate than anything else since only 60% of what the climbing "team" paid in student fees we got back to buy ropes, biners, rent a van for outings. That sort of stuff. College sports do serve a real community-building purpose. Just... a few hundred or maybe low thousands total per sport instead of a few tens of millions for the main sport.
- rossdavidh 6y agoFundamentally, you're correct. However, when working for a university, I was well aware that private sector donations (and maybe even state funds) went up or down depending on how well the football team did. A losing record for the football team ought not to result in lower private sector donations towards scientific research or scholarships at that university, but apparently at most universities it does. Universities that ignore this fact do so at their peril.
- bradleyjg 6y agoI don’t expect universities to spontaneously do the right thing. I’m hoping the courts force them to at least stop exploiting the pro athletes that make them so much money.
- saurik 6y agoI mean, when funds are unrestricted, they "should" become fungible; so, when I give unrestricted donations I also make it clear that I don't want them to try to tell me "we used your money to do X"... that way, I can look at anything I want on campus that was improved and think "I did that :)". If the university is spending money on bullshit, then probably they just don't deserve donations at all :/.
- throwawaygh 6y agoUniversities are literally the sole specific institutional exception in the essay: > There are a couple exceptions to this principle. One is when the nonprofit is an umbrella organization. It's reasonable to make a restricted donation to a university, for example, because a university is only nominally a single nonprofit. The article doesn't say what to do when donating to a university or college. So, when donating to a university, do also donate in a relatively unrestricted way. But donate to: 1. a department (in small amounts), 2. a scholarship fund (in medium amounts), 3. an endowed professorship for a specific department/discipline (in large amounts), or 4. some important component of the physical plant (in "Gates/Allen" amounts). Not to the university as a whole. At least that's what I've witness as being effective. Oh, and if you donate to scholarships, make sure the university/college plays ball. If they won't at least match 4% of the principle, just set up the scholarship an independent thing and let the kid choose where they go. Why donate a student scholarship to a specific school whose value is literally just the sustainable withdrawal rate? What's the point of that? Certainly not to help a student. Your donation will turn into a chair on the deck to be rearranged. But lots of donors get suckered into doing this.