5 ms·
SF pays big bucks to nonprofits, fails to properly monitor them
- throwawayacc5 4y agoReminds me of the BLM Global Network Foundation that raised tens of millions of dollars which the founders used to buy real estate and pay their family and friends: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/business/blm-black-lives-matter-finances.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/business/blm-black-lives-...
- beerpls 4y agoI don’t donate to charities. It’s not that I don’t want children to not starve, it’s that I have a very high confidence that the vast majority of donations one way or another just end up in a sociopath’s bank account I’m never surprised when I hear good will turned into theft. I am surprised how many people are willing to give so much of their money to scams (granted, the SF money wasn’t an optional donation)
- smt88 4y agoProPublica has been by far my most satisfying donation. Their work has helped expose a ton of corruption and, as you say, sociopathy. They're transparent about where the money goes (mostly to the salaries of journalists).
- boeingUH60 4y agoEven theft and grift aside...many charities are just bad at achieving their goals. They think they're helping but end up causing more problems, e.g., food aid destroying the local farming industry. For instance, the Red Cross raised $500 million for Haiti relief and ended up achieving virtually nothing due to extensive mismanagement and arrogance (trying to apply Western methods in a third-world country) [1]. Similarly to you, I detest all non-profit organizations. Rather have a for-profit organization or the government solve issues...but these still have their own issues. 1- https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-re...
- pkaye 4y agoEven beyond that $13.5B was raised from various sources for a country of 11.45M people and not much came out of it. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/12/376138864/5-years-after-haiti-s-earthquake-why-aren-t-things-better https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/12/3761388...
- SirLJ 4y agoThis is the best charity working on how research in the arctic and around global warming is done much more efficiently and cleanly: https://www.oceanresearchproject.org/ https://www.oceanresearchproject.org/ Matt is a great guy and a modern explorer, you can hear his story here: https://explorerspodcast.com/matt-rutherford/ https://explorerspodcast.com/matt-rutherford/ This is the movie about his first solo nonstop circumnavigation of the Americas: https://reddotontheocean.com/ https://reddotontheocean.com/ Or you can listen to his podcast as well here: https://www.singlehandedpodcast.com/ https://www.singlehandedpodcast.com/
- SirLJ 4y agoTrailer for the movie https://youtu.be/5fszrvpoa9o https://youtu.be/5fszrvpoa9o The movie itself https://youtu.be/n12nnrEGWXQ https://youtu.be/n12nnrEGWXQ Enjoy!
- andirk 4y agoAmnesty International (tho I really don't like their fundraising tactics) and Doctors Without Borders don't send money to sociopath's accounts. They pay for housing for board certified medical doctors who decided to make $0 and heal people while being bombed on. I also like Animals Asia which saves bears from captivity and sends me cute videos of the bears swinging on the swing I donated to them! If you have low confidence in large orgs, donate directly to small orgs near you like a little league team in a rough part of town.
- setr 4y agoI don’t know their specific economics but typically the money-into-sociopaths funnel isn’t through the charity program itself, but through the administration. Eg 30% of funds goes to admins, 30% to marketing and fundraising, 20% to overhead, 20% to the actual stated program kind of thing
- IYasha 4y agoUnfortunately, same here. I too seen this a lot. I wish I could donate to EFF though. )
- vkou 4y agoThere's a very predictable cycle. 1. "Small government people" demanding that the government stop providing services, because the private sector is better at everything. 2. Government services get outsourced to vendors, NGOs, non-profits, etc. 3. These vendors need to justify that they are effective at their job, producing mountains of paperwork. 4. Government offices fill with beurocrats to review all that paperwork. 5. Some of those vendors turn out to be doing a bad job. 6. People complain about how the private sector is incapable of providing these services. <--- We are here. 7. Government pulls funding, starts providing these services itself. 8. Go to step 1. At least, that's what happens when everyone's operating in good faith. When people are criticizing in bad faith, step 7 is 'Pull all funding for services with no replacement' and step 8 is 'Complain about tent cities and people sleeping on benches.'
- willcipriano 4y agoI don't get the impression that small government people have a lot of say in SF, this looks like typical big government graft and mismanagement that turns people paying attention into small government types.
- TulliusCicero 4y agoThere are some types of services where it's straightforward to monitor private vendors: if you contract out trash pickup, and the vendor doesn't pick up people's trash, you will immediately get many loud, angry complaints from the populace. You hardly even need to proactively monitor them, really, it would just be instantly obvious if they did nothing. In contrast, if you give non-profits money to help the homeless population, the feedback loop is more...ambiguous. If they just blow the money instead of helping anyone, who's gonna complain? The people that should've been helped won't even be aware of some random contract, and are used to different government and private entities failing them anyhow. The lack of clear impact from non-action means it's easier for organizations to get away with doing nothing, or at least doing nothing useful. Now I'm sure there are some organizations doing great work, but how do you separate them from the grifters?
- ericmcer 4y ago
- indy 4y agoPatronage networks are a powerful force in the US so it's unsurprising that they're giving money to their political allies.
- nemo44x 4y agoRepublicans have lobbyists and Democrats have activists. Republicans want to outsource government to businesses and Democrats want to outsource government to non-profits. Republicans don't want excessive regulations slowing business down and Democrats don't want excessive oversight slowing services down. Republicans want to fund businesses through tax cuts for taxpayers and Democrats want to fund non-profits through tax write-offs for taxpayers.
- uoaei 4y agoThe Overton window of our times.
- trollingagain 4y ago[dead]
- fwungy 4y agoSF is Rube Goldberg device of juice boxes feeding juice boxes. Works great until the Feds can't print juice.
- jeron 4y agosince moving to SF, I have been seeing a lot of people wearing "Urban Alchemy" jackets. I looked into who they are and they're a nonprofit that hires formerly incarcerated people to stand on street corners and "keep the peace", including stopping people from shooting up, etc. Most of the time they're just standing there on their phones and I question the efficacy, especially considering the organization has received over $12M in two years just for working in Tenderloin[0]. [0]:https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/urban-alchemy-17188458.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/urban-alchemy-1718845...
- ttymck 4y agoWhat would you suggest that is more efficacious?
- wmf 4y agoI guess SF can't afford the Pinkertons.
- renlo 4y ago$12M affords numerous more-efficacious possibilities
- ttymck 4y agoSuch as?
- iancmceachern 4y agoCreating economic opportunities for people, people don't want handouts, people want opportunity
- ttymck 4y agoI agree! What sort of opportunities?
- tuxpenguine 4y agoSome people call this the homeless industrial complex
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- aeternum 4y agoSF monitors them, the problem is the board of supervisors is in on the take
- verteu 4y agoSurely it's more cost-efficient to treat the root cause of homelessness (likely 'high rent prices': See charts in https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housing-problem/ https://www.sightline.org/2022/03/16/homelessness-is-a-housi...).
- TulliusCicero 4y agoYes, but what about street parking and neighborhood character? Surely a few thousand homeless people is a small price to pay for easier parking! Not to mention, I've heard a rumor that tall buildings occasionally produce something called "shadows", which sounds quite unpleasant!
- ajl666 4y ago[dead]