10 ms·

Electronic Frontier Foundation Survives on $5M/year

243 points by mapt 13y ago

ericd 13y ago
Please consider signing up for recurring donations, rather than one-time, so they can better predict the amount of money they get, and also so you don't donate and then forget to for a couple of years.
gridmaths 13y ago
Thats pretty great bang-for-buck, they've got a lot of ongoing cases, and the website has been pretty superb over the last year. Nice vertical javascript timeline on Surveillance. Id be very interested to see a compiled / aggregated list of sentencing for hacker and whistle-blower related prosecutions... I think we'd see a sadly consistent picture, which would help get the word out to non-geeks.
- slacka 13y ago
  Post about this topic on Facebook and G+ help to educate our circle of friends. Even my nontechnical friends are upset to hear that Ge government has acces to their data.
wavefunction 13y ago
They are fighting for all of us. If you can afford to, please donate (I did last night).
slacka 13y ago
EFF has been warning us about our government abusing our trust long before this scandal broke. Imagine that EFF had the membership and money that the NRA has. You can be sure our privacy rights would be much stronger now. There is something you can do about it: https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate
- incongruity 13y ago
  This. There are roughly 8 million people employed in science and technology in the U.S. Imagine if we each donated just $5 a month. While that's completely unrealistic to expect, what if we could average $1 a month for each of those workers?
  - skrebbel 13y ago
    Most people working "in science and technology" do work that's very marginally related to what the EFF does. Why would a biotech scientist working at a pharmaceutical firm be above-average interested in sponsoring an organisation that's all about software patents and the likes? It's nearly completely unrelated. I know this is and HN, and HN is about Silicon Valley, where "technology" equals "software", but really, the world is bigger than that.
    - incongruity 13y ago
      Your own assumptions are problematic, IMHO. I drew my approximation from government data sources. Where have you gotten your idea that "most" are not interested in what the EFF does? Further, where, if at all, are you getting numbers to justify your quantitative approximation that most are not in technology? (Also, side note – the EFF deals with much more than software, despite your implications) Speaking as someone with a educational and professional background in research psychology, I can honestly say my experience would say you're wrong. As a generalization, I found scientists to care a about free speech, IP laws, fair use and DRM, laws having to do with governmental oversight/intrusion to research. The EFF may not be the first place they'd go, but it's not far off, ideologically.
onecommentonly 13y ago
It's a disgrace. Not to pick on any particular person, considering that Silicon Valley has dozens of billionaires and thousands of filthy rich people, but Sean Parker got lucky with Facebook and spent like $12.5m in a wedding (including a fine). It's their money and all, but can't these rich people also write a $1 million check to an org as important as EFF ?
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Can you write a $5 check to "an org as important as EFF", or are you just complaining that rich people don't donate?
  - onecommentonly 13y ago
    You are assuming I didn't write that $50 check.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      Did you?
      - onecommentonly 13y ago
        To answer precisely: I have given more than $50 each to both ACLU and EFF in the past 10 years.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    How much one donates is a distraction from the actual point. The point is that these people have made their fortunes using the internet, and probably in no small part the freedoms that exist(ed). Its is not that they are rich, is system on which they got rich. I think many people would feel that such people should donate as a sort of pay back, paying one's dues. The rich part of the point simple suggests that a decent donation would be small fry to such people, and cause them no pain. $5 to some people could be a significant hit to the pocket. Edit: Been in garden, letting the subconscious flow, and it suddenly occurred to me that donations from the likes of google and facebook would be a problem. Eventually EFF would be accused of being in google's pocket and all hell would break loose. Begs the question: how can the likes of google donate to the likes of the EFF with out there being the suspicion of a conflict of interest?
giulivo 13y ago
not sure how much familiar you are with EFF though, it is called electronic FRONTIER foundation (not FREEDOM foundation)
pavelludiq 13y ago
I've just set up for 10% of my royalties from https://leanpub.com/lispwebtales https://leanpub.com/lispwebtales to go to the EFF. It's a very modest contribution(I made ~150$ this month from the book, and expect slightly less next one) but I intend to increase the percentage if sales go up. Leanpub makes it very easy to set up such donations, if you are an author, consider doing so. You owe it to the free internet that you have such an opportunity in the first place. At least that is my reasoning.
lazyjones 13y ago
1) it's "Electronic Frontier Foundation" 2) It's a disgrace that they get so few donations. If that is our investment in our digital future, it's no wonder that it's all going downhill... If you are an entrepreneur or developer, you should seriously consider making healthy, recurring donations.
- mapt 13y ago
  I plead lack of morning caffeine. If a mod sees this, please fix.
hrabago 13y ago
Every time I read about digital privacy issues, and there's a lot of them, I'm always thankful that EFF exists and is there to fight these battles that I can't and don't have the means to. I'm actually surprised at why some people here in HN think negatively of EFF. I'm very happy to hand over money to EFF each year. My employer allows us to pick charitable organizations to donate to from our paycheck, and EFF gets the biggest slice of the amount I allocate.
argumentum 13y ago
Wow, such an impactful NGO deserves a lot more. Just joined as a "gold" member for a mere $100. For full disclosure, I will receive some schwag in return.
- chill1 13y ago
  You can uncheck the box next to the gift options, so that you don't waste their time/money on sending you a gift.
  - argumentum 13y ago
    I saw that option, but I figured wearing a t-shirt around would add greater value for them.
andrewcooke 13y ago
many years ago both me and my partner decided we should donate 1% of our earnings to some good cause (there seems to be a common 'meme' of giving one percent of earnings - googling turns up a lot of different ideas). it was a good idea, and we did it once, i think, before forgetting. then a few years passed, we remembered, and did it once again. and then a few more years passed and we felt bad and got our acts together... so now paulina regularly gives to some foundation here in chile that looks after old people, and i give to the EFF (it took me some time to decide, and i am not convinced it's the most deserving thing out there, but it does reflect me and my priorities, and in the end i decided that was what was important - other people might care more about children, or puppies, but what i want is to get the underlying freedoms straight). anyway, i'm not boasting. i just suspect other people have thought the same, and, like us, simply not got round to it for a long time. so i thought i'd try give such people a little nudge ;o) (also, they have cool pin badges and a really ugly t-shirt)
- xbryanx 13y ago
  Yes, it's a very old meme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe And I'd consider putting 10% of my income towards social good a much better goal. It's not one that I always hit, but I think almost all of us could stand to carve this portion of our income out of our budgets, especially when it can so greatly benefit the causes we really care for. EFF is certainly one of mine.
  - llamataboot 13y ago
    I agree. I give anything I make that is over the median income level in the US to charities or kickstarters, which is currently about 50% of my income. I just made 1% of that EFF. Maybe this is not desirable for most hackernews readers, but carving out a fixed percentage of your income is a good way to fund projects you care about.
bcl 13y ago
How about we double this? We have kickstarter campaigns that bring in more than this. I regularly contribute to the EFF and my employer matches that donation (yay Red Hat) so I'm going to double my normal donation this year.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
AYBABTME 13y ago
Recurrent, 10$/m setup here. I'm a student so I can't afford to give more. In Canada, I also give 10$/m to Open Media who fights for online rights and against the telecom monopoly. If you're Canadian, you should check them out: https://openmedia.ca/donate https://openmedia.ca/donate They did plenty of very effective things in the recent years, like pushing back the Usage-Based-Billing big-telco were trying to bring, which would have killed resellers that have better offerings.
homeomorphic 13y ago
I'd love to begin making small monthly payments to the EFF, but here's my hurdle: I don't like authorizing anybody (not even the EFF) to charge my VISA more than once. And I don't like having PayPal take a cut when the money's going to a charity. In my home country, I do regular donations to charities by setting up an automated transfer in my bank, hence "pushing" the money. I prefer having nothing "pulled", even by such privacy oriented a group as the EFF. Is there any solution to this problem internationally? A monthly e-mail linking to a payment page (using VISA, for example) would count as a crude but satisfactory solution!
- jrockway 13y ago
  I'm sure if you have your bank mail them a check every month, they'll cash it.
  - homeomorphic 13y ago
    Haha, sometimes the US-European disconnect is very cute. I mean no offense, but checks went out of use in my country like 20 years ago. (Anectodally, they can still be cashed, for a service fee of $30 or so). Oh, and mailing something to the US would alone be more than PayPal's cut.
    - jrockway 13y ago
      So your banking system has no way of giving money to an organization you want to support, and you're calling us "very cute"? That makes a lot of sense.
      - homeomorphic 13y ago
        Oh, no, of course I can. Charities/businesses publish account numbers and I push the money.
- antoviaque 13y ago
  You can donate through Flattr, too: https://flattr.com/profile/EFF https://flattr.com/profile/EFF
rayiner 13y ago
I'm amazed it makes due with so little. But the level of donations also goes to show you how little people care about its mission (which is unfortunate), slacktivists on HN and Reddit aside.
llamataboot 13y ago
Just got off my lazy butt and added a recurring donation equal to 1% of my monthly income. Will you do the same?
- mindcrime 13y ago
  I'm not crazy about recurring donations in general, but I did just donate a $100.00 one-time donation to the EFF. I'll chip in more here and there as circumstances dictate. I do feel guilty now about not giving before this. :-(
nodata 13y ago
The question nobody is asking: would more money help?
- cvg 13y ago
  Good question. It appears that they're only spending $3.8 million a year. It'd be great to see them up their program expenses to shrink that surplus.
sinak 13y ago
While I love, love, love the EFF, I'd also really like to point out that Public Knowledge are another, lesser known non-profit fighting for your rights and doing incredible work. Unfortunately the tech community is much less aware of their existence. Public Knowledge are the folks who work day to day in DC lobbying for tech policy. While EFF lead efforts around activism and the legal side, they decided years ago that they wouldn't be involved in the DC side of things. And while being uncompromising is a great ethical position to take, actually making things happen on the ground is crucial. I spent the last week taking meetings with staffers in DC around §1201 reform for my project, FixtheDMCA.org, and PK set up a dozen meetings with judiciary committee staffers with a weeks notice. They're well-respected in DC, and were critical behind the scenes in organizing the anti-SOPA/PIPA campaign. Take a minute, read about them, and donate now: http://www.publicknowledge.org http://www.publicknowledge.org
- notJim 13y ago
  You should write about your experience with this organization, and submit it separately. It might be a good way to get the word out. This is the first I've heard of them.
waqf 13y ago
The nice thing about donating to an org with a small budget (unlike, say, a presidential campaign or your alma mater) is that you feel your contribution makes a real difference to them. For example, for a large-but-imaginable donation of ~$2500 you can fund their entire operation for an hour — and that's assuming 2000 business hours in a year (the cost per hour is a lot less if you amortize over evenings and weekends :)).
yekko 13y ago
I would love to "survive" on 5 million a year.
mapt 13y ago
One of the more interesting points I heard David Brin make a while back was - forget the quantity of money for a moment, these organizations also absorb power through membership numbers. The NRA has 5 million voters with membership cards and it throws their political weight around at the drop of a hat. As a result, nobody fucks with the NRA, even seasoned politicians in stable left-wing postures compromise left and right so it won't smear them as anti-gun. When pressed, the NRA can even defeat things like universal background checks that are supported by 90% of the country. A 12-month 'Silicon' membership with the EFF costs $25; Maybe they can't sustain & expand legal operations on this, but they can certainly incrementally add to the political power of their lobbying and amicus briefs just by having the member.
u2328 13y ago
I try to give to software non-profits every paycheck. Even if it's only $5 or $10, it's better to give than to think, "Oh, they are great and I want to give them a big donation but I don't have the money right now, so I'll wait until I have $50 to donate" and never get to it.

243 points by mapt 13y ago

ericd 13y ago

Please consider signing up for recurring donations, rather than one-time, so they can better predict the amount of money they get, and also so you don't donate and then forget to for a couple of years.

gridmaths 13y ago

Thats pretty great bang-for-buck, they've got a lot of ongoing cases, and the website has been pretty superb over the last year. Nice vertical javascript timeline on Surveillance. Id be very interested to see a compiled / aggregated list of sentencing for hacker and whistle-blower related prosecutions... I think we'd see a sadly consistent picture, which would help get the word out to non-geeks.

slacka 13y ago
Post about this topic on Facebook and G+ help to educate our circle of friends. Even my nontechnical friends are upset to hear that Ge government has acces to their data.

wavefunction 13y ago

They are fighting for all of us. If you can afford to, please donate (I did last night).

slacka 13y ago

EFF has been warning us about our government abusing our trust long before this scandal broke. Imagine that EFF had the membership and money that the NRA has. You can be sure our privacy rights would be much stronger now. There is something you can do about it: https://supporters.eff.org/donate https://supporters.eff.org/donate

incongruity 13y ago
This. There are roughly 8 million people employed in science and technology in the U.S. Imagine if we each donated just $5 a month. While that's completely unrealistic to expect, what if we could average $1 a month for each of those workers?
- skrebbel 13y ago
  Most people working "in science and technology" do work that's very marginally related to what the EFF does. Why would a biotech scientist working at a pharmaceutical firm be above-average interested in sponsoring an organisation that's all about software patents and the likes? It's nearly completely unrelated. I know this is and HN, and HN is about Silicon Valley, where "technology" equals "software", but really, the world is bigger than that.
  - incongruity 13y ago
    Your own assumptions are problematic, IMHO. I drew my approximation from government data sources. Where have you gotten your idea that "most" are not interested in what the EFF does? Further, where, if at all, are you getting numbers to justify your quantitative approximation that most are not in technology? (Also, side note – the EFF deals with much more than software, despite your implications) Speaking as someone with a educational and professional background in research psychology, I can honestly say my experience would say you're wrong. As a generalization, I found scientists to care a about free speech, IP laws, fair use and DRM, laws having to do with governmental oversight/intrusion to research. The EFF may not be the first place they'd go, but it's not far off, ideologically.

onecommentonly 13y ago

It's a disgrace. Not to pick on any particular person, considering that Silicon Valley has dozens of billionaires and thousands of filthy rich people, but Sean Parker got lucky with Facebook and spent like $12.5m in a wedding (including a fine). It's their money and all, but can't these rich people also write a $1 million check to an org as important as EFF ?

StavrosK 13y ago
Can you write a $5 check to "an org as important as EFF", or are you just complaining that rich people don't donate?
- onecommentonly 13y ago
  You are assuming I didn't write that $50 check.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Did you?
    - onecommentonly 13y ago
      To answer precisely: I have given more than $50 each to both ACLU and EFF in the past 10 years.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  How much one donates is a distraction from the actual point. The point is that these people have made their fortunes using the internet, and probably in no small part the freedoms that exist(ed). Its is not that they are rich, is system on which they got rich. I think many people would feel that such people should donate as a sort of pay back, paying one's dues. The rich part of the point simple suggests that a decent donation would be small fry to such people, and cause them no pain. $5 to some people could be a significant hit to the pocket. Edit: Been in garden, letting the subconscious flow, and it suddenly occurred to me that donations from the likes of google and facebook would be a problem. Eventually EFF would be accused of being in google's pocket and all hell would break loose. Begs the question: how can the likes of google donate to the likes of the EFF with out there being the suspicion of a conflict of interest?

giulivo 13y ago

not sure how much familiar you are with EFF though, it is called electronic FRONTIER foundation (not FREEDOM foundation)

pavelludiq 13y ago

I've just set up for 10% of my royalties from https://leanpub.com/lispwebtales https://leanpub.com/lispwebtales to go to the EFF. It's a very modest contribution(I made ~150$ this month from the book, and expect slightly less next one) but I intend to increase the percentage if sales go up. Leanpub makes it very easy to set up such donations, if you are an author, consider doing so. You owe it to the free internet that you have such an opportunity in the first place. At least that is my reasoning.

lazyjones 13y ago

1) it's "Electronic Frontier Foundation" 2) It's a disgrace that they get so few donations. If that is our investment in our digital future, it's no wonder that it's all going downhill... If you are an entrepreneur or developer, you should seriously consider making healthy, recurring donations.

mapt 13y ago
I plead lack of morning caffeine. If a mod sees this, please fix.

hrabago 13y ago

Every time I read about digital privacy issues, and there's a lot of them, I'm always thankful that EFF exists and is there to fight these battles that I can't and don't have the means to. I'm actually surprised at why some people here in HN think negatively of EFF. I'm very happy to hand over money to EFF each year. My employer allows us to pick charitable organizations to donate to from our paycheck, and EFF gets the biggest slice of the amount I allocate.

argumentum 13y ago

Wow, such an impactful NGO deserves a lot more. Just joined as a "gold" member for a mere $100. For full disclosure, I will receive some schwag in return.

chill1 13y ago
You can uncheck the box next to the gift options, so that you don't waste their time/money on sending you a gift.
- argumentum 13y ago
  I saw that option, but I figured wearing a t-shirt around would add greater value for them.

andrewcooke 13y ago

many years ago both me and my partner decided we should donate 1% of our earnings to some good cause (there seems to be a common 'meme' of giving one percent of earnings - googling turns up a lot of different ideas). it was a good idea, and we did it once, i think, before forgetting. then a few years passed, we remembered, and did it once again. and then a few more years passed and we felt bad and got our acts together... so now paulina regularly gives to some foundation here in chile that looks after old people, and i give to the EFF (it took me some time to decide, and i am not convinced it's the most deserving thing out there, but it does reflect me and my priorities, and in the end i decided that was what was important - other people might care more about children, or puppies, but what i want is to get the underlying freedoms straight). anyway, i'm not boasting. i just suspect other people have thought the same, and, like us, simply not got round to it for a long time. so i thought i'd try give such people a little nudge ;o) (also, they have cool pin badges and a really ugly t-shirt)

xbryanx 13y ago
Yes, it's a very old meme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe And I'd consider putting 10% of my income towards social good a much better goal. It's not one that I always hit, but I think almost all of us could stand to carve this portion of our income out of our budgets, especially when it can so greatly benefit the causes we really care for. EFF is certainly one of mine.
- llamataboot 13y ago
  I agree. I give anything I make that is over the median income level in the US to charities or kickstarters, which is currently about 50% of my income. I just made 1% of that EFF. Maybe this is not desirable for most hackernews readers, but carving out a fixed percentage of your income is a good way to fund projects you care about.

bcl 13y ago

How about we double this? We have kickstarter campaigns that bring in more than this. I regularly contribute to the EFF and my employer matches that donation (yay Red Hat) so I'm going to double my normal donation this year.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

AYBABTME 13y ago

Recurrent, 10$/m setup here. I'm a student so I can't afford to give more. In Canada, I also give 10$/m to Open Media who fights for online rights and against the telecom monopoly. If you're Canadian, you should check them out: https://openmedia.ca/donate https://openmedia.ca/donate They did plenty of very effective things in the recent years, like pushing back the Usage-Based-Billing big-telco were trying to bring, which would have killed resellers that have better offerings.

homeomorphic 13y ago

I'd love to begin making small monthly payments to the EFF, but here's my hurdle: I don't like authorizing anybody (not even the EFF) to charge my VISA more than once. And I don't like having PayPal take a cut when the money's going to a charity. In my home country, I do regular donations to charities by setting up an automated transfer in my bank, hence "pushing" the money. I prefer having nothing "pulled", even by such privacy oriented a group as the EFF. Is there any solution to this problem internationally? A monthly e-mail linking to a payment page (using VISA, for example) would count as a crude but satisfactory solution!

jrockway 13y ago
I'm sure if you have your bank mail them a check every month, they'll cash it.
- homeomorphic 13y ago
  Haha, sometimes the US-European disconnect is very cute. I mean no offense, but checks went out of use in my country like 20 years ago. (Anectodally, they can still be cashed, for a service fee of $30 or so). Oh, and mailing something to the US would alone be more than PayPal's cut.
  - jrockway 13y ago
    So your banking system has no way of giving money to an organization you want to support, and you're calling us "very cute"? That makes a lot of sense.
    - homeomorphic 13y ago
      Oh, no, of course I can. Charities/businesses publish account numbers and I push the money.
antoviaque 13y ago
You can donate through Flattr, too: https://flattr.com/profile/EFF https://flattr.com/profile/EFF

rayiner 13y ago

I'm amazed it makes due with so little. But the level of donations also goes to show you how little people care about its mission (which is unfortunate), slacktivists on HN and Reddit aside.

llamataboot 13y ago

Just got off my lazy butt and added a recurring donation equal to 1% of my monthly income. Will you do the same?

mindcrime 13y ago
I'm not crazy about recurring donations in general, but I did just donate a $100.00 one-time donation to the EFF. I'll chip in more here and there as circumstances dictate. I do feel guilty now about not giving before this. :-(

nodata 13y ago

The question nobody is asking: would more money help?

cvg 13y ago
Good question. It appears that they're only spending $3.8 million a year. It'd be great to see them up their program expenses to shrink that surplus.

sinak 13y ago

While I love, love, love the EFF, I'd also really like to point out that Public Knowledge are another, lesser known non-profit fighting for your rights and doing incredible work. Unfortunately the tech community is much less aware of their existence. Public Knowledge are the folks who work day to day in DC lobbying for tech policy. While EFF lead efforts around activism and the legal side, they decided years ago that they wouldn't be involved in the DC side of things. And while being uncompromising is a great ethical position to take, actually making things happen on the ground is crucial. I spent the last week taking meetings with staffers in DC around §1201 reform for my project, FixtheDMCA.org, and PK set up a dozen meetings with judiciary committee staffers with a weeks notice. They're well-respected in DC, and were critical behind the scenes in organizing the anti-SOPA/PIPA campaign. Take a minute, read about them, and donate now: http://www.publicknowledge.org http://www.publicknowledge.org

notJim 13y ago
You should write about your experience with this organization, and submit it separately. It might be a good way to get the word out. This is the first I've heard of them.

waqf 13y ago

The nice thing about donating to an org with a small budget (unlike, say, a presidential campaign or your alma mater) is that you feel your contribution makes a real difference to them. For example, for a large-but-imaginable donation of ~$2500 you can fund their entire operation for an hour — and that's assuming 2000 business hours in a year (the cost per hour is a lot less if you amortize over evenings and weekends :)).

yekko 13y ago

I would love to "survive" on 5 million a year.

mapt 13y ago

One of the more interesting points I heard David Brin make a while back was - forget the quantity of money for a moment, these organizations also absorb power through membership numbers. The NRA has 5 million voters with membership cards and it throws their political weight around at the drop of a hat. As a result, nobody fucks with the NRA, even seasoned politicians in stable left-wing postures compromise left and right so it won't smear them as anti-gun. When pressed, the NRA can even defeat things like universal background checks that are supported by 90% of the country. A 12-month 'Silicon' membership with the EFF costs $25; Maybe they can't sustain & expand legal operations on this, but they can certainly incrementally add to the political power of their lobbying and amicus briefs just by having the member.

u2328 13y ago

I try to give to software non-profits every paycheck. Even if it's only $5 or $10, it's better to give than to think, "Oh, they are great and I want to give them a big donation but I don't have the money right now, so I'll wait until I have $50 to donate" and never get to it.