I'm afraid that wouldn't help in this case. The conflict of interest here is the possibility of any appearance of favoritism -- whether you happen to be on the

I'm afraid that wouldn't help in this case. The conflict of interest here is the possibility of any appearance of favoritism -- whether you happen to be on the giving or the receiving end of the equation doesn't make much difference. There are sections in that guidebook about donations to political parties. Gittip forwarding would be a similar, albeit grayer, area -- donating to (say) prominent folks from Microsoft Research would be iffy. More so if you then proceeded to work on any Microsoft-related stories in the future.