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Ask HN: Website to give to charity anonymously, useful to you?
I keep getting this junk in my mail (and email inbox) from charities I have given to in the past. In fact, some of them sold my mailing address to some other charities in which I have absolutely no interest. They waste my time, and they waste their money.
I'm considering making a website where you can give to a charity anonymously (or pseudo-anonymously where they have your name but not your real contact information, like a mailinator email address). My questions to you:
1. Have you given to charity?
2. Have you received an inordinate amount of mail from them?
3. Would you like to limit that mail?
4. Would you, specifically, use this website if I made it?
Of course, the website would offer secure payments, not spam you, have a clearinghouse of all charities, make it a one-click process to send more money to a charity, recommend new charities to you, keep records of all donations for tax purposes, recommend an optimal tax strategy, allow filters to limit or end communication from charities, etc etc etc.
I understand that there are scaling issues, potential tax problems, problems with donating to political campaigns, issues with getting charities on board, issues with charities wanting to communicate to new or existing donors, that charities already offer opt-out in many cases, etc etc etc.
I just want to find out if there are enough people out there who are annoyed enough to justify my building this for them and myself. Are you interested?
Also, if there is already a website that does this, please let me know! I just want to give without being annoyed, and maybe be reminded once a year to give to my favorites.
- johnnybgoode 17y agoIt sounds like it would be appealing to someone, but to be honest I don't think I'd use it. Personally, I'd rather take the time to find charities myself that promote causes I believe in and wouldn't spam me unnecessarily. But maybe charities like that are incredibly rare and I'd just end up using your site instead.
- SwellJoe 17y agoI just went through the hassle of contacting the Red Cross to ask them to stop sending me stuff. So, yes, I've had this problem. I tend to hold a grudge, though, and if they don't give me really easy ways to avoid getting mail (or if they sell my information), they won't be getting anything from me again. But, I also don't know that I would go through a third party. There are the trust issues...the organization is never going to endorse or condone what you're doing, because it's damaging to their bottom line (the mailing list is a charities biggest asset). So, you'd be on your own to make it legit. Marketing that kind of service would be horribly difficult. Even from a "hey, we're a bunch of folks who kinda know each other from the Internet" perspective, I have my doubts you'd be able to overcome the arguments against it. I've come to hold the opinion that if I can't trust the charity with my information, I can't trust them with my money, and I'll find an alternative. I'll also let them know that when I contact them. So far, though, when I've asked to be removed from mailing lists or phone lists, they've done it without delay (the Red Cross, Ron Paul; and the EFF has never bugged me with unsolicited mail or calls and I've been giving them money since probably their first year of operation). Not coincidentally, the EFF gets money from me on a regular basis, while most others do not.
- rdouble 17y agoI'm considering making a website where you can give to a charity anonymously This isn't a fun or easy problem to solve. Especially the clearinghouse of all charities bit. There are 1.8 million nonprofits in the USA. Luckily for you I helped build this back in 1999. http://www.guidestar.org http://www.guidestar.org There are others but as far as I know Guidestar has the most comprehensive database. In fact, other sites purporting to do the same thing are probably syndicating Guidestar's data.
- tom999 17y agoNetwork for Good, which, I believe, uses Guidestar's data on the back-end, permits anonymous gifts.
- GuideStarComDir 17y agotom999 is correct: Network for Good (http://www.networkforgood.org http://www.networkforgood.org) does permit anonymous gifts. So do JustGive (http://www.justgive.org http://www.justgive.org) and GuideStar (http://www.guidestar.org http://www.guidestar.org). (In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I'm GuideStar's director of communications, and Network for Good processes donations given through our site. GuideStar also powers JustGive'scharity search. I'm also a customer, though; I give through the Capital One Giving Site, which is powered by Network for Good.) Just be sure to select the "Don't give my information to the charity" option before you click the button that authorizes the donation. You get a receipt that you can use for your taxes.