Donating stuff instead of cash can cause not only headaches, but actively make things worse. International aid bloggers have been pointing this out, again and again and again and again, to the point where they feel like broken records. It’s not just a problem in international giving. It is in giving at home, too: Relief [...]
Bloomberg News catalogues several recent gifts to colleges in the 7- to 9- figure range that have come with significant strings attached: John Allison gives up to $2 million to colleges that will change its curriculum to include a course on Ayn Rand’s Altas Shrugged. 60 colleges have accepted the gift and created the course. [...]
Tags:Bennett LeBow·John Allison·Madeline Pickens·Peter Munk·Robert Burton·Stephen Bing·T. Boone Pickens
Whatever it is that you’re doing, the power of inertia, of things staying the same, means you’ll do it tomorrow, too. Churn out blog posts, and more blog posts will arise. Put it off until tomorrow, and tomorrow you’ll put it off to the day after that. Keep it for yourself for now, and you’ll [...]
Tags:inertia
[This is the first of three posts on Terrible Gifts] My mechanic had bad news. “It will cost more than what your car’s worth to fix it,” he said. Then he amended his thought. ”It will cost more than what your car’s worth to just figure out what’s wrong with it.” So we got a [...]
Tags:Seriously still can't get over the fact that we own a minivan.
Alas, it is inevitable that as soon as a person begins talking about her giving, other charities are gonna catch wind of it. And alas, it is inevitable that they’re gonna get in line to ask. There’s a whole host of reasons to refuse. A charity may do work without any measurable impact (or worse, [...]
Tags:declining a solicitation·how to say no·More counter-intuitive stuff that I promise makes sense·No nada nuthin no-how zip zang zilch
After I made the gifts from the 40 days, I dutifully wrote to each charity something like this: Hello, I just made a gift to You, Important Charity and would like to request that any further communications from you come over email rather than through snail mail or phone. I respond best to emails, and [...]
Tags:Heifer International·Nurse Family Partnership·Philanthropedia·Seriously the CEO wrote me about my $10 donation and I nearly fell out of my chair·The chair should maybe have some sort of guards on the sides
Saturday was the second time I gave to Heifer International. It’s a fine organization, but that wasn’t what prompted my repeat gift. It was because I messed it up the first time. A week or so after the first gift to Heifer, I came home to a big fat package from them in the mail. [...]
Well, I promised you a post on cause marketing. Problem is, people far smarter than me have already taken a good crack at this guy. If you’re short on time, just go and read this. And if you’re procrastinating, go and read that and then carry on! The solution to the mystery that is cause [...]
Tags:Giving
