A couple of months ago, we reported that Paul Buchheit, co-founder of FriendFeed and, before that, the engineer behind Google Mail, had inspired a discussion around the best use of $20k for the common good. Looks like that conversation has lead to something more concrete. Paul calls it collaborative charity.
Donating money to worthwhile causes seems like a good idea, but doing it right requires knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, time, and of course money. I have at most two of those things. The traditional solution is to rely on “experts”, but that has its own problems.
His solution? Solicit advice from the internet at large.
There are a couple of constraints. Paul is only looking to benefit 501©3 registered nonprofits. And it’s not clear about how much money he intends to donate (“it depends, but could be a lot”). But either way, the project has inspired conversation in a couple of places:
Paul hopes that these conversations will help him make funding decisions.
I’d like to see broad support (from real people, not spam accounts) along with some evidence that it’s a good idea, and perhaps endorsements from knowledgeable people.
One thing is clear, there’s no shortage of donation ideas. Looking forward to seeing how the crowd sifts through the choices—and how we evaluate the results.
Tags: nptech philanthropy tech for good wisdom of crowds
The Internet makes it possible to crowdsource philanthropy in many different ways. I founded a company called AlumniFidelity (www.alumnifidelity.com) that allows people to become Internet "bundlers" for their favorite causes or schools. We only recently launched, and I would love to hear feedback from people who are interested in this topic. Please contact me if you see the web site and want to talk or use it. Thanks,
Will Marlow
Founder and President - AlumniFidelity, Inc.
will [at] alumnifidelity [dot] com
www.twitter.com/WillMarlow
When you exclude ideas which already have a lot of support, you miss the new ideas, which continue to change our lives. There is no reason to believe that good new ideas will ever stop occuring, but there is plenty of evidence that stagnant monocultures are more vulnerable than a diverse ecosystem. As for excluding for-profits, you limit investment only to those who have made a Faustian bargain to refrain from various forms of lobbying, the ability to seize opportunities more readily, etc. Based on the new unemployment claims numbers out this week, I am trying to raise money for educational software as a for-profit corporation.
I am sure a for-profit can raise basic spoken literacy faster than a nonprofit.
-- jsalsman [at] talknicer [dot] com - http://talknicer.com
- James Salsman 2 Jul 09, 22:34
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