"
Using pejorative terms like "handouts" and "doling out", some parts of the media are mounting a campaign to suggest Britain should be embarrassed by our level of aid giving. But the idea that aid is generous is absurd. Some families, inspired by religious tradition, think it is appropriate to give 10% of what they have to charity, £10 in every £100 of earnings. In 2010, the UK gave not £10, not £1, but 56p ($0.91) in overseas aid for every £100 ($163) we earned as a country. On average, since 1990 we have given even less, 35p ($0.57)." [
Giving aid to poor countries is hardly a great act of generosity]
[more inside]
posted by vidur
on Jun 14, 2011 -
59 comments
Child's Play Returns: Last year, Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins got sick of gamers being portrayed as violence-drenched dweebs and asked their readers to pitch in for a toy drive for Seattle's childrens' hospital. They ended up raising over a quarter of a million dollars in toys and cash in the space of just a few weeks. This year, they've added four more childrens' hospitals to their list for their readers to support during the holiday season.
Mike and Jerry originally did this as a way to rebut the perception of gamers, but it also shows the power of personal credibility with regards to Web sites -- the people who contributed didn't just do it to redeem the image of gamers, they did it because Mike and Jerry asked them to. This political season we've seen how bloggers can add to the coffers of candidates by endorsing them to their readers, but I think this is an even stronger case of online personal credibility translating into action (a similar case, on a slightly smaller scale: Pamie Ribon of Pamie.com and her readers
contributing nearly 500 new books to San Diego County Libraries). Would that more of the "big" bloggers and popular sites did more of this sort of thing.
posted by jscalzi
on Oct 18, 2004 -
12 comments
Gift hub - Connecting Funders, Active Citizens, and Advisors. Phil Cubeta, who is known to many as the weblog world's
Happy Tutor (et al.), wants to stop just
talking about philanthropy and actually do something. Now this a Corporate Guy that I actually respect. He's recently decided to 'go from satire to sermon, from noting problems to working for solutions,' and
brought together some other
smart and influential people to talk about
philanthropy, activism, volunteerism, charity, social movements, civil society, and emerging democracy, and is one of the people organizing an
Open Space for Giving Conference in
Chicago.
Can a webby philanthropic bridge be built between the chaotic, emergent ferment in the wired world and the
world of corporate wealth? I don't know, but I wish him luck.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken
on Apr 13, 2004 -
2 comments
Celebrities take large payments from charities. The LA Times (reg reqd) is reporting that celebrities have received enormous payments for making appearances at celebrity benefits, including David Schwimmer, Cher, Gerald Ford, and others. To me, it's a shocking new low, but maybe I shouldn't be surprised.
posted by MikeB
on Dec 15, 2003 -
33 comments
A plucky anti-abortion crusader has convinced Berkshire-Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett to
end a philanthropic program that has donated $200 million over 2 decades. She is delighted. Does any of this (his decision, her delight) make sense? What are some other successful examples of small, grassroots movements exerting a major impact on philanthropy?
posted by stonerose
on Jul 22, 2003 -
28 comments
Make That Difference. A portal to many 'free clicks for charity' sites covering various causes, and easy and convenient to browse too.
posted by plep
on Mar 1, 2003 -
6 comments
Google Compute is a
distributed computing project involving users of the
google toolbar. It's a light application which uses idle processor cycles to analyse data for "
carefully selected charitable projects, with the guiding principle being to help humanity and advance scientific knowledge".
posted by walrus
on Nov 1, 2002 -
5 comments
Good evening, my name is Yang. Tim Yang. A group of nine authors, three of them Booker prize winners are accepting bids to name the characters in their next book after the winners. The authors include Margaret Atwood, Terry Prachett, Ken Follett and Raymond Benson (who is taking up the reigns of writing new James Bond novels). Prices go for as high as GBP6,200. I think it's a fantastic idea! I've always wanted to see my name in print. What role would you like to play if you won?
posted by timyang
on Oct 15, 2001 -
16 comments
Race For the Cure In the midst of our mass grief and generosity are we forgetting the daily victims of this disease that also robs children of a parent? Are normal charities being short changed?
posted by sierray
on Oct 3, 2001 -
4 comments
