Making the world a little less depressing
Jan. 2nd, 2011 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pktechgirlbackupFiguring out how charities in general do at supporting or breaking the sick system of poverty is not going to happen because there are four hundred billion charities in the world and I restart work tomorrow. Which I'm actually looking forward to. Hurray for good jobs. Anyways, I can't check what every charity does, but I figured I could at least check the two I donate to:
Treehouse for Kids: A Seattle local charity that servers foster children. I love this place so much. Some of it is money thrown at problems, like paying for clothes or extracurriculars for the kids. Throwing money has a bad reputation, but in this case I think it's the perfect response. Some of the things these kids lack can be purchased with money, so they do that. My usual concerns about in-kind donations versus cash are irrelevant because these are children. Treehouse also does the obvious non-monetary stuff, like tutoring. But I think their true brilliance is in doing things like arranging transportation so foster kids can finish a school year in the same place they started, and generally advocating for kids at schools. That is so incalculably valuable I can't stand it. I checked in to the services section of their website and the form they require is simple enough I could fill it out, they take applications by e-mail (and only e-mail, but the form is designed to be filled out by professionals, so I guess that's okay), and answer questions by e-mail. I have no way of determining their response time: when I e-mailed them offering to buy them software from work, it took them weeks to get back to me, but that's not necessarily indicative of their response time to actual problems: there's no established procedure for those kinds of donations and apparently they had to talk to several people.
Modest Needs: so many people get trapped in poverty because one shitty thing happens (car break down, employer goes bankrupt and skips out on payroll, primary breadwinner falls and breaks a wrist) and it spirals. Modest Needs is designed to prevent that from happening by providing targeted intervention for the solutions to these one shitty events- money for car repairs, moving to new jobs, emergency medical services, etc- to people who are normally able to meet all of their expenses. It does this by certifying requests for help as falling within certain guidelines, and then posting them on their website for donors to support individually. It's not a solution to all of poverty, but it is a great solution to one very specific part. From the FAQs on their website, it appears they can determine eligibility very quickly, which is great. They also get points for being completely up front about the fact that their funding model means there is no guarantee how quickly you will receive money, if you ever do. I was already suspicious of the direct donor funding because it encourages a queen for the day letter writing contest that seems to degrade everyone involved. On the other hand, I really liked being able to choose exactly who I donated to, and I bet a lot of other people do too. They imply a week is a reasonable time frame for getting your request fulfilled; the website has lots of requests over a month old, but without knowing the number of fulfilled requests that's useless to me. So let's call it "a problematic time frame arising inexorably from a funding model that has some merit to it". Modest Needs actually needed to be reminded that I had offered to buy them software, which is probably not a good sign.
If you have any specific information on receiving charity, or a charity you'd like to plug, feel free. I'm especially interested in small charities that might enjoy gifts of software, because my employee discount is astoundingly large and even given the problems inherit in non-cash donations, it turns out everyone benefits if I buy software.
Treehouse for Kids: A Seattle local charity that servers foster children. I love this place so much. Some of it is money thrown at problems, like paying for clothes or extracurriculars for the kids. Throwing money has a bad reputation, but in this case I think it's the perfect response. Some of the things these kids lack can be purchased with money, so they do that. My usual concerns about in-kind donations versus cash are irrelevant because these are children. Treehouse also does the obvious non-monetary stuff, like tutoring. But I think their true brilliance is in doing things like arranging transportation so foster kids can finish a school year in the same place they started, and generally advocating for kids at schools. That is so incalculably valuable I can't stand it. I checked in to the services section of their website and the form they require is simple enough I could fill it out, they take applications by e-mail (and only e-mail, but the form is designed to be filled out by professionals, so I guess that's okay), and answer questions by e-mail. I have no way of determining their response time: when I e-mailed them offering to buy them software from work, it took them weeks to get back to me, but that's not necessarily indicative of their response time to actual problems: there's no established procedure for those kinds of donations and apparently they had to talk to several people.
Modest Needs: so many people get trapped in poverty because one shitty thing happens (car break down, employer goes bankrupt and skips out on payroll, primary breadwinner falls and breaks a wrist) and it spirals. Modest Needs is designed to prevent that from happening by providing targeted intervention for the solutions to these one shitty events- money for car repairs, moving to new jobs, emergency medical services, etc- to people who are normally able to meet all of their expenses. It does this by certifying requests for help as falling within certain guidelines, and then posting them on their website for donors to support individually. It's not a solution to all of poverty, but it is a great solution to one very specific part. From the FAQs on their website, it appears they can determine eligibility very quickly, which is great. They also get points for being completely up front about the fact that their funding model means there is no guarantee how quickly you will receive money, if you ever do. I was already suspicious of the direct donor funding because it encourages a queen for the day letter writing contest that seems to degrade everyone involved. On the other hand, I really liked being able to choose exactly who I donated to, and I bet a lot of other people do too. They imply a week is a reasonable time frame for getting your request fulfilled; the website has lots of requests over a month old, but without knowing the number of fulfilled requests that's useless to me. So let's call it "a problematic time frame arising inexorably from a funding model that has some merit to it". Modest Needs actually needed to be reminded that I had offered to buy them software, which is probably not a good sign.
If you have any specific information on receiving charity, or a charity you'd like to plug, feel free. I'm especially interested in small charities that might enjoy gifts of software, because my employee discount is astoundingly large and even given the problems inherit in non-cash donations, it turns out everyone benefits if I buy software.
