Donating Time To Goodwill Projects? 179
jukal asks: "I am in the process of writing a proposal for co-operation between Openchallenge and UNITeS (United Nations Information Technology Service) which is 'creating a global volunteer programme aimed at bridging the digital divide between industrialized and developing countries'. Currently & traditionally contributing as a volunteer means relocating yourself to the developing country to take part as a project developer/manager/specialist. My proposal to UNITeS is, in short, will be that people could participate in such software projects via Openchallenge - while staying in their home country, on their spare-time and while keeping their jobs. The local team in the developing country would, after defining and creating requirements specifications post sub-projects as tasks to Openchallenge. All the contributions submitted to Openchallenge are published under an open source license. My question is: would you for example consider donating some hours to help a goodwill project - if you could do that from home. This is of interest to me, as I would like to be sure that the time we put into building co-operating with a big organization like UNITeS and others in the future. Is not wasted. There is this thread about 'Volunteer Work Abroad' - which is good reading related to the subject. But it did not quite provide me with the answer."
Misdirected (Score:1, Insightful)
It's arguably a noble notion, donating your time to those who have less. But how many of these have-not people and groups are in countries with backward or malevolent political and economic systems? Why should we all join a project to help [INSERT DICTATORIAL REGIME HERE]?
I'd much rather give 5 USD to a local charity or even a street person, than to donate time to helping [INSERT PUBLIC "SERVICE" GROUP HERE] in another country. Where's the benefit in that, compared to helping out with local problems?
Or is this another one of those Soviet-era things - "at least everyone is equally shabby" ?
Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously: I'd be interested! Just like the Peace Corps without the tropical fevers!
Re:Perhaps I'm crazy... (Score:4, Insightful)
What would be more useful/worthwhile would be "lay the roads" or "build the bridges" drives that make it possible for all other kind of aid to reach those who need it.
Re:Tax write offs for time donation...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pardon me but why must there be a value placed on the time that one donates? Call me conservative or what ever but I think the whole beauty of Donating time to help 3rd world countries is just the humanity of doing it. I mean that is why they are 3rd/underdeveloped right, because they can't do it them selves?
How does it sound "I would love to help your country to be on par with the worlds supper power, but I can't write it off on my taxes, so stay poor."
Besides donating to a church should not be looked at as a tax write off. Isn't the whole Open Source about giving to the better of the community? So now we have people indirectly asking money before the produce any code?
Re:Comments (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Misdirected (Score:2, Insightful)
How about, "Because the need there isn't generally as great"?
Anyway, even if this software is bespoke, it's going to be available under the GPL, so anybody who has a use for it (and can get the source) can benefit from it.
Closer to Home (Score:5, Insightful)
I donated time to volunteer work at a then local high school - I have since moved - teaching students in project oriented programming competition formerly called the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge [nm.org] (now called the Adventures in Supercomputing Challenge when they rolled it and the Sandia NL sponsored rival program together).
Students were brogutht ogether in small teams and taught programming, often from the ground up, math, and science towards a project. Often a lot of backfilling took place to get the students up to the point where they could understand the math and science behind the project as well as actually grasp what it would take to write code for the supercomputers. It was very challenging and a lot of fun.
It has always perplexed me when we have people so constantly complaining about the school system that those that have the time and energy to volunteer do not simply go down to their local school system and volunteer. Make an appointment with the principal and see where you can help. I betcha he or she will be very ecstatic if you can bring ideas and time to the table so long as it does not tax the school resource wise (budgets being tight things...)
The rewards of seeing a student's face light up when they get it are well worth the time...
Re:Comments (Score:2, Insightful)
One more consideration (Score:2, Insightful)
make the people you're helping partners (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond just giving them the source, you've got to make sure that you make every effort to make the recipients of your aid part of the team in the cathedral [tuxedo.org] or at least feeling like they're part of the bazaar.
There's nothing worse than sending in aid that makes the person wind up with this big shiny thing that they don't have the resources to maintain or expand on.
So yeah. Clean water first. Food second. No war third. Good medicine, industrial infrastructure, a reliable democratic and open government... and then technology that the developing country can really feel that they own, rather than that they adopted because they found it or someone gave it to them.
Kinda Missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that while potentially useful, your idea of passing out sub-projects from software companies or IT teams in developing nations to a group of open source coders in the Western world doesn't really advance the goal of the UN initiative. As another poster mentioned, there are more serious problems to overcome in many developing nations that make "bridging the digital divide" realtively meaningless. I believe someone else pointed out that what these nations really need isn't code, but IT infrastructure.
Those are valid points, but I think the fundamental idea of the UN program is to provide technology experts who can not only assist in local projects, but also transfer their expertise through the course of working on those projects. A group of US/UK/GER/FRA/etc coders whipping out brilliant and useful code for sub-projects is certainly helpful, but it doesn't go very far in creating a communal working environment wherein the presumably more experienced techs volunteering can pass their knowledge and experience on to the local techs. Sure, the locals can read your brilliant source code, but they don't get to participate in the development of that code necessarily, and having their questions answered via email is nowhere near as positive a learning environment as working on the code with a real person next to them who can answer their questions and point out interesting tidbits on the fly.
The real digital divide is knowledge based, and the best way to close that gap is to teach someone how to do it themselves, not tell them to send the hard parts to someone else to do for them.
Of course that's just my opinion, and I'm probably wrong
The Key is Empowerment (Score:4, Insightful)
*EXACTLY*. Any venture that claims to be of benefit to the "needy" should make sure that it provides the tools and education to empower the community in which they are working; otherwise, you end up with a community that is now *more reliant* on outside sources to work with the technology/software/whatever that you have provided.
I would liken giving a Zambian village a network of PCs without training them how to use and maintain them to teaching schoolchilren how to read a book, but without teaching them anything about semantics, grammar, etc... in other words, worthless.
Re: Teaching People How To Fish. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you give people a fish, they eat for a day. If you teach people to fish, they eat for a lifetime.
If you teach a community how to use/manipulate technology, they become better equipped to get employment. So you've given them #2: Self Sufficiency. By getting jobs using the technology you've taught them, they can take care of #1: Basic Needs. Once they have work, they can worry less about #1 and start concentrating on things like educating their children and participating in the political process (#3). And one day, when they're good little consumers like the rest of us, they'll be able to waste their time keeping up with the Joneses (#4)
Re:Tax write offs for time donation...? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm also not an attorney, but... if that's the case maybe you could donate your time on behalf of the company you work for, and they could take the tax break since they're paying for your time/services. ....?
Donated Services (Score:2, Insightful)
(S)pecialized skills are required and possessed by the donor.
(O)therwise needed by the orgnization
(M)easurable
(E)asily
You can remember this by the mnemonic "Some." (Directly out of the Becker Conviser CPA exam review).
Assuming the orgization you donate to is "qualified," you must also observe the "charitable contributions limitation" under the tax code:
Overall limit = 50% Adjusted Gross Income (AGI)
1) Cash - may be all 50%
2) Property - is limited to the lessor of:
a) 30% of AGI
b) The remaining amount to reach 50% after cash contributions
Notice this says nothing of "donated service." I guess you could treat the FMV of the service as "Property." However, I think you would have to go through old tax court cases to see how you should really go about deducting donated services.
Disclaimer: I am in no way an accountant . . . yet.
Bad Idea (Score:1, Insightful)
No thanks. Feed/clothe/house them first. We don't need to create more competition. Do you want it to degrade to the point where there are 12-yr olds working in coding sweatshops, too?
I know you work hard (Score:4, Insightful)
You are the master of your own destiny for now, only because there are many people in your country who would die to preserve the free and open system which supports your market.
Take that away and life becomes a lottery. It won't matter if you are an elite business person or a crack guerilla sniper- in times of civil disorder people suffer, and suffer, and suffer no matter how hard they try. And I don't mean having to do something mildly degrading like sit around with objectionable people who are richer than you. I mean being so hungry that people can count your ribs and knowing that your high IQ can't turn stone into bread unless those people in the hills stop shooting long enough to plant a lousy vegetable patch. Even the people who are ostensibly in control of the whole war find themselves locked into the conflict and unable to see a way out that doesn't get them killed.
In afghanistan, there used to be kabul university [afghan-info.com](est 1932 by some french and turkish guys) complete with schools of medicine, pharmacy, economics etc... Then the taliban sent the country back to the stone age, with the exception of a pile of the imported tanks. What happened to all the educated, hard working people? they had crap lives and then died. Some of them wound up in other countries, where their hard work and life savings bought them a cell in a processing camp.
Anyway, bottom line: if you really feel bad about donating your time to help people like yourself except that they suddenly woke up one day to find out that terrorists had killed their government, just consider openchallenge as a competition instead. It says so on the website linked in the main article. Here's a list of winners [openchallenge.org] and the cool stuff they won demonstrating how elite they were.
Wouldn't you like to have another feather in your cap? Another free GPS module to show off to your friends?
And if one day you were to find out that your country had dissolved into war or your economy had imploded into a gooey mess of corruption, wouldn't you be comforted by the hope that somewhere out there there might be smart, talented people who care about other human beings in real dire straits and for whatever reason use their powers and skills to help.
Could be a good idea... (Score:2, Insightful)
I, for one, would be interested in helping out through some volunteer work, as long as I agreed with the bigger picture.
People have made some good points about putting the needs of a local community ahead of those of the international community, but I've always been of the opinion that no matter who you help, it benefits everyone in the long run.
What I wouldn't like to do is devote several hours/days/months of my time to a largely useless cause ('We're going to give all the kids in Namibia a web page!'). What sorts of things could one volunteer their time for that we could actually beleive would help those we're volunteering for? Are we talking about automating agriculture or streamlining AIDS testing in african countries? (I'm not sure if either of those makes much sense in this context, but you get the point)
How about some good, concrete examples? I've often thought about how much I'd like to be able to help out various orginizations by loaning myself to them to write a bit of code or somesuch. Of course there's always handing out soup to the homeless, but I tend to think your average geek has enough know-how and intelligence to do a little more good than just preforming manual labor. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but if some impoverished 3rd world country could actually _benefit_ from me helping out, then hey, I'm all for it.
Re:Perhaps I'm crazy... (Score:1, Insightful)
Have you ever _been_ in a third world country?
Instructions on how to build a road are not a problem, tools and materials are the problem.
Information on generators? What? You want them to build them themselves (use all the bamboo and junk car parts that you need...) Anyone with enough money to buy a generator will probably get the owners manual along with it.
Third workd mechanics don't need _any_ help from stupid firstworlders on how to _keep_ stuff running. (We'd just tell them to buy$$ replacement parts anyway) They are extremely adept at maintaining equipment way, way, way--- beyond what we would consider the equipment's useful life.
Advanced farming techniques? Like, using huge machines and expensive seeds and chemicals?
Open source software? Yes! Everyone in this village would be better off with their own copy of gcc! (NOT)
learning utilities etc. Now my experience may be atypical, but the schools I was at (in West Africa) had all the information that they needed. (a piece of glassware for the chemistry classes however, that would have gone a long way)
Disease info? The information is already out there, the barriers are curtural not informational. (just like in the first world)
Modern sanitation techniques? (how stupid do you think third worlder are?) The flush toilet and covered sewer are not rocket science. Information about these topics is not the problem. Materials and priorities are the problem.
Circuit diagrams? They get all their electronics pre assembled from taiwan. just like we do.
Methods for building electronics? Damn I just wish I had some electricity to run it.
Water pumps? Well There are two kinds.
1. Can be made with simple materials. There is probably more information on these _in_ the third world than on the internet
2. Pumps that require custom forged parts to build and electricity to run (useless for anyone without the parts/electricity)
Again and again you imply that if they just had the information they would be better off. That's like expecting that all the information about the apollo program available on the internet would lead to all of us having summer houses on the Moon.
The idea that the Internet will forge an "identity" for third worlders that will allow them to resist repressive government is the biggest hoot of all.
Tribalism (culture) keeps most third worlders from making common cause even with folks inside a 100 mile radius.
Sad but true.
Loosing battle (Score:1, Insightful)
This is not possible.
The subject is enough to make them suck regardless of webmaster.
Religion kills a thinking mind.
Why they fail... (Score:2, Insightful)
Deduction not the reason for volunteering (Score:2, Insightful)
I volunteer my time (and, in some cases, money) with the Boy Scouts, a local aviation for kids program, and a few other charities and good causes. I do it because I like it, because I think it's important, and because I appreciate the fact that people volunteered time for me when I was a Scout, et al. I have no aspirations of financial gain, nor do I receive any (including tax deductions: I don't itemize).
That said, there's nothing wrong with taking a writeoff if you're entitled to same. If you're volunteering specifically for the deduction, you need to examine your motives (and your methods: writeoffs are a poor way to "make" money), but there's nothing wrong with taking the benefit of it. Indeed, many people (myself included) have strong objections to the government, and feel that anything which (legally) keeps money out of Washington is a good thing. Would you say that accepting lunch while on a project site is verboten, because you derive gain from it? Certainly people who refuse to help because they can't profit from it need to do a little soul-searching, but if you're going to do it anyway (for presumably the right reasons), there's nothing wrong with availing yourself of long-provided benefits.
Re:Perhaps I'm crazy... (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't have the money to waste on absurdities like 1 gig drives, 486 CPU's, video cards with more than 128K of RAM, or all of the much more excessive crap the first world uses to do absurdly simple, basic, tasks, like send messages or analyze information.
That doesn't mean, however, that effective tools, that can benefit impoverished and starving peoples, don't need to be written and then run on simple (cheap) computers in the few places where power and electricity do exist, or that alternate infrastructure technologies (solar power, cheap radio transmission, etc) can't be deployed. They don't need "lickable", they don't need 3D, they'll do just fine with monochrome characters on 2 VT100's hooked into a 386 if it saves and improves lives.
Some Examples: :-)
1. Route planning software for food/medicine deliveries in countries with unreliable transportation systems.
2. Accounting software to reduce the amount of graft and corruption involved in monetary aid. (If bribes are required, as least they can be tracked, budgeted for in the future, and properly expensed.)
3. Weather prediction software to help in crop planning.
4. Water management software to help prevent over-usage, which creates (artificial) droughts.
5. Simple communications hardware/software to relay information over low-tech, low-bandwidth, links. You don't need an email client->TCP/IP->DSL to send "Tornado coming, evacuate", you can do just fine with anything that does 300 (or even less) baud, like shortwave radio to a TTY, or, with human operators, 'net weather service->voice->shortwave radios work, too.
6. Inventory management software for food supplies, medical supplies.
7. Simple message aggregation systems (remember why UUCP batched email was a good thing?) to speed up communications... (Village 197 needs penicillin brought in by jeep. Village 123 road out, needs 'dozer or shovels). Much faster than human messenger systems, and without the absurd overhead of the current crap we use.
8. Water testing/sanitation issues/road building/disease statistics/famine information/etc. aggregation systems, so the minimal resources available can be focused on the neediest areas.
9. Software to enable translation (and working translators) into *many* more languages than the computer world currently supports.
I'm surprised by the cynicism in many of the posts, which smack of first world arrogance. "Oh yeah, we'll send them our current technology, and they can't use it, because they lack our current infrastructure..." They need the computing ideas and technology of the 40's to 80's, not 2002's. Right now, many places are trying to survive on the same level of technology (or worse) than the US had in the late 1700's.
Come to think of it, the CPU cycles we *waste* on lickable interfaces, skinnable GUIs, looking for aliens, ripping crappy joke songs, or adding transparency to everything, could be better applied to *many* issues greater than the ones the first world faces.... with the CPU I use on a single protien fold sim, I could probably calculate *all* possible routes for a single food shipment to a village in Ghana.
Apple had a campaign centered around a current desktop being equivalent to what used to be a "supercomputer". If every third world country could now afford a 70's era supercomputer, they could be doing many of the basic tasks we all take for granted now. For only 10 grand, *any* nation in the world can afford the equivalent of two Cray-1's, and accomplish *all* of the computing tasks outlined above, with only two power cords, and one phone line. It's not about the infrastructure to send colored IM text to the next village, it's about extremely simple needs to help solve issues too complex to be done on paper.
It doesn't take a computer on every villager's "desktop", it takes computing power in the very few places that can benefit from it. Why would it need to be deployed in the same way? We already learned these lessons in the 60's, the first computing power to help the public was shared by very few people. It didn't look "pretty", it wasn't "fun", but that wasn't the point.
Addressing another point, those same Apple machines cannot be shipped to some countries, because they're considered powerful enough to be weapons. Again, we *also* learned this lesson in the 60's: The military wants first crack at all of the available CPU cycles, and will use them. Despots will use them t enrich their power... that's a side-effect, side problem, but as long as the CPU power is kept low enough, it'd still be legal.
-Bop