Ask Slashdot: Where Should a Geek's Charitable Donations Go? 263
An anonymous reader writes "I'm in the position to direct (or at least suggest the direction of) a fairly large amount of charitable donation on behalf of a foundation interested in promoting education. As a lifelong geek, I'd like to see some of this money directed toward organizations involved in things geeks-like (e.g. spreading technology in education to those without it, improving the use of technology for those who have it, etc.). If it was up to you, what charitable organizations would you support and why?"
The Humble Bundle is a good start. (Score:4, Interesting)
You walk away with some good games to boot.
Hey what do you know? A new one just started! [humblebundle.com]
Center For Applied Rationality (Score:4, Interesting)
Consider giving it to the Center For Applied Rationality [appliedrationality.org]. Their goal is to make people more rational, by teaching about cognitive biases and scientific decision making, and studying how to do so effectively. They're doing great things, on relatively little resources; your marginal dollars would go a long way.
Re:Altruism... (Score:2, Interesting)
That's a good start. However, as some one who has worked at a charitable non-for-profit, those percentages can get messy. If you spend $100,00 on a fund rasing event like charity ball that generates a total of $400,000 ( for a net gain to the charity of $300,000), You have to report that $100,000 that was spent on putting the event together as a non charitable expense. Even if the $300,000 goes directly to building a school in Africa, it looks like you as a charity only spend %75 of all funds on your charitable cause.