Donating money is almost always more valuable than donating time, especially if you're not going to donate a lot of time. The time may feel better (or it may not -- I've had volunteer gigs where I didn't feel I could accomplish much, and that sucks), but the money is more useful.
The economic consideration comes down to the real value of the labor, and that depends heavily on the economic benefits of specialization.
A day of you doling out soup to people or picking up trash won't be worth any more than what someone who does it for a living is paid. And it will probably be substantially less because you're not practiced at it.
A day of you building houses (assuming you have no training) could very well be negative if someone has to come along and fix your work later.
A day of a non-profit employee's work should be worth at least what their salary suggests. (They're chronically underpaid because of the conventional wisdom that high wages are a red flag. This is patently insane and unfair.)
A day of you working closely to your profession is probably worth something similarly close to your salary.
Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up.
But otherwise, if in other contexts it'd be a waste of your time, it's still a waste of your time when donating, so consider donating money.
That raises the question: why do so many non-profits have all these worthless volunteer activities?
First, they do tend to focus on young people whose labor isn't worth much to begin with, so they're not losing as much.
And many volunteer efforts simply need a lot of warm bodies. There's no way to canvass for votes, for instance, without having a horde of people knocking on doors.
And I suspect many volunteer activities are also a great way to raise publicity and connect with donors.
A day of you working closely to your profession is probably worth something similarly close to your salary.
A day every 2-4 weeks of working closely to your profession might be, but less frequently than that and most high-skill professions will spend most of their time having to re-orient to what the needs are or get the details of where the org is today vs. where it was three months ago. I've done volunteer work where I spent over half the time figuring out what they needed. What they really needed was money to hire someone that they could get to do that same thing on a consistent basis so that overhead didn't take up more than half of the donation.
But otherwise, if in other contexts it'd be a waste of your time, it's still a waste of your time when donating,
Is it?
[We] seem incapable of stating the obvious truth:
that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor
people not for the poor people's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we
have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered
people
David Foster Wallace
I didn't want to get into what your motivations may be, but I alluded to this: Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up.
The idea was that you might be doing it yourself because, in that case, your surroundings being clean and beautiful is something you desire.
... we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people
Wallace's view of humanity is self-serving and awful. He's a noble savior, the poor people are helpless without their saviors, and everyone else is frightened, lonely, self-centered, etc.
A better approach is one founded in gratitude, wherein charity is merely one form of expression of gratitude.
Wallace's view of humanity is self-serving and awful. He's a noble savior, the poor people are helpless without their saviors, and everyone else is frightened, lonely, self-centered, etc.
Out of context i guess i could see that reading being something you could conclude. It’s not well supported overall, though.
... gratitude
Sure; but the notion that “do it because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s a good way to say thank you” is not at all at odds with “... and by way of ‘you’re welcome’, you’ll be less of a lonely prick!”
It’s kind of an open philosophical question whether or not a purely altruistic act is even possible (where i do X to you, X is good, and I don’t get anything in return that is also good) — why mince words about it? (cf kierkegaard, among many others). There’s no particular shame in acknowledging that charity rewards both parties.
And for the other goals, the statement holds: If in other contexts it would be a waste of your time, it's still going to be a waste of your time for you to do it.
I wanted to add to your comment. When I've looked to volunteer in the past I've seen places that ask for a 6+ month commitment because bringing someone up to speed sucks up resources (not unlike training a new employee). Other times I've shown up early and you see how much wrangling is needed to organize volunteers.
Volunteer labor can often be a resource suck whereas money is money.
Donating technical skills with a market rate of a couple hundred bucks an hour can add up much more quickly than donating cash in many cases. And it doesn't have to be a massive investment - in a few hours you can make a much more manageable and better looking website for a lot of organizations that can't afford to pay for one.
How many organizations need primarily computer work, though? All of the orgs I work with need either to buy specific items, or people with specific trade skills, not more software.
People on HN like to say "Software is eating the world" but when I look at my city, none of the biggest problems I see are going to be solved by more software.
Your software skills only have "a market rate of a couple hundred bucks an hour" because companies like Amazon and Facebook and Google are paying that. You're in a bubble. Small companies and non-profits aren't paying that. Mega-corporations can pay that only because they have massive scale. If one software developer can produce value for a million users, that person is worth a ton of money to the company. The non-profit in your backyard does not share that attribute. Your FAANG salary is not in any way relevant to them.
Finally, every programmer knows there's no such thing as resolving all maintenance "in a few hours". Software maintenance is a never-ending task. Take something that wasn't computerized, and computerize it, and now you've simplified one task for that volunteer org, while creating a new recurring cost for them. (You've taken a visible cost that anyone can help with, and turned it into an invisible cost that requires an expensive specialist.) I've seen countless cases where an org said "We got this new software (for cheap/free) that will help us!", and then 2 months later they're trying to get support, and the person who set it up is long gone.
Please, just give money, and let the organization decide how to use it. They aren't stupid. They know how to hire software people, when that is their most pressing need. Usually it isn't.
How does it add up much more quickly? Even if there's no time necessary for me to get up to speed on their situation, etc., donating my salary for those hours is not only at least even with donating my time (since they could hire out), but unless my skills are the absolute highest priority thing they need in the organization, cash would be better because it allows them to get that highest priority thing.
I read all of the comments to this post and I don't your's stands up. Donating time can be very valuable. On the other side of the coin, there are a lot of charities and other causes that have substantial overhead costs. It is possible that only a fraction of your donation might be a direct benefit to the intended recipient.
Low overhead is a tempting metric, but often charities try too hard to get it low enough, and not do things like monitoring if whatever they are doing actually make things better.
Comments
Donating money is almost always more valuable than donating time, especially if you're not going to donate a lot of time. The time may feel better (or it may not -- I've had volunteer gigs where I didn't feel I could accomplish much, and that sucks), but the money is more useful.
The economic consideration comes down to the real value of the labor, and that depends heavily on the economic benefits of specialization.
A day of you doling out soup to people or picking up trash won't be worth any more than what someone who does it for a living is paid. And it will probably be substantially less because you're not practiced at it.
A day of you building houses (assuming you have no training) could very well be negative if someone has to come along and fix your work later.
A day of a non-profit employee's work should be worth at least what their salary suggests. (They're chronically underpaid because of the conventional wisdom that high wages are a red flag. This is patently insane and unfair.)
A day of you working closely to your profession is probably worth something similarly close to your salary.
Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up.
But otherwise, if in other contexts it'd be a waste of your time, it's still a waste of your time when donating, so consider donating money.
That raises the question: why do so many non-profits have all these worthless volunteer activities?
First, they do tend to focus on young people whose labor isn't worth much to begin with, so they're not losing as much.
And many volunteer efforts simply need a lot of warm bodies. There's no way to canvass for votes, for instance, without having a horde of people knocking on doors.
And I suspect many volunteer activities are also a great way to raise publicity and connect with donors.
A day every 2-4 weeks of working closely to your profession might be, but less frequently than that and most high-skill professions will spend most of their time having to re-orient to what the needs are or get the details of where the org is today vs. where it was three months ago. I've done volunteer work where I spent over half the time figuring out what they needed. What they really needed was money to hire someone that they could get to do that same thing on a consistent basis so that overhead didn't take up more than half of the donation.
Is it?
[We] seem incapable of stating the obvious truth: that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people David Foster Wallace
I didn't want to get into what your motivations may be, but I alluded to this: Now, if no one is picking up trash and you want it picked up, then by all means go pick it up.
The idea was that you might be doing it yourself because, in that case, your surroundings being clean and beautiful is something you desire.
Wallace's view of humanity is self-serving and awful. He's a noble savior, the poor people are helpless without their saviors, and everyone else is frightened, lonely, self-centered, etc.
A better approach is one founded in gratitude, wherein charity is merely one form of expression of gratitude.
Out of context i guess i could see that reading being something you could conclude. It’s not well supported overall, though.
Sure; but the notion that “do it because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s a good way to say thank you” is not at all at odds with “... and by way of ‘you’re welcome’, you’ll be less of a lonely prick!”
It’s kind of an open philosophical question whether or not a purely altruistic act is even possible (where i do X to you, X is good, and I don’t get anything in return that is also good) — why mince words about it? (cf kierkegaard, among many others). There’s no particular shame in acknowledging that charity rewards both parties.
If that's the goal, only a small subset of volunteer work is a good way to achieve it.
it's _a_ goal. it's not the only one.
And for the other goals, the statement holds: If in other contexts it would be a waste of your time, it's still going to be a waste of your time for you to do it.
unless, of course, handing out sandwiches or making beds up in a shelter opens one’s eyes.
then it’s the exact opposite of a waste.
I wanted to add to your comment. When I've looked to volunteer in the past I've seen places that ask for a 6+ month commitment because bringing someone up to speed sucks up resources (not unlike training a new employee). Other times I've shown up early and you see how much wrangling is needed to organize volunteers.
Volunteer labor can often be a resource suck whereas money is money.
Donating technical skills with a market rate of a couple hundred bucks an hour can add up much more quickly than donating cash in many cases. And it doesn't have to be a massive investment - in a few hours you can make a much more manageable and better looking website for a lot of organizations that can't afford to pay for one.
How many organizations need primarily computer work, though? All of the orgs I work with need either to buy specific items, or people with specific trade skills, not more software.
People on HN like to say "Software is eating the world" but when I look at my city, none of the biggest problems I see are going to be solved by more software.
Your software skills only have "a market rate of a couple hundred bucks an hour" because companies like Amazon and Facebook and Google are paying that. You're in a bubble. Small companies and non-profits aren't paying that. Mega-corporations can pay that only because they have massive scale. If one software developer can produce value for a million users, that person is worth a ton of money to the company. The non-profit in your backyard does not share that attribute. Your FAANG salary is not in any way relevant to them.
Finally, every programmer knows there's no such thing as resolving all maintenance "in a few hours". Software maintenance is a never-ending task. Take something that wasn't computerized, and computerize it, and now you've simplified one task for that volunteer org, while creating a new recurring cost for them. (You've taken a visible cost that anyone can help with, and turned it into an invisible cost that requires an expensive specialist.) I've seen countless cases where an org said "We got this new software (for cheap/free) that will help us!", and then 2 months later they're trying to get support, and the person who set it up is long gone.
Please, just give money, and let the organization decide how to use it. They aren't stupid. They know how to hire software people, when that is their most pressing need. Usually it isn't.
How does it add up much more quickly? Even if there's no time necessary for me to get up to speed on their situation, etc., donating my salary for those hours is not only at least even with donating my time (since they could hire out), but unless my skills are the absolute highest priority thing they need in the organization, cash would be better because it allows them to get that highest priority thing.
I read all of the comments to this post and I don't your's stands up. Donating time can be very valuable. On the other side of the coin, there are a lot of charities and other causes that have substantial overhead costs. It is possible that only a fraction of your donation might be a direct benefit to the intended recipient.
That's why you should donate to low-overhead charities like GiveDirectly.
Low overhead is a tempting metric, but often charities try too hard to get it low enough, and not do things like monitoring if whatever they are doing actually make things better.