If you buy a Humble Bundle these days, it’s possible to use their neat sliders to allocate all of the money you’re spending towards charities of your choice via the PayPal giving fund, including Lesswrong favourites like MIRI, SENS and the Against Malaria Foundation. This appears to me to be a relatively interesting avenue for charitable giving, considering that it is (atleastapparently) as effective per dollar spent as a direct donation would be to these charities.
Contrast this with buying games from the Humble Store, which merely allocates 5% of money spent to a chosen charity, or using Amazon Smile which allocates a miniscule 0.5% of the purchase price of anything you buy. While these services are obviously a lot more versatile in terms of the products on offer, they to me are clearly more something you set up if you’re going to be buying stuff anyway rather than what this appears to be to me, a particular opportunity.
Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of people for whom I think this might be worthwhile:
People who are interested in video games or comics or whatever including any that are available in Humble Bundles to purchase them entirely guilt-free, with the knowledge that the money is going to organisations they like.
People who are averse to more direct giving and donations for whatever reason to be able to support organisations they approve of in a more comfortable, transactional way, in a manner similar to buying merchandise.
People who may be expected to give gifts as part of social obligation, and for whom giving gifts of the kinds of products offered in these bundles is appropriate, to do so while all of the money spent goes to support their pet cause.
If you buy a Humble Bundle these days, it’s possible to use their neat sliders to allocate all of the money you’re spending towards charities of your choice via the PayPal giving fund, including Lesswrong favourites like MIRI, SENS and the Against Malaria Foundation. This appears to me to be a relatively interesting avenue for charitable giving, considering that it is (at least apparently) as effective per dollar spent as a direct donation would be to these charities.
Contrast this with buying games from the Humble Store, which merely allocates 5% of money spent to a chosen charity, or using Amazon Smile which allocates a miniscule 0.5% of the purchase price of anything you buy. While these services are obviously a lot more versatile in terms of the products on offer, they to me are clearly more something you set up if you’re going to be buying stuff anyway rather than what this appears to be to me, a particular opportunity.
Here are a couple of examples of the kinds of people for whom I think this might be worthwhile:
People who are interested in video games or comics or whatever including any that are available in Humble Bundles to purchase them entirely guilt-free, with the knowledge that the money is going to organisations they like.
People who are averse to more direct giving and donations for whatever reason to be able to support organisations they approve of in a more comfortable, transactional way, in a manner similar to buying merchandise.
People who may be expected to give gifts as part of social obligation, and for whom giving gifts of the kinds of products offered in these bundles is appropriate, to do so while all of the money spent goes to support their pet cause.