Who I donate to
Expensive virtue signalling
August 20, 2019 — October 21, 2024
1 Why this list
Some public goods I long for can best be attained by outsourcing rather than trying to create them with my own hands, i.e. I give someone else money to achieve them for us all. That is what charitable donation is. I mention my specific donations here because
I believe in normalising donating in general as part of a healthy society. This is a contingent stance; many of the causes I donate to have the goal of reducing the need for charitable donation, which I think is better than relying upon affluent guilt.
I hope that by highlighting the specific causes I donate to, I will encourage others to donate to them, so the publicity is useful leverage.
For my own reference, I want a centralised list of who I am donating to so that I can stop my donations if I decide the recipient is no longer the best place to send my money.
Maybe by showing this list to you, I will get feedback from you about your better ideas about whom I should donate to, and will engage constructively on that topic to improve my strategy.
I hope that you will think I am a nice person for giving money to strangers.
Bonus: Maybe if donating to saving the planet becomes the new conspicuous consumption, then not only will I look like a nice guy, I’ll even have a liveable planet to look fancy on, and living people in front of whom to look like a nice guy.
Good. Let’s make it rain.
Listing organisations here should not be taken as my personal endorsement of any individual tactical decision made by any of the organisations or individuals mentioned, nor my blanket support of all positions they may adopt. It does indicate that I feel that giving them money nets out as good on average.
Unlike, say, classic, marginalist-style, Effective Altruist organisations donor lists, there is little emphasis here on low-variance subjects such as, e.g. mosquito nets. I am more interested in moon-shots and hail-mary punts and other high-variance strategies, which the Open Philanthropy people bill as hits-based giving.
I am interested especially in organisations which aim to change the system to enable us humans to solve problems for ourselves, i.e. disruptive changers. That is, I mostly give money to lobbyists, builders of capacity, and builders of tools. This is, IMO, a higher-risk, higher-expected-reward strategy than (important, useful) concrete near-certainties like mosquito nets, and also, TBH, one that I more directly benefit from personally. Enlightened mutual interest is kind of my whole thing. Further, we are at a point in human history where high-risk high-reward is pretty much the only wise strategy. Hail-mary bets all the way.
For reference, my current donation level is 4% 3% of my income. (I decreased it recently because my employer CSIRO has cut real wages.) Unless there is a truly exceptional burning emergency or matching funding from a donor, I attempt to give my donations as regular recurring payments, to provide budgeting certainty to both the organisation and to myself. Also, organisations that need to raise funding by alarmism learn some unhealthy habits around crying wolf.
2 Money donations
Original power: Australian-Indigenous-led campaign for self-determination through clean energy. My research into them suggests that they have high leverage to improve both indigenous self-determination outcomes and the politics of energy in Australia more broadly.
The Guardian because, for all their imperfections and biases, they are a (relatively) credible dissident media organisation in the highly concentrated Australian media market.
Effective Altruism Australia, because even though I have qualms about their low variance portfolio, it’s tax-deductible so…
CSIRO Staff Association. A marginal case since this is my union, so I stand to benefit from my “donation” in the form of better working conditions at CSIRO. OTOH I joined the union for reasons unrelated to my wages or conditions, so I’ll count it.
Better Renting because land economics in Australia is IMO under-addressed, and these folks are tackling that in an interesting way. Tax deductible. See also Tenants’ Union, who provide useful advice, but whose advocacy does not seem as disruptive.
RE-Alliance for social licence for renewable energy Australia. Non-tax-deductible.
Tomorrow Movement for youth climate voice. Tax deductible.
All minus one are free-speech advocates in Australia. Interesting speaker line-up, albeit one I frequently find uncomfortable (which is probably good for me).
Richard Boyle, whose persecution by the Australian government for whistleblowing on government activity is one of several test cases in the Australian authoritarian turn.No longer taking donations. I am auditioning some alternatives, e.g.- Human Rights Law Centre, Democratic Freedoms program
- Australian Democracy Network
- Our Democracy
- Australia’s National Integrity System: The Blueprint for Action
- The Centre for Public Integrity
- Crikey: Corruption is pervasive in Australia — it’s time to stop the rot
- The Guardian transparency project
- Electronic Frontiers Australia – Promoting and protecting digital rights in Australia since 1994.
The next few are about confidentiality-respecting and/or open source computing infrastructure.
- Thunderbird, because it is the closest to being an adequate linux email client.
- Whonix because it is a slightly esoteric bit of harm reduction for avoiding the chilling effects of state surveillance of citizen, so I figure they need it more than the less esoteric but still important tails.
- Manyverse for exactly the same reason.
- Zotero who build amazing infrastructure for my citations.
- Emiliano Heyns who builds extra useful infrastructure for my citations
As a side order, I give money to some creators whose work I enjoy. This amount of money is somewhat smaller than the donations to political activity, and also I get various benefits out of it (ad-free versions of the podcast etc) so I am not sure that it counts; but I would still consume their content if I did not donate, so let us count that also. Various creators on Patreon I can’t work out how to link to en masse:
- Michael Betancourt because he is a giant nerd doing useful nerdy things for other giant nerds like me, such as explaining diffeomorphisms.
End of shi(f)t report the most harrowing and clever nursing blog I have ever read.Quiescent- Oglaf because I enjoy fancy dick jokes.
- Marie Brennan whose books I love, why not?
- Dave Kellett
- Laszlo Montgomery, China podcaster whose idiosyncratic style, and endless fascination I find addictive and cheering. Plus also the history of China is fascinating.
3 Time donations
In principle I would volunteer to help good causes too using my specialised skills, i.e. data science and statistics and all that.
Progtech, the Progressive Tech network.I attempted to volunteer teaching data-science-for-campaigning for these folks, but they never allocated me any shifts. I suspect they are more of a software-development mutual aid thing than a data-science-focussed program.- … your NGO here?
If your cause is righteous, you are welcome to pitch for a slice of my volunteer time. Send me a short paragraph making a case for what it will help (I tend to favour climate- and conflict-risk mitigation causes) and why you think it will be a high-leverage use of my time towards that goal.
I do not have time to pitch to you about whether data science is useful at all. Organisations that are not yet considering that for themselves are too far back along the on-ramp to the 21st century.
I am a union delegate to the CSIRO Staff Association, and I donate several hours per week to negotiating conditions for public scientists in CSIRO. Caveat: I do stand to benefit from my “donation” in the form of better working conditions (although that is not my current aim.)