<story><title>A few months ago, a complete stranger gave me $10k (2021)</title><url>https://sarahdrinkwater.medium.com/a-few-months-ago-a-complete-stranger-gave-me-10-000-heres-what-i-did-with-it-d5bc65f59d17</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bheadmaster</author><text>Charities are often corrupt griftworks. It&amp;#x27;s hard to know which ones are and which ones aren&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;I think helping people in our proximity personally is the best course of action. That way, we &lt;i&gt;know&lt;/i&gt; that our money isn&amp;#x27;t ending up in some greedy grifter&amp;#x27;s pocket - and if enough people do it, the effect can be greater than that of any charity.</text></item><item><author>Graziano_M</author><text>Unfortunately it feels better to give to an individual than it does many people, even though we can maximize the good we can do by donating more strategically. If it weren&amp;#x27;t the case many more would donate to e.g. the effective altruism movement.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m no better. I donate to charity, but I still feel best about myself for times I helped people change a flat, etc.</text></item><item><author>leetrout</author><text>I have never spoken about this publicly but I found a contract job that paid about $4k for the project a few years ago. It required me hosting a secure database for a couple months and was a run-of-the-mill django project.&lt;p&gt;I coded it up, ran the project and got paid. I put back 30% for taxes and paid the AWS hosting bills (mostly for RDS) of about $500 and gave the rest to someone who was battling cancer. I gave it to them personally, in cash, in all 1&amp;#x27;s as a joke. It was pretty cool to see over $2,000 in singles packaged up in money transport ziplocks put down in a gift bag. They thought I was giving them a brick as a joke.&lt;p&gt;I tell you what - it made me feel like I was on top of the world.&lt;p&gt;I look back on it and I kind of wish I had figured out how to eat the taxes and give all of it except the hosting costs (I didn&amp;#x27;t have a ton of expendable income at the time).&lt;p&gt;Reading this story and thinking about them seeing the tax bill reminded me of this. Kudos to them for being able to give all of it on to worthwhile causes. I bet they felt amazing. It is so nice to be able to do something for someone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>whimsicalism</author><text>I think this is probably reasoning to reach the conclusion you had already decided you wanted.&lt;p&gt;The impact of a dollar in the developing world is so much more than anyone that you could help who is in close proximity to the typical HN commentator that it would take an absolutely massive amount of graft to equalize the two.</text></comment>
<story><title>A few months ago, a complete stranger gave me $10k (2021)</title><url>https://sarahdrinkwater.medium.com/a-few-months-ago-a-complete-stranger-gave-me-10-000-heres-what-i-did-with-it-d5bc65f59d17</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bheadmaster</author><text>Charities are often corrupt griftworks. It&amp;#x27;s hard to know which ones are and which ones aren&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;I think helping people in our proximity personally is the best course of action. That way, we &lt;i&gt;know&lt;/i&gt; that our money isn&amp;#x27;t ending up in some greedy grifter&amp;#x27;s pocket - and if enough people do it, the effect can be greater than that of any charity.</text></item><item><author>Graziano_M</author><text>Unfortunately it feels better to give to an individual than it does many people, even though we can maximize the good we can do by donating more strategically. If it weren&amp;#x27;t the case many more would donate to e.g. the effective altruism movement.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m no better. I donate to charity, but I still feel best about myself for times I helped people change a flat, etc.</text></item><item><author>leetrout</author><text>I have never spoken about this publicly but I found a contract job that paid about $4k for the project a few years ago. It required me hosting a secure database for a couple months and was a run-of-the-mill django project.&lt;p&gt;I coded it up, ran the project and got paid. I put back 30% for taxes and paid the AWS hosting bills (mostly for RDS) of about $500 and gave the rest to someone who was battling cancer. I gave it to them personally, in cash, in all 1&amp;#x27;s as a joke. It was pretty cool to see over $2,000 in singles packaged up in money transport ziplocks put down in a gift bag. They thought I was giving them a brick as a joke.&lt;p&gt;I tell you what - it made me feel like I was on top of the world.&lt;p&gt;I look back on it and I kind of wish I had figured out how to eat the taxes and give all of it except the hosting costs (I didn&amp;#x27;t have a ton of expendable income at the time).&lt;p&gt;Reading this story and thinking about them seeing the tax bill reminded me of this. Kudos to them for being able to give all of it on to worthwhile causes. I bet they felt amazing. It is so nice to be able to do something for someone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>toomuchtodo</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s hard to know which ones are and which ones aren&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.charitynavigator.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.charitynavigator.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>