EFF has 2x matching donations until Dec 17th

https://supporters.eff.org/donate/power-up-2013

by yincrash • 13 years ago

252 23 13 years ago

supporters.eff.org

I have donated to them indirectly many times over the years but this Xmas going to become an official EFF member. F*ck you NSA!

mdaniel2• 13 years ago

I realize this might sound like a First World Problem, but I typically donate to my charities and organizations early in the year. Then things like this pop up and I have to weigh the opportunity cost of not donating while my power will be doubled against the feeling that I've already given a chunk of change.

I guess in the end, I'll probably cave and donate again because I think the EFF is very important, but I wonder what thoughts others have on this situation?

dublinben• 13 years ago

If it works with your budget, you should plan on donating at the end of the year. Most non-profits have their most important fundraising drives during December, where schemes like this are often seen.

glimcat• 13 years ago

This situation is a result of two things:

* Businesses want to get spending in before the end of the year for tax & budget reasons.

* Customs surrounding holiday giving and charity, with disposable income from holiday bonuses.

So this is the best time of year for donation drives & matching programs.

furyofantares• 13 years ago

givewell has an article on how lots of donation matching is actually closer to a restructuring of a large donation from another donor http://blog.givewell.org/2011/12/15/why-you-shouldnt-let-don...

This looks like it fits that category -- donations are matched up to $118,569 which really just means someone is donating $118,569 and using that donation to attract more donations. If you think it's going to hit that cap without you, you haven't given anything up. And if you don't, you still might not have given anything up, since the donor still might give the $118,569 they were willing to give anyway.

hamburglar• 13 years ago

Yeah, matching is really a psychological trick, which is very well illustrated on a more personal level if you volunteer to answer phones at a public radio pledge drive. Someone in the room full of phone answerers will say "oh, I haven't made my own personal donation yet...I plan to donate $100. Can you announce that the next $100 caller will be matched?" You then get $200 worth of donations that you might have gotten either way, but both parties get to feel great -- one person for having their donation "doubled" and the other person for feeling like they spurred someone else to donate.

mdaniel2• 13 years ago

Thank you for your reply; I hadn't thought of it that way. I realized after reading your response that I also conflated this particular match with the ones I hear on NPR advertised as "conditional matches": if we receive $W in X time, Y will contribute $Z. Some of them are also conditional on the number of participants, which is also strange.

airlocksoftware• 13 years ago

Very cool of the people doing the matching donations. I'm always happy to do anything I can to help the EFF. But now, more than ever, it feels like they might be our best chance to avoid dystopia.

But considering the size of the tech industry and the amount of money the internet / technology is making all of us, I'm sometimes surprised by how small the EFF is. Does anyone have any thoughts on why the EFF isn't larger and better funded like most other industry groups?

rkuykendall-com• 13 years ago

Also, why doesn't anyone seem to rally around them when an issue comes up?

As far as I can tell the EFF have been handling all the issues of the day well, but all the attention goes to upstart one-off groups that are formed and forgotten within weeks.

vinhboy• 13 years ago

Donating with my bitcoins! I hope they remember to send me a t-shirt this year.

tofof• 13 years ago

This is not 2x matching. This is just plain and simple matching. You donate 50, they get a total of 100 - 50 from you, and 50 from the donor.

Yes, the total amount they receive is 2x, but the matched amount is 1x.

I sound pedantic but it's because this is in stark contrast to the Internet Archive's "3x matching" through the end of the month, in which if you donate 50 they receive a total of 200, because the matching amount is triple - 3x - what you donate.

tcdent• 13 years ago

Thanks for the tip. I love what the Internet Archive folks are doing, and that's too good of a deal to pass up.

heyitsnick• 13 years ago

Agree, but you're only criticising the submitter, not EFF. There's no mention of "2x matching" on the page; it only says "you receive a 2x powerup," which is accurate. There's no ambiguity and the page clearly says "donate x, with matching EFF will receive 2x" on the form.

susi22• 13 years ago

I know my comment has little to do with EFF, but if you feel generous also consider donating to Give Directly. Goodventures will match every dollar for them until Jan 31st:

http://www.goodventures.org/research-and-ideas/blog/our-givi...

kfarzaneh• 13 years ago

This is great! Too bad they sold 2,800 of their 3,500 BTC in 2011: http://philanthropy.com/article/Can-Nonprofits-Benefit-From/...

schoen2• 13 years ago

Hi, EFF employee who worked on our acceptance of Bitcoin here.

The linked article simplifies the history somewhat. In fact, we attempted to give away all of our BTC to the Bitcoin Faucet because of legal uncertainty surrounding Bitcoin.

When we decided to start accepting Bitcoin donations again, the developer who runs the Faucet offered to return the remaining value to us. Because of increases in the price of bitcoins in the interim, EFF was able to sell the BTC that came back to us from the Faucet for about $95,000.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/05/thank-you-bitcoin-comm...

By my calculations (using contemporary market depth data), that's coincidentally just about the same amount of U.S. currency that EFF would have realized if we'd sold all of those bitcoins at the time that we donated them to the Faucet. I'm glad that that value was eventually able to be used for EFF's purposes as the donors originally intended.

Since deciding to accept Bitcoin again, EFF has used a payment processor to sell all bitcoins as soon as they're donated, so we never possess them and never make individual decisions about when to sell or hold them. (That's what will happen if you donate in BTC today.)

notdarkyet• 13 years ago

Maybe I am missing something but who is doing the matching? Is it the group of people on the bottom right?

schoen2• 13 years ago

That's correct -- the people in the box starting "EFF would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to...".

terrik• 13 years ago

Donated. This is a great way to help the EFF, and even a small donation can go a long way.

You can also help the EFF non-financially at their Action Center: https://www.eff.org/action

diminoten• 13 years ago

I wish there were more options besides the EFF who supported the myriad of causes the EFF works towards.

Their treatment of CISPA was not, however, something I can stand to support, and for this reason I can't justify giving them money until they soften their hardline stance substantially.

Their "call to arms" press release was rife with doublespeak and inaccurate interpretations of the proposed bill, and it felt like there was some kind of ulterior motive at play for them to never be satisfied with concessions and changes to the bill text.

I get this sense that the EFF basically says, "no!" to every bill coming from congress that has anything at all to do with the Internet, and that's just not a useful way to run an advocacy group.

I support a free and open Internet (seriously, who doesn't around here?) but I would rather codify that in US law than sit around and wait for the FCC to fine Comcast. If congress can't touch the Internet, then they can't protect it, and I'm afraid the EFF would find itself on the wrong side of an open Internet if congress tried.

sspiff• 13 years ago

Does this also apply to already existing monthly recurring donations?

AlisdairO• 13 years ago

I realised recently that while I have strongly held opinions on the erosion of civil liberties, I was doing functionally nothing to support them apart from getting angry and debating with people on message boards.

So, anyway, I've just donated to this and a couple of other important organisations. If people with decent jobs and no kids (which I imagine comprises a noticeable fraction of this site) can't act to support our beliefs, how can we seriously expect change?

abraxasz• 13 years ago

I know that it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, and that given the awesome work they are doing, this is worth the hassle. But I'd like to make a comment concerning the payment method. Last week I make my very first donation to Wikipedia. How did it happen? I saw the usual banner, and then, one of the payment options was Amazon. So I entered an amount, clicked the "pay with amazon", and was done. No entering my credit card, filling out forms, or anything. Zero friction. Amazon style. At this moment I realized that the reason why I hadn't donated before isn't that I didn't think the cause was worthy, but simply that the perceived hassle outweighed my desire to give. They removed that friction, they got my money.

So again, given the work they are doing, that's no excuse for not donating. But still, I wonder if that would boost the donations..

EFF has 2x matching donations until Dec 17th

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