Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Free-Software-Foundation”
Why do donations require special events? (or presents)
[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“The trinkets I received for becoming a member of the Free Software Foundation.”] [/caption]
I’ve been wondering about a peculiar aspect of human motivation. Why do we require a present of some sort in exchange for a donation? Let’s take NPR for example. During membership drives a donation will net the donator a hat or tote bag or something like that. But why does there have to be a prize for donation? The point of donation is that you realize some organization or cause needs your money. So why waste some of that money to get a mug? And if you wanted a mug emblazoned with the NPR logo, you could just go to the NPR store and buy it. But getting gifts must entice more people to donate or organizations wouldn’t waste money on it when they could be using all the money to cover their costs.
Charitable Donations for 2008
This year I decided to mainly support technological causes. I donated to the F ree Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I think that rms and the rest over at the FSF are really doing a lot of great work to preserve our freedoms. I especially like the Defective by Design campaign they’ve been running. So this year they get the lion’s share of my money.
The EFF has been doing a lot of work with other things I care about such as opposing the broadcast flag and overall protecting our electronic and Internet freedoms.