Advice for Tech Non-Profits

(mitchellh.com)

44 points | by ksec 10 hours ago ago

13 comments

  • ameliaquining 6 hours ago

    I'm surprised about the "What is my donation doing?" section, because my experience is that most nontechnical nonprofits suck at this too. (Unless they have a very specific "your $50 donation buys a family a cow"-type marketing model, but those tend to be pretty misleading: https://blog.givewell.org/2009/11/05/donor-illusions/)

    • throw738458584 4 hours ago

      Many nonprofits have overhead like 80% (salary cost, management bonuses, marketing). Direct expense accountability is their cryptonite, and they will do everything to obfuscate it!

  • RainyDayTmrw 8 hours ago

    Non-profits similarly have a problem that also hounds for-profits: Fundraising as a separate activity detracts from the primary mission, and balancing between the two is a struggle.

  • pabs3 8 hours ago

    My favourite tech non-profit is Software Freedom Conservancy, I think it does quite well on these points.

    https://sfconservancy.org/

  • shomp 7 hours ago

    As someone working on a tech nonprofit right now, I find a ton of value in your post and really appreciate the time you took to elucidate the minutiae of seeking funding from qualified donors. Thank you.

  • malcolmgreaves 2 hours ago

    If you want to easily donate crypto, cash, stocks, use your credit or debit card, to basically any nonprofit, go use https://every.org

    Best part: they don’t charge the non profits fees! And they’re actually a non profit themselves!

  • hardwaresofton 9 hours ago

    Sounds like a SaaS offering waiting to be built

    • motoxpro 7 hours ago

      They exist already.

      The more basic solution is for the non-profit to just add the info. Grab a squarespace template and just type in the info.

      If anything, someone should just make an AI that sucks in all the things she mentioned and add it to the NPO's pages. As she mentioned, most NPO work is just marketing and fundraising, and hopefully a little bit of doing some of the work you started it for.

      • hardwaresofton 3 hours ago

        Yeah sounds like those SaaSes have a broken funnel/aren't doing a good job, because customers are still annoyed. Being second to market doesn't mean you can't be best!

        > If anything, someone should just make an AI that sucks in all the things she mentioned and add it to the NPO's pages. As she mentioned, most NPO work is just marketing and fundraising, and hopefully a little bit of doing some of the work you started it for.

        Mitchell is definitely a he, but yeah it sounds like most people don't want to do the marketing and fundraising, and I don't think AI is ready to take that on quite yet.

        He notes specifically about how interacting with humans is a valuable part of the experience, sounds like they need better automated management/coralling of existing resources, not necessarily AI.

  • VivaTechnics 6 hours ago

    100% agreed. Awesome!

    Here is our 501(c)(3) tech non-profit. All corporate profits are directed to children. Clear and transparent.

    https://aid.aideo.us/

    • n4r9 32 minutes ago

      The spidery green font is really hard to read against the background.

    • terminalshort 2 hours ago

      Clear and transparent, yes. Useful, no. By that statement buying the CEOs kid a house is totally within bounds.

    • jakelazaroff 6 hours ago

      I just clicked around your site and I have no idea what your organization does.