You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

List of Donors, Fall 2011

1 Post author: Mass_Driver 28 August 2011 07:45AM

This discussion-level article is a handy place for people to share info about their recent donations, especially donations to unusually efficient or effective charities. Feel free to post your one-time donations, your recurring donations, and/or any interesting changes in your donation habits. Gratitude and appreciation for other people's donations is also very welcome.

Comments (5)

Comment author: Morendil 28 August 2011 02:34:17PM 13 points [-]

Donated $100.23 (the integral part via PayPal and the fractional part via Causes.com "Give a Minute").

Here is a donation-related complaint: please offer some way I could (in conscience) write this off as a business expense. As it is, I had to donate on my personal credit card, which raises a non-trivial inconvenience. When I write something off as business-related, it gets deducted from income, in other words I don't pay income tax on it.

Suggestion: offer rationality-related eBooks or subscription videos or something similar, which can be written off as "documentation" by an independent professional able to claim rationality material as a business expense. (For instance, talk to Alexandros who has just started a mailing list on "rationality and startups". Material so labeled would clearly be a business expense. Or "rationality and marketing", and so on.)

Comment author: Nisan 28 August 2011 11:16:30PM 0 points [-]

Did you donate to a registered charity? Does your government exempt you from paying income tax on charitable donation?

Comment author: Morendil 29 August 2011 05:00:28AM 1 point [-]

In France the notion of "charity" is tied to a restrictive list of associations so recognized by the state; a donation is tax-deductible only if to one of these organizations. I've donated e.g. to Unicef on a tax-deductible basis.

That will not apply to my donations to SIAI. (On the other hand, I can't (yet) bring myself to think of SIAI as a charity. I donate mainly to encourage the continued existence of LessWrong.com - if the promotion of rationality is "spun off" to a daughter organization as the SIAI strategic plan suggests that's what I will continue donating to in the short term.)

Comment author: lincolnquirk 28 August 2011 08:27:47PM 8 points [-]

I gave $1000 to the Singularity Institute after completing Rationality Mega-Camp. They seem to be a legitimate organization full of smart people doing very important work, and they convinced me of two things: they are working on valuable projects today, and they could be doing a lot more valuable stuff with more money.

Comment author: beriukay 29 August 2011 03:18:54AM 6 points [-]

I mentioned it before in the open thread for the month, but I donated $1000 to the SIAI's current donation drive. I've never given that much to a charity before, and I doubt I'll be giving as much for a long time, but the donation drive seemed to be floundering, so I did what I could.