Get Exec to Volunteer for Charity on your Behalf | Hacker News Reader

Get Exec to Volunteer for Charity on your Behalf

blog.iamexec.com

36 pointsjustin22 comments

Thought question: is it better to pay $50 for 2 hours of volunteer time to a charity or just donate that $50 to the charity?

I honestly don't know the answer, but would love to hear what other people think.

My quick take is that it's probably better to give the $50 to the charity because they are better prepared to make a decision on how it should be used. With that being said, I can see how a lot more people might be willing to pay Exec for volunteer hours because of the feel good factor.

Regardless, I think it's an great initiative.

Undoubtedly it depends on the charity... hiring someone helps both the charity + the person hired, though.

Give $50 to the charity. If they prefer 2 hours of volunteer time to $50, then they can go out and buy that.

Call options have value.

Buy volunteer time?

i.e. hire people to work for the charity—probably at a significantly cheaper rate than $25/hour.

I agree, I think this unnecessarily limits the charity's options. Plus, I would assume that you don't actually get $50 worth of charity work: Exec takes some, travel time, etc.

Yes. If I don't trust the charity to decide how best to spend $50, why should I be willing to give them the time of a person who is paid that much? It's not like the charity itself can't use Exec to purchase the same services.

This is so stupid I don't know what to say.

If you believe in the charity then give them the money directly.They can find much more efficient and creative uses for it.

If you don't believe in the charity then don't give them the money and don't give exec to give money to give to the charity.

This is a gimmicky stupid idea that is just preying on your guilt.

This is awesome. We (Weebly) give out a $50 Exec credit every month to all of our employees to help with random life tasks. It's widely used and appreciated.

Some of our employees, though, are further out from SF, and it can be harder to use that credit. The second they got the email this morning, they found a great way to use the credits!

"We’ll be supporting this program for the next month (now through the end of August), and we’ll be donating 100% of all proceeds raised."

I'm confused, do the proceeds go to the charities or to pay the temps? If the former, are the temps just volunteering? If the latter, what do you mean "we’ll be donating 100% of all proceeds raised?" Does my $50 yield 2hrs of work and $50 to a charity? Because that would be a great deal!

FYI: Exec appears to be invite-only right now, but if you sign up via the "give to charity page" you can get an account.

Getting someone else to do your "charity" work for you is not charity...They're not volunteers b/c they're getting paid (by you) to do the work. You're not volunteering b/c you're not doing anything (and you're not even treated as making a donation which would be deductible for tax purposes).

If you are going to use Exec to "volunteer" for you, you might as well just give the money directly to the charity. They can use it on their charitable activities without wasting any time training your Exec "volunteers".

It doesn't sound as bad as you make it out to be. If a charity really does need a warm body for some task(s), then what is the harm in paying someone to do said task? The charity gets the work done the same as if a volunteer came in.

You make it sound like there is some huge downside to doing this.

There is a huge downside for this to the charity: they have to waste time training "volunteers" who will probably never come back unless they're paid to be there.

Volunteers (as in, real volunteers) are much more likely to come back, minimizing the amount of time wasted on training. Volunteers are also more likely to have knowledge or experience in the area of the charity, whereas Exec's [gophers?] are likely to know nothing at all.

Manpower is a priceless commodity for a lot of charities. I know plenty of people who run charities who would pass on a $100 donation in exchange for two hours of idle hands.

If that's what they want, then let them use the money to hire an Exec. If not, don't force it on them.

This just limits the charities options, and only benefits exec.

Is it possible that after various administrative costs, they don't end up getting $100 worth of labor out of someone, vs. $100 worth of labor by hiring Exec?

Exec also takes administrative costs out of that $100. Either way, the charity will have to train the person. But the person the charities hires is likely to come back, so that time is not wasted. The Exec worker may never come back, rendering all of the time spent training them wasted.

I know plenty of charities who would prefer the money. Manpower is freely available for most charities at least down here in SoCal (maybe people have less time to do good works up in the Bay Area?). Money, however, is the primary factor limiting their capacity to perform their charitable activities.

Let's put it this way: with $100 but no volunteers, you can still acquire supplies, services, or manpower. With 10 volunteers but no money, you can twiddle your thumbs.

Ridiculous

Brilliant idea!

Brilliant! I'm sure this concept will really appeal to all the overworked but socially conscious professionals out there.

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