Comments
I can't find the article but I read something (an economics paper) suggesting that charitable trusts should invest in the companies most opposed to their mission (e.g. oil and gas for a climate change charity) to:
a) try to sabotage the companies via voting
b) hedge against the success of the companies (e.g. if oil and gas is still making a ton of money in 10 years, the climate change charity would than have likely outperformed the market and would have more money to fight back - and if the oil and gas companies go out of business, the climate change charity would not need the money because they would have already won the fight).
You should look into that.
Thanks for the write up :) Quick question, when would the charities prefer getting money through you rather than directly?
Specifically, it seems like any time a charity would prefer this approach, they would already be investing their own donations (and many organizations, like Wikipedia and universities, do).
The only thing I can think of is that maybe there are charities who would do this but don't want to because they think it will make them look bad on Charity Navigator.
Dear Relevantfiction,
you are right, there are some organizations that do and Wikipedia and universities are good examples. But in our experience, many of the mainstream charities do not. This is partly for PR reasons as you indicate, because donors appreciate to see the direct action that was taken using their donated money. Another reason is that it can be illegal for charities to do so, because of legislation saying that charities can only hold money or investments as a reserve, not as a source of income.
We aim to change this, by explaining to donors why this is such a great system and how it can multiply the impact of each of your donations many times over! And we make it easy for people to support charities this way if they want: at the majority of charities, for regular-sized donations you cannot indicate currently that you want the donation to be invested, with the interest going to the charity.
best regards and a merry Christmas,
Rik
Dear EdoArad,
apologies for the late reply! Someone had a similar question in this forum post. The answer is: many charities enthusiastically embrace Give For Good as a concept for two reasons:
Hope that clarifies things! Let me know if you have any additional question, happy to answer them.
Rik