Topic: You like vim? Donate to Bram Molenaar in BTC and help kids in Uganda - page 2. (Read 4570 times)

Also, I realize that my thinking in this case is wrong in general. And that's it's probably a good idea to question and discuss every charity, regardless of who chose it. Even if only to have similar discussions to this one so that people such as yourself can bring to light some of the issues with popular charities and their lack of effectiveness.

For reference.  I'm donating money to Bram Molenar.  His work has made my life 100x easier.  It's up to him to do with the money whatever he wants.  If he wants to donate the money to a charity in Africa, that's his decision.  Having made that decision publicly may change people's inclination to donate (knowing the money will ultimately go to whereever he designated), but it doesn't change my decision. 

You make good points. I just expect the guy behind vim to take the time to choose a reason able charity before soliciting donations from the public. I could be wrong of course. If it were some random person on bitcointalk or something similar I would be much more skeptical. My thinking behind it isn't so much about him being someone in a high place, but more being someone analytical and detail obsessed.

I hate to play devil's advocate, but how does making VIM qualify one to vet charities for effectiveness?

A lot of people barely even consider that, or they see the projects the charity is doing and ASSUME they are effective. I'm not saying this charity isn't effective, I'm saying that being the VIM guy doesn't necessarily qualify him to be a good judge of that. 

I know a low of people in even higher positions than "the VIM guy" who blindly donate to Susan G. Komen for the Cure (pink ribbon campaign) without realizing that they are a bunch of corrupt shills for the cancer industry more interested in confusing people about cancer and causing secondary cancers rather than actually preventing it. Corporate behemoth. Being someone in a high place doesn't mean you automatically get +100 spidey sense when it comes to charities.
Some charities aren't even corrupt, they are just ineffective. Looking at their websites you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell the long-term effect of their projects or whether there are more effective ways to spend that money.

The best "give money to Africa" charity I have found is one that teaches subsistence farmers agriculture techniques geared to growing in drought/desert conditions, and gives them specific varieties of fruit trees that grow excellently in drought conditions. This yields results. Building water treatment plants and clinics and schools is a very western approach as we're kind of skipping past the most basic needs.

The thing is you're dealing with the guy who makes vim here. It's pretty damn safe to assume he knows what he's doing and he isn't blindly sending thousands of dollars to some garbage charity.

VIM.

Yes, I am aware of this problem.

I too believe in "Trade not Aid" but that doesn't mean I need to be a fundamentalist about it.

I am also against governments giving out aid, because them being governments, they tend to give it to other governments, which in poor countries are often not more than glorified criminal gangs.

Giving to private charities with a local presence is a different story though.  There is nothing wrong with aid in certain situations, eg. when a real emergency is being addressed.

I spend most of my day in VIM, absolutely love it. Donated

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369041/Peter-Mandelson-Africa-aid-wasted-created-army-beggars.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money

According to ICCF Holland's website, they invest the money directly in local infrastructure like a clinic, rather than sending it indiscriminately to some dubious middleman.

It's good to be skeptical, and it's true that a lot of corruption goes on, but that does not mean you should dismiss every single Africa charity by default.

Probably watched too much "Lord of War" and never actually went to Africa.

Pretty broad assumption you seem to be making.

Sometime money goes into weapons and sometimes not. For everyone who wants to do a little research before donating, this could be a good entry point: http://iccf-holland.org/

Oh, I totally missed that. Thanks for pushing this through (vim is great, I use it every day and btc makes it easy to donate (yes I am lazy)).

Giving money to africa= throwing money in a black hole. Local war lords will use it to buy moar tanks, rifles, weapons etc 

You don't need to pledge anymore since there is now a donation address, you can donate directly.
I don't think there is any amount needed per se, the more the better, it goes to kids in Uganda (see http://iccf-holland.org)

Ok, I want to pledge some too. But first I would like to know how many BTC is needed in total, before he puts a donation address on Vim. Do you know? Any guess?

Think about the overlap in Unix geeks/Vim users. I believe it's big. I also believe that having a Bitcoin address on the splash screen of Vim (where you already get prompted to donate to kids in Uganda) will be a curiosity-igniter for some geeks that didn't know about Bitcoin, and a reason to think again for those who previously dismissed it as scam/ponzi.

eh, that doesn't really bring much awareness to BTC..

I donated to SDF because they are interested and accept bitcoin, not because they're like "eh, what's that? oh people pledged money? sure just gimmie the money, I don't give a crap".

TXID: b5778dbeba8a164b1c6538317068b531d4415dba1564390b0111cf5b27d11c50

I will PM you the signed message.

Okay so I got a positive answer from Bram Molenaar (a few days ago actually).

For the time being I will be collecting the donations and handle the exchange part.

So people who have pledged, and trust me, may already send their donations to 13UUaGK8ZDLxjY7RYu2bKEabqjww2KDyxD

If you want to have your name published on the Vim website you'll have to sign a message with one of the addresses sending the donation.

I asked Bram Molenaar if he could confirm this in any way and will update the thread accordingly.