Update — poll has finished! Thanks to everyone who has voted. The donation will be distributed to
- Cancer Council — $5,000
- Beyond Blue — $3,000
- RSPCA — $2,000
I will need to figure out the ways to make contribution this week and will update everyone on the process. —scotty
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How much is OzBargain going to contribute to the charity organisations this financial year?
A: $10,000 will be donated to the organisations that get the most votes from our community members.
Q: Does the most voted charity get all the donations?
A: We will be donating to the top 3 charities (although scotty still holds the right to override the decision, as per original post). It would be rounded to the closes $1,000 depending on the votes they get.
Q: Ops! I found out about this OzBargain Donation thingy too late. Can I suggest more charities?
A: Once poll has been setup, adding more poll options can be a bit "tricky". scotty will see what he can do with the database. Feel free to leave more suggestions in the comments. If we really cannot add more options, feel free to suggest them in our next round (hopefully before Christmas).
Original Post
This will be a new project for this month, June, the month of end-of-financial-year craziness. Just in case you have not noticed, OzBargain has been running as a "for profit" business since mid-2010. Banner ads shown on this website has been able to keep OzBargain self-sufficient, and enables me to hire 2 other full time staffs to help me developing new features and managing the community here.
The next step for us would be channelling some of that profit back to the "community". I did talk about the possibility of free T-shirts and other merchandise give aways earlier this year. However that project was somehow stalled at the moment. Long story — but something along the line of crashed hard drive containing the design, busyness in life, lots of code to develop and general laziness. But hopefully we'll get back to that one day :)
However since it is the End of Financial Year, let's extend the "community" a bit further. Why don't we set aside some money to donate to worthy charities chosen by the OzBargain community?!
I already have some rough figures in mind to donate (more about that later after I run through w/ accountant). But which charities/non-profit org should we donate to? The usual Salvo, Vinnies, WorldVision etc? Or maybe someone wants to suggest something else? Feel free to comment and suggest.
So here are the rules:
- We are open for suggestion/discussions/debates until next Saturday, 9 June. Use this forum topic for it.
- Feel free to suggest charitable organisations in the top-level comments (not replying anyone).
- It would be great if you can provide a link to the charity.
- It must be Australian or benefiting Australians (we are OzBargain after all).
- It must be a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR), so we can make tax deductible donations.
- Vote and discuss! I will turn this post into a poll from 10 June to 16 June. People can vote on charities. Feel free to use comments to come up with general consensus on which top charities OzBargain should donate to.
- Poll will close on 16 June, and we'll use the votes to make our donation decisions. I do have to put a condition here — I still have the right to make the final choice, just in case all you guys vote for some weirdo charities that I just cannot agree with :)
Here is an example on how you can suggest a charity:
- I suggest beyondblue. Depression is a lethal disease that many are not aware of, nor know where and how to seek help.
Okay. That's how I envision that it would work. It might turn into a complete disaster when I come back online on Saturday morning :P If everything goes well, we might be able to run this every year or every 6 months.
Current List
In alphabetical order. You will be able to vote for these from 10 June.
What about the usual Salvo, Vinnies, WorldVision?