Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?

[DotOrg]

A few months ago I saw a thread on Hacker News that really lit a fire inside of me. Someone posted a Ask HN thread asking something along the lines of "Does your startup help change the world?"

I couldn't believe some of the responses. There were tons of people saying that their iPhone apps were because they made it easier to find restaurants.. or that their B2B social media marketing startup was because it was improving productivity for marketers. I'm paraphrasing but that was the gist of many of the responses. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for people who have successful typical startups. But that said, I think people sometimes are extremely sheltered if they think that those sorts of problems are really impacting lives.

Families who never thought it would happen to them across the United States are finding themselves homeless. My wife is from a small town that just 15 years ago had very high employment. Today the town is rapidly turning into a miniature Detroit after the main employer of the town closed down and moved overseas. Countless numbers of children are going hungry this summer since their primary and often times only nutritious and filling daily meal is their school lunch. My city recently had a free health treatment clinic for one day only. Hundreds of people stood in line for hours and hours, only to be sent home since not all were able to be seen.

And yet, that's just in the United States. Elsewhere in the world, one BILLION people don't have access to clean drinking water. Hundreds of millions of people work 12 hour days seven days a week for in exchange for pennies. People are killed or imprisoned every day just for speaking out against their governments.

I'm not delusional or hopelessly optimistic. I'm aware that these are all major global problems, and they're far more complicated than any one person could ever hope to solve. But what I am interested in is finding out a way that I could be doing something as a career to be a part of this. I don't necessarily think that you have to be a nonprofit or charity to still contribute to these sort of things. SwipeGood and Sparked are two examples of this.

But my question is - has anyone actually built or is working on something related to these sorts of issues? I'm fascinated by stories such as the one behind Charity Water (http://www.charitywater.org/about/scotts_story.php) and reading about organizations like FreeGeek. I'd love to start a nonprofit of my own, but I have no clue where to begin. If anyone has any advice, thoughts, or would like to connect I'd love to hear from you.

[edw519]

Please don't fall into the trap of believing that your daily work and working for the greater good are mutually exclusive.

You may not realize it, but you are often contributing to the greater good on a daily basis simply by doing your job. It's sometimes hard to visualize this because we are often many degrees of separation away from the "end user".

You don't actually have to be physically building that home for the homeless or providing food for the hungry; the work you're already doing may be helping someone to help someone else to do that.

I've even thought that the best way to put your technical skills to the greater good is through your day job, not instead of it.

Some of my days jobs have been to write software to ensure that:

  - people get the right prescription medication on time
  - firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be
  - parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified
  - prisoners are kept in jail
  - those same prisoners get proper medical care
  - electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time
  - medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to
  - insurance claims are processed properly
  - quality data is properly maintained for food items
  

You don't need to do charity work on the side in order to contribute to the greater good.

On the other hand, if you don't think that the work you do during the day contributes to the greater good, then maybe you should consider doing something else with your valuable time.

Do good and get paid. You can do both at the same time.

[aaronbrethorst]

Wow, that makes one of us. Most[1] of my day jobs over the past eight years have been:

    - Make sure Visual Studio 2005 doesn't look like shit.
    - Make sure Visual Studio 2008 doesn't look like shit.
    - 'Something something, dead Microsoft product.'
    - Make sure we can ship this product in order to get a 'B' round of funding.
    - 'Something, something dead startup.'

And, on that depressing note...

    On the other hand, if you don't think that the work you do during the day contributes to the greater good, then maybe you should consider doing something else with your valuable time.
    Do good and get paid. You can do both at the same time.

Let's sure hope so. I envy you in many ways.

[1] Although I have never directly contributed to a reduction in human misery, I still take a great deal of pride in things like http://cocoacontrols.com, which have, hopefully, made many iOS developers happier and richer, and many end-users generally happier.

[zalew]

> Please don't fall into the trap of believing that your daily work and working for the greater good are mutually exclusive.

a great talk about it

TEDxWarwick - Noam Kostucki - Making Money From Doing Good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gRaHyHJjrg

[jodrellblank]

http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gj/efficient_charity_do_unto_others...

"Just as there is only one best charity, there is only one best way to donate to that charity. Whether you volunteer versus donate money versus raise awareness is your own choice, but that choice has consequences. If a high-powered lawyer who makes $1,000 an hour chooses to take an hour off to help clean up litter on the beach, he's wasted the opportunity to work overtime that day, make $1,000, donate to a charity that will hire a hundred poor people for $10/hour to clean up litter, and end up with a hundred times more litter removed. If he went to the beach because he wanted the sunlight and the fresh air and the warm feeling of personally contributing to something, that's fine. If he actually wanted to help people by beautifying the beach, he's chosen an objectively wrong way to go about it. And if he wanted to help people, period, he's chosen a very wrong way to go about it, since that $1,000 could save two people from malaria. Unless the litter he removed is really worth more than two people's lives to him, he's erring even according to his own value system.

...and the same is true if his philanthropy leads him to work full-time at a nonprofit instead of going to law school to become a lawyer who makes $1,000 / hour in the first place. Unless it's one HELL of a nonprofit."

(and the comments)

[_delirium]

But what if your personal value system includes wanting your day job---what you spend 40 hours/wk or more doing---to be directly implementing something you care about?

Sure, that's a selfish choice to some extent, but I think it's a reasonable one. Some people choose to live in one city over another just because they like it, or to work at Google rather than Wall Street because they like what they're building there more. Some people will pass up a job for one that pays 20% less, because it's building an exciting new app they want to help succeed. Wanting to work on a social-justice project just seems like a variation of that; it's quite common and natural for people to want their day job to be something they care about, if they have the option.

I think the argument as given also assumes that charities are currently operating optimally, and there's no room for improvement or disruption. If you applied the efficiency argument to startups in general, it would argue that you should work a well-paying job and pay other people to do startups. When would it ever be beneficial to do one yourself? Only if you think the market is not already efficient, and your personal intervention as a founder could change things more than working your current job and just funding startups would.

[nick_urban]

I agree that people who are capable of doing high level work should do so, but the comparison shouldn't be a high-powered lawyer vs. picking up trash, it should be: being a high powered lawyer vs. being a "high-powered leader" of a social movement. If Gandhi had decided to continue being a lawyer and donating his profits to charity, there's no way that all the cheap labor he could have hired would have added up to the kind of world-historical moment that his life did.

[ebiester]

That benefit has to be offset by the harm. If he is getting that $1,000 to help a logging company gain the rights to clearcut old growth forest, then his additional hour may be net harm, even if he donates the $1000 to help clean up a beach.

At the big dollar amounts, are you going to be able to make the ethical choices to only choose cases that do not do net harm? Perhaps, but not guaranteed, and one "no" to one client can lose you a big client and cause trouble getting the next.

[sliverstorm]

It's funny how many people don't grasp this concept. I've been chewed out before for working at a tech company, because 'obviously I could be doing more good in the peace corp'

[tryitnow]

Thanks for the link to LW, those guys are frequently insightful.

Another thing to consider is consumer choice. Very few people donate as much as they can to charity.

I also think that "good" startups create a lot of social value by improving wealth - the bigger the pie the more to distribute.

One could get wrapped up in logic games all day. For my life, I prefer the general heuristic of "ABC" - "Alway Be Creating" as opposed to destroying or fighting over my share of the pie (which from an opportunity cost POV is actually destructive). This is just a personal preference of mine (and probably most people who read HN), BUT I also think it's prudent economics as someone who is generally creating useful stuff for those around them will be guaranteed compensation of one form or another (hourly wage, salary, startup equity, etc). The obvious exception to this is those who help the disadvantaged since they can't compensate you. And that's where donations (and for non-right-wing-libertarians, tax dollars) come into play.

[sundeep_b]

It's a waste if one reads the above and not the paragraph following this one.

The Roman historian Sallust said of Cato "He preferred to be good, rather than to seem so". The lawyer who quits a high-powered law firm to work at a nonprofit organization certainly seems like a good person. But if we define "good" as helping people, then the lawyer who stays at his law firm but donates the profit to charity is taking Cato's path of maximizing how much good he does, rather than how good he looks.

[kalvin]

When you say "these sorts of issues", it sounds like you're talking about injustice everywhere. You want to fix injustices-- food for the hungry-- instead of "adding happiness"-- better food photos for people with smartphones.

In which case, I FEEL YOU. I'm infinitely more interested in SwipeGood than I am in Zynga. But everyone makes their own choices. Some people just aren't that concerned with injustice. Some people may have the same goals you do, and try a different path; nonprofits/NGOs always have good intentions, but not always good results (have you ever tried fundraising? it's not any easier than just making money.) And finally, it's a heck of a lot harder to fix injustices than add happiness. It's harder to scale, too. Much easier to build that photo sharing startup and be happy. :)

You should figure out what exactly you want to do. Injustice is too broad. Pick something and start there. You can try to pick something where you think you'll have "the greatest impact", but it's a) impossible to predict, and b) it's better long-term if it's something you're passionate about and won't burn out on.

Khan Academy, Kiva, DonorsChoose, and Samasource are nonprofits that are popular/well-known in the tech/startup world. Do any of those interest you? What about them interests you?

Where are you located? If you're in the Bay Area, there's a lot of people working in/on nonprofits/foundations, social enterprises, and other innovative social change efforts. But there are so many problems to solve; figure out what motivates you first. (There's also a lot of crap, just like in tech, and it's probably harder to tell the difference because everyone is just "trying to do good" and there are no easy success metrics like revenue or profitability.)

Good luck! I hope you find something that's meaningful for you and makes an impact on those less fortunate than you.

[onan_barbarian]

I get and agree with the point you're making, and like the distinction that you're making, but I'm going to quibble a little about the choice of the name "adding happiness" as the counterpart to "fix injustices".

"Happiness" is a real stretch to describe the thing that a lot of these startups are "adding". "Pleasant distraction" might be a more apt phrase, or even just "pleasure". Or "yet one more goddamn reason to start vacantly at my smartphone, ignoring everything around me", if you're of a cynical bent.

[ianterrell]

I used to work for Samasource; they're all good people and are hiring a Rails dev if anyone's interested after this thread: http://www.samasource.org/about/positions/RubyEngineer

[dpatru]

Stephen Covey gives a useful framework: Do the intersection of your ability, the existing need, your interest, and the important. Ask yourself, "What can I do (ability) that other people value (need), that I like (interest) and that I feel is ultimately important?

Also, before you embark on saving the world, you might want to study a little Austrian economics. A lot of charity work and government programs are inefficient or actually contributing to poverty because they are contrary to economic law. You don't want spend few years of your life trying to solve poverty only to realize that you've been part of the problem.

In general, societies become wealthy when they are virtuous and economically free. Virtue causes them to generate and keep wealth. Economic freedom helps them build wealth efficiently. If you want to make any society richer from a macro level, you might focus on improving one or both of these: help that society become more virtuous and more free.

Regarding virtue, you might work to decrease drunkenness (Alcoholics Annonymous), drug use, and other vices. These activities harm individuals and their families and contribute to poverty.

Regarding freedom, you might work in politics to protect property rights, to have sound money and market prices, to allow people to work without licensing and other artificial restrictions, to reduce taxes. You can also work to spread price information and make markets more efficient (Craigslist, EBay and AirBnB do this.)

On a lower abstract level, you can work to produce some good or service which people value but is in short supply. That is, find a popular, over-priced good or service, and offer it at a lower price and better quality. Khan Academy is doing this for K-12 education.

[daguar]

Well, a problem with the Austrian framework in this context is that there are things we need to finance as social goods (desired outcomes by society at large) that can never be structured to be profitable.

This is, incidentally, the classical economic case for both governmental provision of public goods, taxation, and regulation.

[zokiboy]

Can you give links to more information about Austrian economics and how it contributes to poverty?

[temphn]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem.

Nonprofits are ultimately financially unustainable; they survive on donations and government grants (tax) rather than direct contributions from customers. As such they usually can't scale to employ many people or make a worldwide impact.

There are exceptions in the information age; Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and perhaps over time Document Cloud. But these too are only useful for people who have computers, not people who lack food.

In general countries only drag themselves out of poverty through capitalism and industry. India and China had decades of foreign aid before they turned to capitalism; now there are many industries in which they are net exporters.

[gnosis]

"This might be an unpopular opinion, but a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem."

It's certainly not an unpopular opinion on HN, home to hordes of corporation-loving, free-market worshiping libertarians.

[ippisl]

The green revolution , in agriculture , which saved an estimated billion files , was made by a non-profit.

Paul pollack , and his non-profit IDE, got 20 million people out poverty by offering radically affordable irrigation technology and building private markets for such products.

There have been new kinds of non-profits that combine a non-profit goal + financial sustainability. They appear to work better in some cases.

For those who are interested in sucssesful non-profit business models and organizations, nextbillion.net is a good site.

[Tichy]

Also, the nonprofit is not under evolutionary pressure to actually solve the problem. They are just under pressure to make people believe they are doing a good thing.

[daguar]

"a nonprofit/charity will never make as big a difference as a true for-profit vehicle that is pointed at the same problem."

Different domains of problems: a NFP (not for profit) org may not be as _efficient_ as a FP org pursuing the same goal, but you are ignoring that many goals will never be pursued by a profit-seeking entity.

Provision of many "social goods" like shelter for the homeless, health care for poor children, or help for people with severe disabilities (components of the "safety net") will simply never yield a profit margin by virtue of the nature of the underlying problem. This is precisely because if we want to provide such services for people who lack the _ability_ to pay for it, there will be no demand for it.

So, instead, NFPs make a value proposition to _philanthropists_ who want to provide the goods there is no market incentive to provide.

In the public sector corollary, politicians make value propositions to voters, and whichever programs they like (through the mucky, revealed-preference process we call democracy), and the social goods demanded via that process are then implemented through public financing (spreading costs among everyone).

It is the underlying problem -- not the organization type -- that governs whether a venture can be profitable, or even sustainable.

[TeMPOraL]

pg has an interesting essay on the subject: http://www.paulgraham.com/good.html

[damienkatz]

I'm late to this thread, but I'd like to add that just doing your job very well is a great way to give back to the world.

I design database software. I do it because I think it's cool, and I think it's important to have easy to use software that solves IT problems. My software is now being used in rural hospitals in Africa to update patient records, and in disaster areas to help reunite lost children and parents. I had nothing to do with those things, I just design and write database software, but they built on my work, because I did my job well.

Doing your job well can inspire, make people happy, provide a base, provide stability, etc. It can help others do those things that put a happy tear in your eye, that you know made a profound difference in someones life, you don't need to be the actual hero to do good in the world, to make a real difference.

[kamens]

We'd love to have anyone passionate about changing the world of education apply to Khan Academy.

http://www.khanacademy.org/jobs

[sliverstorm]

^ Education is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Short of inventing the next evaporation fridge or water purification straw for developing nations, this is going to be one of your better bets if you want to directly help people.

[karambahh]

Sorry to hijack OP's post, but I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you a few things about Khan Academy. All I know about is based on a piece that appeared in Wired US august issue.

To me, your method relied on a)having kids learning a lesson at home b)drilling exercises.

On a), I must say that it surprised me much. It means that kids must all have computer available at home (which is clearly not the case, even in western countries) and it also means that their home is sufficiently stable so that they can listen to a lesson (which is probably not doable if mom & dad fight each other every night, whereas doing small exercises is doable in between fights?).

Then, there's this part about creating a school, costing upwards of 10k$ a year. Call me a socialist or whatever, but seriously, paying 10k$ a year to get primary education, wtf?? Shouldn't a not for profit org seek to open such a school for free?

Please do not see this msg as completely negative: you're doing stuff to find other/better ways to teach kids, which is definitely awesome.

[ca136]

Working in Education doesn't always have the same instant gratification as other projects, but if you can help people learn then you're going to have a very strong and lasting impact over time. And imagine if you created a product like, Khan Academy, that would increase the knowledge of 1% of the population by 10%. I think that's a worthy goal.

[antoncohen]

If you want to do something meaningful, do not start a charity. Charities will not give all the unemployed people jobs. Start a company.

It doesn't matter if the company makes frivolous garbage, as long as it employs 30,000 people in Detroit. People in Africa are not starving because you don't have a charity that gives them free medicine. They are starving because there is no one in Africa starting a company that employs 30,000. It doesn't matter what that company does, as long as it does something other people want to pay for, and it is able to provide employment for people.

Innovation feeds the economy. Even if that innovation sounds as frivolous as web advertising. That frivolous company may be the next Google, they may employ 30,000, and they may even help people who don't have clean drinking water.

[vinay_gupta]

Yes, I did. An open hardware building system called the hexayurt.

I started in 2002, and went through years of working with shelter charities, the US military and various other groups to get the technology into the field. There are experimental units in Haiti and Sri Lanka right now!

On the way I learned a hell of a lot about how the entire mess works, and why humanitarian innovation is so slow. There's a couple of talks on the hexayurt web site which might give you useful context: "Ending Poverty with Open Hardware" and "Enabling Humanitarian Innovation."

Please feel free to drop me a line if you have specific questions, and do check out Google Image Search on hexayurts to get an idea of where they're being used most right now!

Vinay

[bcks]

I've worked primarily with human rights focused non-profit organizations for the last 15 years or so. I'm a generalist who can do a bit of design, tech, management and strategy so I offer a good mix of skills for organizations.

idealist.org is a good place to look for tech or design work with non-profits. I also got my start just cold-calling groups I respected. Most didn't know what to do with me, but all it took was one or two projects before word-of-mouth referrals started to spread.

If you are serious about starting a non-profit, the NOLO books are a good mix of legal and practical advice and often include the forms you need. Check nolo.com. But I recommend volunteering as a board member or advisor, or working with an existing non-profit so you can get a closer look at the mechanics before you dive in. If you have a very specific idea for a charity or project, perhaps get an hour consultation with a lawyer who specializes in non-profit corporations.

Feel free to drop me an email if you have more specific questions.

[blackboxxx]

Mother Theresa once said: "When I look upon the masses I can do nothing. When I look upon the one, I can do something."

Find someone to help. Help them. You have then changed the world for the better. Now do it again.

[patio11]

Another Mother Teresa quote: "Never despair at being but a drop in the ocean, for without it the ocean would be one drop less."

[the_cat_kittles]

Completely agree. In a related note, I think a hypocrisy that many people who help "Humanity" commit is to be condescending and cruel to people around them. That makes me suspicious that they are helping Humanity at large for their own self glory, not to really help other people. I guess they are still helping, but...come on...

[qw]

I think it's too easy to focus on specific problems (food/water/medicine), rather than focusing on the cause of these issues. There are many countries that have the resources to take care of themselves, but lack the social and political structure to do so.

Someone needs to take care of these problems in the short term of course, since there are people suffering today, but it is also important to focus on how to reduce their needs.

There's no technological magic bullet to solving political and social issues, but there are ways to reduce them. One major problem in some parts of the world is corruption. I'm not thinking of the white collar corruption that can be found in the western world, but basic corruption such as having to bribe your child's teacher so that he will let your child in. In some cases you even have to bribe health personnel for the right to "free" health care or other forms of aid. In some countries the corruption is everywhere and is hurting the society.

If someone could find a cheap and reliable way of reducing corruption you would do a lot of good.

[waterside81]

I've been toying with the idea of an organization along the lines of Engineers without Borders ("Hackers without Borders"?) or something to that effect where developers lend their talents to causes all over the world. Not saying that an iPhone app can solve everything, but I'm sure there's quite a few ways where simple apps here or there could make a big difference.

Does anyone know of something like this out in the wild already? Seems like an obvious idea.

[skyshaper]

There's Random Hacks of Kindness (http://www.rhok.org/):

"Random Hacks of Kindness is a community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation challenges. Random Hacks of Kindness was founded in 2009 in partnership between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank."

Johnny Long founded Hackers for Charity in 2008: http://www.hackersforcharity.org/ - see announcement talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CWrzVJYLWw

Hack for Change (http://hackforchange.com/) might be interesting as well.

[gillygize]

I don't know of anything in particular, but this is a topic I have been interested in as well. I've recently been thinking that the training new developers around the world might be the best approach. Don't try to make the apps or programs yourself; train the locals in developing software and then let them apply those skills to solve their own problems. I would really be interested in something like this.

[aantix]

Geek Corps. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Geekcorps

Not sure if the group is still active though.

[masterj]

There is http://codeforamerica.org/ although that doesn't exactly fit your description.

I would be very interested if someone knows of something more along the OP's lines.

[kentf]

This is a great question and something I struggle with everyday. All I know is that the typical answer of.

"Well, I am going to do this thing that makes money and then when I am rich I will give back"

Is bullshit. You either give back or you don't. It's not a question of time and money.

I try and do as much local charity work as I can, I try to be present when listening to friends and family. I try and treat my wife and my family as the most important people in the world so that they can bring that love to other places, but I hear what you saying.

I want to be working on things that change the world. I think at some level, we all want to be.

Thank you for asking / sharing.

Kent

[fauigerzigerk]

First of all, I think, you are greatly underestimating the role of productivity growth in fighting poverty.

Apart from the forces that directly increase productivity (science, markets, entrepreneurship, etc), I think, the most important factor for creating broad based wealth is transparent, evidence based, predictable governance and a functioning legal system. It's not about low taxes or high taxes or small or big government. There are very low tax countries that work and very high tax countries that work and everything in between.

So if I was going to do non profit work, I would look into ways of creating transparency, shedding light on areas that affect many people but suffer from lack of good data. Try to connect new sources of data related to poverty and make it available to the public, to economists, social scientists and governments. Or try to make money flows visible to fight corruption or misinformation. Things like that.

[graemem]

I'm currently in India working with an NGO building software for surveying, rebuilding their website, and trying to work with a group at IIT who are building an open source GIS software.

There are plenty of NGOs who could use your skills. Governments are coming to expect computer work, GIS maps, survey data etc. This puts NGOs who are behind the times at a real disadvantage for getting funding and getting on with their projects.

There are plenty of things you could do outside your field aswell. Some research and finding some people in the know is all it would take. Have a look at Engineers without borders.

[stwe]

There are some great NGOs for hackers that do awesome stuff: e.g. the Sunlight Labs in the US, MySociety and the Open Knowledge Foundation (disclaimer: associated) in the UK. They build apps for government transparency (also international aid transparency) and participation. I believe that these are the hackers who actually make the world a better place.

[philwelch]

Families who never thought it would happen to them across the United States are finding themselves homeless. My wife is from a small town that just 15 years ago had very high employment. Today the town is rapidly turning into a miniature Detroit after the main employer of the town closed down and moved overseas. Countless numbers of children are going hungry this summer since their primary and often times only nutritious and filling daily meal is their school lunch.

The solution is to create a successful business. It doesn't matter what the business does, as long as it makes money you're guaranteed to be making a positive difference. Not only are you creating enough value somewhere in the world to make that kind of profit on your work, but you're also providing a sustainable income for yourself and all your employees.

[msutherl]

I'm of the opinion that it's hard to say that a good deed done in a dire situation is ethically superior to a good deed done in a less dire situation. Rather than address the problems of less fortunate people elsewhere in the world, I work to make my own world better.

My favorite way to justify my work is that I'm interested in making things and events that make life worth living.

While I do this, I try to minimize the extent tow which my actions are connected to the exploitation of others. When it comes to computers and other complex technologies, I try to "concentrate firepower", which means to use high-tech tools only in situations when it will have a significant effect. Otherwise I use simple tools.

[gfodor]

A good friend of mine has a startup called SmallAct whose goal is to provide software that lets non-profits better engage with their donors through social media. It is a nice cross between the types of projects traditionally attacked by your typical silicon valley startup (they're based in DC however,) but instead of using that type of technology to support rampant consumerism or sharing cat pictures it's instead focused upon indirectly helping the global problems you mention.

www.smallact.com

Also, I work for Etsy, which is providing a way for people to become more self-reliant and giving consumers a way to form a more human connection with the people they purchase goods from. We're in NYC.

www.etsy.com