In November I started donating money to some causes I care about. For the time being I’ve donated to Wikipedia, Mozilla, Acumen Fund and the UNHCR. I don’t roll out huge checks like Bill Gates, but I am making an effort to donate a fixed amount of money every month to a different cause. I’ve donated more money during Christmas but for the time being I’m keeping it at around 30€ per month and it feels nice to support these projects. I donate to a different organization every month.

The most striking fact is that I feel like I was a passive supporter of most of these projects for a while – following them on social media and admiring their work. Yet I believe that in this day and age that isn’t enough support. I see technology developing, and the species moving towards a society where there is a multitude of communities bound by interests and beliefs instead of just geography. And as communities get closer and smaller our responsibility of supporting them and the projects we believe increases. Today, projects can be supported by just a couple dozens or hundreds of people and crowdfunding is surely helping to accomplish that.

It is like when you live in a small village and there is just one restaurant where all the social activity takes place, and you go to that restaurant often because you know that if it closes, then something valuable for the community disappears.

This need to support projects does not apply solely to charities, it also applies to publications, apps, podcasts, artists, etc.

I think it is a healthy exercise to regularly reassess how we support – through money or time – some of these projects. I still don’t support everything I’d like yet I I’m working on getting there, even if slowly.

P.S.

This post kind of inspired me to start thinking about this topic some months ago.