I found myself browsing the United Nation’s website at around 1:30am and made my way to the educational section. I decided to check out the United Nations website because I downloaded a free pdf of Willam P. Sheridan’s ‘How To Think Like A Knowledge Worker’ from one of the United Nation’s websites. Not sure why I decided to read this or how I found it. I just remember thinking to myself ‘What the hell is a knowledge worker?’ So I became curious as to what it was and so far it is interesting enough for me to bookmark and continue reading later (It is 140 pages). Anyway this lead me to the United Nation’s website and on the United Nation’s website for children and educators (CyberSchoolBus) there are some interesting games you might want to check out. After clicking on Quizzes and Games I came across a couple games called Free Rice and Free Flour. Basically they are quiz games in which others are rewarded with either rice or flour (depending on the game) for each correct answer you provide. I’ll be honest and say it isn’t extremely entertaining beyond the fact you are helping others. It would be something that I could most likely create completely by myself(I might get caught up on the transfer of information from the user to the database recording the number of correct ansers). I imagine if I was younger I could play these games and learn a bit from them as well. Its really the purpose of the game that makes it interesting to me. Cool idea. Anyway, if you want to donate some spoonfuls of flower or grains of rice by testing your knowledge of vocabulary and geography check out the websites below.
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I don’t really understand these kinds of things. On the one hand, it’s great that the UN is doing this and donating rice and/or flour for correct answers, but on the other hand, they could just, you know, donate the rice and/or flour. I would expect that because it’s up on the UN website it must get a decent amount of traffic and then they donate in your name. But I have seen situations where individuals or small companies do this kind of thing and then donate one little bit at a time. My thinking is, why not just donate and stop beating around the bush? You look better for large donations anyway, and you get more tax benefits for doing so. Like the manager said in Metalocalypse, “Honestly, the more expensive this thing is, the better.” If you have a million grains of rice you’re going to donate for every hit on your site, but you don’t get a million hits, what do you do with the extra rice? Cook it for dinner? Doesn’t that just make you selfish, thereby doing the exact opposite of what you set out to do? I see this kind of thing on facebook all the time. “For every person that joins this group, I will donate 10 cents to cancer research.” Well, it’s a noble goal, but it’s bad karma. This person isn’t likely to get over 100 members, so donating $10 would actually be BETTER than the amount donated from group members. Plus, let’s not forget the fact that if membership spirals out of control, you’re pretty much donating all your money or going back on your promise to do so. I think people need to be encouraged to donate to hunger, viral research, global warming conspiracies, et al in a realistic way, not in a way that’s either all or nothing.
I bet they have a system that records how many grains of rice or spoonfuls of flour is earned monthly, annually or quarterly and then round up or down to the nearest purchasable amount. Wouldn’t make sense to sit there and actually measure these things because that is a complete waste of time.
Yea, they could simply donate as much as they possibly could to these causes but this particular method allows the average person on the Internet to become more involved in the donation process without actually having to donate any money. This is important because you must take into account where the money to purchase said flour comes from. I’ll bet it comes from sponsors. From a business perspective it can be rewarding to be involved with charity such as this. It shows peers in the business world and most importantly your current/potential customers you are involved in improving the human condition either globally or locally (depending on the charity). On top of that you get to market your product(s) to an individual that may be experiencing a higher tolerance for the consumption of advertisements. Especially the way free flour and rice uses them. One banner per page is extremely user friendly on any standard. Overall it gives the company a positive image to the public or at least helps in that regard on top of advertising their product or service to people that now know they are involved in contributing to this charity. What this means to those taking part in these games is that they are being marketed to through the game as they play it.
Additionally charitable donations are tax deductible if you are qualified to itemize your tax deductions and the charity has received a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. Keep in mind there are more rules and regulations to using donations to charity for the purpose of reducing taxes such as documentation and how much you are limited to deducting from your total income tax.
IRS Publication 526: Charitable Contributions http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf
Also IRS Form 1040 Schedule A & B : http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sab.pdf
I think charity is where it is at personally. I’m not big on government social programs but I am absolutely supportive of the existence of charity. Its a more personal way for an individual or a business to contribute to society or the community and I believe it is a lot more efficient than government spending. At first one may think that businesses and people are doing this just to reduce the amount of taxes you spend but also keep in mind they are still spending that money. Charitable donations simply allow you to redirect some of your money to causes you believe are important so they aren’t wasted by the government. If you read the news even poorly you’ll understand how much money our government wastes.
I think its a nice business model and it is also educational. on one hand i play a fun trivia quiz game, where the visitors donate for each question they answer correctly and in the other hand, the revenue share from the advertising has to be large enough in order to pay for the donations or else the model doesn’t work. i found another fun quiz called “Rescue The Market” http://www.rescuethemarket.com , for every correct answer you add a point to a virtual market which is updated live from all the other players and for question you get wrong the market drops. Great idea and fun.
i’ll guess this trivia quiz model is taking offff