Child's Play Approaches Half a Million Dollars

SecureTheNet writes "Created by Penny Arcade, the Child's Play Charity gives all toy and monetary donations directly to hospitals for distribution to sick kids. There are NO administration fees taken. As the holidays approach, the donations are approaching half a million dollars!"

Courtesy Link

[Skald]

As a token of gratitude for such fine charitable work, I think it'd be nice to put a link to Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] itself in the story. :-)

Could this be free (as in beer) charity?

[postbigbang]

No load charity is a wonderful thing. The current model of huge organizations with powerful overheads taxes donations. If you consider the actions of the administrators of charity, they're much like a program in numerous ways. I'm not saying that eliminating administration can be perfected (you need audits, and program adjustments along the way), but a higher efficiency model would be welcomed. Bureaucracies tend to grow until they suck away the intent of charitable organizations. Some are far more efficient than others.... but in a future world perhaps more of contributions gets to the need, rather than the machine that services the need.

Re:FUCK GAMES FOR CHARITY, FEED A STARVING AFRICAN

[Anonymous Coward]

And why shouldn't they if our country and culture has the ability, but not the will, to alleviate the gross disparity in world living conditions? If you eat gluttonously before a starving man, with full knowledge of condition, would you not expect him to anger?

Re:That is great..

[tehwebguy]

why on earth would they give any of the money they raised for their charity to another charity?

if someone wants to donate money that will help give kids video games who otherwise couldn't afford them (i don't know the ins and outs of their charity) they can donate through PA.

if they want to donate money that will help a different cause, they can go through that other cause. people want to know where their money is going when they donate it.

Paypal

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a lot of the donations come in via PayPal, so the article isn't quite accurate: There are no administration fees except what PayPal skims off each transaction.

Re:Could this be free (as in beer) charity?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't really no administration cost charity. There is an unrecorded contribution of professional services by Penny Arcade; the administration and overhead is not without cost, but Penny Arcade is contributing those services which do, strictly speaking (by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) have a monetary value and should be recorded as income and as expense.

You as a contributor may not care as long as you know that 100% of your contribution is going for the program's purpose.

Many (though not all) charities do not spend enough in some areas of administration to become optimally efficient. There is still no such thing as a free lunch, even for charities. It is not rare for a charity to get money restricted for programs and get too little money for the good administration required to run and monitor those programs well.

Re:Paypal

[Lord Bitman]

Considering that donations go directly to hospitals, you could also say that it puts an extra burden on the hospital workers themselves. Last year PA tried to do all they could to help organize the huge flow of donations that came in, this year each hospital has to do it themselves. I'm not saying this is entirely a bad thing, but there is after all a reason "administrative fees" exist: that labor has to come from somewhere. Now, people living full-time off the mere organization of supposed "charity" work is one thing, but bringing a couple people in to move boxes around so that the people you're donating to don't have to do extra non-sick-children work, that's worth a bit of an administration fee.

Re:That is great..

[grylnsmn]

You know, that's quite a condescending attitude to take. Yes, there are many different kinds of charities out there, but you shouldn't be insisting that one charity give up its proceeds to another type of charity, just because you think that the other charity is a better choice. All of those kinds of charities fill specific needs.

Is the Make a Wish Foundation [wish.org] not a worthy cause because they focus their efforts on bringing cheer to the lives of children with cancer? They bring in millions of dollars a year for much the same purpose as Child's Play. Should they instead be giving their proceeds to The American Institute for Cancer Research [aicr.org]?

The charities that provide fresh water to villages in Africa, or help provide vaccines to third-world countries are needed, as are the ones that provide funds for research. At the same time, the charities that focus on bringing a little joy into the lives of those who are suffering are also needed.

Re:Paypal

[grommit]

You can (and many people have) volunteer to help the individual hospitals deal with the deliveries. Also, children's hospitals are very used to getting large quantities of toys delivered since there are quite a few charities that do this sort of thing.

just suprised

[fonephux]

Doesn't seem like to many of you have a very positive attitude about this.. I think its awsome.. they did a wonderful job their first year and I believe this is their 3rd year doing it. just so you know there is a team of people who manage the childs play charity, not just one person lol. Its definately a worthy cause, and there are certainly thousands of other charities who are also worthy of your dollar. But theres certainly no reason to knock them for doing something that will really cheer some of these kids up for what might be their last xmas...

Re:Well

[heinousjay]

It's a shame, really. We have the charity to help sick children, but there's no foundation I can fund to give you your missing sense of humor back.

Won't someone think of the humorless jackasses?

Re:That is great..

[NFNNMIDATA]

You have missed the point of this charity. This is not about saving lives, never will be. This was started on 2 premises: (1) kids in the hospital have huge amounts of time to spend doing nothing, it's boring and scary at the same time, and (2) this is a huge fuck-you to the media/politicians who always seem to get behind the "gamers are bad people" stories.

Anyway, from my perspective this is an awesome charity because it's all about raising the quality of life for these sick kids - and you get to pick out the exact items you want to buy for them on amazon.

Re:FUCK GAMES FOR CHARITY, FEED A STARVING AFRICAN

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

How many starving Africans have you fed?

Not all charity has to go to people close to death halfway across the world. Everyone has needs. Everyone can use donations to make their life easier. If you saw a dollar bill on the ground, would you pick it up and put it in your wallet, or pick it up and mail it to the Red Cross?

Re:Courtesy Link

[bedessen]

This will be a great help for all the slashdot readers that are not already familiar with Penny Arcade.... all three of them.