<p>I love this story.
I especially like that he left a tip in a very blue collar town where they really could use it.
Theres even a better story on a blog highlighting a single mom who gets part of the tip.
This time of year, even an extra $50 can mean alot to some families.</p>
<p>My DD said they were at Legends, a bar located on the UND campus and apparently left a $10k tip on an Amex card there too! UND held it for two months until it cleared their fraud department. The irony is they were SC fans there for the game. Nice at holiday time or any time for that matter.</p>
<p>Whilst it’s a lovely thing to do, I can’t help but feel that it might be have been more effective in doing good to give to a specific cause / charity. </p>
<p>I think that a lot of people would be helped more by having $5K to do with as they wish: pay bills and relieve financial pressure, pay tuition that could change their life, start a nest egg, buy a more reliable car to get to work in. Just as long as they don’t blow it on a widescreen TV or something stupid. But in the end, it is THEIR choice, just as it is the giver’s choice. Maybe having that empowerment instead of getting what someone else thinks they need for a change will help them in ways that are not obvious. Here’s hoping.</p>
<p>When I saw the title of this thread, I kept thinking of “tips” like, “Buy low; sell high” or “Wear clean underwear every day” or “Never leave your purse on the back of your chair in a restaurant.” </p>
<p>I like the idea of giving directly to an individual. Whenever I donate to a large charity I always wonder just how much my donation is really going to the “cause” or to a specific needy individual. When you think of the overhead that large charities have to sustain, it is more likely that my donation is going towards someone’s salary, rent or a heating bill for the facility.</p>
<p>I’m with HarvestMoon. The problem is that charities will see a big donation and then expend quite a bit of money to get you to donate more. From their perspective, spending two thousand dollars to get five thousand dollars makes complete sense: they have three thousand dollars more than they used to. But from a donor’s perspective, it’s horrible: at least 40% of his donation is used to send him letters and such.</p>
<p>(This is why I usually donate money by stuffing bills into the Salvation Army bucket. There’s no way for them to spend a bunch of money soliciting me for more money.)</p>
<p>Some charities like the Red Cross are so inefficient and have more money than is needed while they continue to solicit donations.
Why not give directly to where it is needed?
This guy doesnt have overhead for fundraising costs or interest on debt.
More power to him.</p>
Slight disagreement there: the Red Cross has more money than it “needs” before a disaster, but when a disaster hits, it needs to have resources available right then. Basically, the donations are funding the next disaster, whenever that happens and however much it costs. </p>
<p>(Also, the problem with only soliciting donations that you “need” is that people will get used to not donating to your charity, and then you suddenly can’t get the donations that you desperately need.)</p>
<p>I have been at the scene of two disasters “assisted” by the American Red Cross (not to be confused with the International Red Cross. The first was the San Francisco earthquake. The Red Cross took $20 million in donations OUT of California more than they spent, and they had to be sued by the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville to give some back. </p>
<p>The second was worse. It was after the 2004 tsunami (I was in south India at the scene of the destruction two days after it hit.) Water had been supplied by UNICEF within three hours! (they were amazing) A full week later, there were two water tanker trucks that road up and down the destroyed streets of Nagapattinam. Everyone already had water. On the back of the trucks, there was a small red cross, and the words “American Red Cross”. On the sides of the trucks in big (6’) red letters were emblazoned “Coca-Cola”. They just road up and down the broken streets for a week, until the state government banned them from leaving the grounds of the Governor’s estate.</p>