Kevin's Weblog

The death toll is now over 100,000 in Asia, and over a million people displaced from their homes. This could still rise substantially from resulting disease outbreaks. The most convenient way for many to donate money toward helping with this situation is though the Amazon Honor System, although they will only process payments up to $50. [Update: The limit might be higher than that, as the current average contribution appears to be about $60, and that page does talk about tax receipts for contributions over $250. However, I did get told that they couldn’t process my donation and the FAQ page says $50 is the limit.] If you want to contribute more than that, you need to go directly to one of the aid organizations, like:

• International Red Cross
• American Red Cross
• Doctors Without Borders

It can be difficult to decide what is the right amount of money to contribute in these situations and it is, of course, a very personal choice. For myself, the method I used was this: over the last month, I got some unexpected or unbudgetted money in the form of bonuses and stock option exercises. I took the post-tax amount from these, calculated 10% of the total, and rounded a bit, then donated that amount. For those fortunate enough to have gotten some kind of year-end bonus, I think this is a pretty reasonable sort of method.