Last chance to donate to MIT and Save Darfur!
Just reminding everybody.. in the next couple of days we’ll be changing the charities we have up at our panel that you can donate to directly via your hosting bill.. currently MIT OpenCourseWare and SaveDarfur.org!
So far we’ve had 27 donations totalling $689.19 to MIT and 41 donations totalling $1694.45 to Save Darfur … we can do better!
And of course, all donations will be matched by us!
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March 29th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Wow, that’s not much when you consider the amount of DreamHost accounts there are.
March 29th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
I support MIT… but they do have a $7 Billion endowment…
http://giving.mit.edu/designating/endowment.html
March 29th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
It would be nice if you guys could make the Click through referral section of the panel work again … i am not getting any referral click updates on my account.
March 29th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Yeah, I was going to say: Somehow, I think the genocide victims in Darfur could use the money a little more than MIT. The page you linked to is kind of funny, though; MIT seems rather jealous of Harvard’s endowment, and it’s always amusing to see an institution mope about only having a mere $7 billion at its disposal.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Donate to Darfur! It’s a more critical need.
March 29th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
it’s such a relief knowing that the status blog isn’t being used for problems. for now at least!
we love you dreamhost, even when you’re broken
March 30th, 2007 at 2:11 am
I’ll consider donating.. once my servers are back up
Right now ALL of them are unreachable… tss.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:51 am
What’s the point in having an Emergency Status page when it’s not updated when servers (like Rupee) are down, and the blasted “AUTOMATED SYSTEM” claims there’s no problems on the network? It’s been 5 hours and still NOTHING.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Is this why my webmail’s down?
(I couldn’t resist.)
March 30th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Money donated to Darfur will be inadequately and inappropriately used. On the other hand, I know MIT will appropriately expend its funds, being an admittant there. OCW will expand higher education for internet-connected people in developing countries without access to the world-class institutions such as MIT; education is a higher cause than donating to Darfur warlords.
March 30th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Origin, I do not know any of the people involved with the Save Darfur program from Adam. Nor have I used the Dreamhost program to donate money.
However, I think your accusation/assumption that the money goes to “Darfur warlords” belies your claim of admittance to an august institution like MIT.
Most people who go to MIT can read for content, for instance, and don’t make backhanded claims like you just did.
The Save Darfur website clearly states that the money goes towards “media outreach and public education”. In other words, it lobbies governments and educates people, so that, oh, I don’t know, another repeat of say, the Bosnia-Croatia ethnic cleansing or the Holocaust, or the various historical persecutions of one group by another are not repeated yet again. (Weeee, I’m just biased, seeing that my own ancestors were a) Irish Catholics, and b) French Hugenots. This ethnic cleansing thing seems to have been going on for a while.)
Think. You’ve just denigrated the 200,000+ killed and millions of DPs (displaced persons) in the Sudan as being less of a “higher cause” than open courseware. And I love me some educational technology, but let’s get real.
If your retort is that you don’t want to donate for lobbying… Well, where do you think MIT got all their money for great projects like the Media Lab and OCW? Try lobbying, from friends in government to rich alumni. The money they earned for “media outreach” and sweet-talking PR firms helped persuade and promote their innovative programs.
The Save Darfur organization members include literally hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, interfaith and other organizations including the Episcopal Church, Haddassah, B’nai B’rith International and the Anti-Defamation League. No doubt those people donate to racist, divisive warlords on a regular basis and are BIG supporters. Since you got admitted to MIT, you must be the expert on whether the money is “inadequately and inappropriately used”. Though, I think the students at MIT who participate in groups such as this and this would disagree with your witty summary of Save Darfur as a group that gives money to murderous crooks.
The more pragmatic post you could have provided would have suggested an alternate way to help the people in Sudan.
April 1st, 2007 at 5:48 am
Charity begins at home.
April 1st, 2007 at 10:56 pm
I’d like to donate to getting your bloody servers working… oh wait, I ALREADY DID.
WHERE IS WEBMAIL?
April 2nd, 2007 at 9:49 am
Ok guys, nothing about this topic but…
I can’t stand it… 2 or 3 minutes to open simple pages!!!
Yes, I know that its a shared server but why dont you control the limit of clients in a shared server?
sooner or later I’ll close my account.
thanks
April 2nd, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Mark, did crying in a charity thread make you feel better? Did it speed your sites up?
Dreamhost has something called a control panel. In that panel, you will find a section for submitting support tickets to the support staff. Hmm… maybe that’s there for people to talk about charities?
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:24 am
@Mark, I have the same problem, but ah well!
Its a fair bit of dosh, but it could be higher, but then again, it could be lower!
Nice of DH to match the donation as well! 
April 4th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Why have the problems with broadway server not been listed? Anybody else on broadway having trouble with their sites connecting to databases? All of my sites connecting to databases have been down for two days now. I was told the problem was being worked on. The server was overloaded with traffic and having difficulty. Anybody else? Just so I know I’m not the only one?
-Ron
April 4th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Come on guys we can do better than that! sheesh!
April 7th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Although we should not accuse any charity without knowing some facts, I can tell you from experience that loads of donated money, in many cases over 50% (and you can check these numbers online) goes to administration and salaries etc.
I remember this particular charity that had office in 10 buildings right next to each other in one of the most expensive areas of London. I estimate that they easily spend £50 million a year on rent (discounted rate). And ridiculously high salaries of directors have been in the news all too frequently.
But apart from that I have seen for myself that charity work is often misdirected, such as here in Sri Lanka where I am currently volunteering. Like charities building stones houses, not for those that are without houses or live in mud huts, but for those that already have great stone houses?
Not to mention all those charities that enriched themselves here. Nice houses, nice cars, expensive this and that, whilst the people in need are still waiting for aid. It has been 2 years since the Tsunami? So, what happened to all that money? Corrupt people, corrupt charities, corrupt governments.. you name it.
Maybe someone can explain why after almost 50 years of giving millions to developing countries the situation has hardly improved? In some places it even got worse? Where does the money really go?
At least in Swaziland we all know it goes to the king only, look it up on the web. Hey, at least that guy is honest about it
Anyway, I am trying to setup a charity here in Sri Lanka with friends and locals. Open books visible online as soon as we can. It is hard work to get the papers from the government and even harder to find projects where help is really essential, but I am sure we will get there. And this charity will be NOT about giving people money (no bribes to government, I know you guys love me to bribe you, but sorry, NO!), it will be about improving living standards by education. Western thinking with eastern tools.
I’ll be pestering Dreamhost very soon about including the charity in their donations list
and although for legal reasons we will need to rename the charity (we cant use Sri Lanka in the name) for now we got a small site, almost static, on www.FriendsOfSrilanka.org .
Lol… this post has gone a bit out of control.. sorry
May 12th, 2007 at 7:33 am
i’ll donate to Darfur!
May 21st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
yep! donates to darfur!!
May 24th, 2007 at 1:20 am
I would, but i have no paypal…
May 24th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Isnt MIT an University ? Doesnt they get money from government ?
Or maybe its something else
June 9th, 2007 at 8:51 am
i think no..
June 18th, 2007 at 11:12 am
nope
August 27th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Holy smokes, I didn’t even realize that Dreamhost supported charities. Yet another reason to love them!
October 12th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Anyway, I am trying to setup a charity here in Sri Lanka with friends and locals. Open books visible online as soon as we can. It is hard work to get the papers from the government and even harder to find projects where help is really essential, but I am sure we will get there. And this charity will be NOT about giving people money (no bribes to government, I know you guys love me to bribe you, but sorry, NO!), it will be about improving living standards by education. Western thinking with eastern tools.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Great job done! Dreamhost is the best hosting you can find!
October 25th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
What is the donation about? Any URL that I can read. I don’t mind giving away some money if the cause is good.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:22 am
No onecan give me the url???