eh, it seems to me like more for-profit companies should put more of their marketing budget into charity. Now, I mean, not just any charity, but a charity related to their field, something that their customers care about. I mean, I know I've donated prizes to a few programming contests to good effect... and I pretty regularly see my competitors names as mirrors when I go to download open-source products.
And really, how many banner ads would it take to gain the credibility of getting on the EFF "thanks" page? (I'm not there just yet... but I do have, for example, a LOPSA member discount.)
The other advantage of taking it out of your advertising budget is that the legal status of the entity you are giving to doesn't matter. From the for-profit corp's perspective, they are buying advertising.
I mean, when I do it, at least, I don't write off the retail "value" of the thing I gave away as some sort of charitable donation; I think that's scummy, 'cause it cost me some fraction of that to provide. I give away the service, then whatever it costs to provide that service, obviously, is part of the cost of running prgmr.com and is written off against any income, just like what it costs to run the for-pay domains; except these don't have any money coming in. I'm getting good (and usually pretty cheap) advertising; I don't need to run some tax scam, too.
And really, how many banner ads would it take to gain the credibility of getting on the EFF "thanks" page? (I'm not there just yet... but I do have, for example, a LOPSA member discount.)
The other advantage of taking it out of your advertising budget is that the legal status of the entity you are giving to doesn't matter. From the for-profit corp's perspective, they are buying advertising.
I mean, when I do it, at least, I don't write off the retail "value" of the thing I gave away as some sort of charitable donation; I think that's scummy, 'cause it cost me some fraction of that to provide. I give away the service, then whatever it costs to provide that service, obviously, is part of the cost of running prgmr.com and is written off against any income, just like what it costs to run the for-pay domains; except these don't have any money coming in. I'm getting good (and usually pretty cheap) advertising; I don't need to run some tax scam, too.