philanthropy

[Erdős] once gave $1,000 to a talented high school student struggling to meet tuition for Harvard University. Ten years later that student felt ready to pay the money back, but Erdős instead insisted, “Do with the $1,000 what I did.”

Jack Murtagh, This Nomadic Eccentric Was the Most Prolific Mathematician in History, Scientific American, April 1, 2024, p. 5–6

The next best thing to learning that a social intervention succeeds is determining conclusively that it does not succeed—so that funders will seek better options rather than pouring money down the drain.

Paul Brest and Hal Harvey, Money Well Spent: A Strategic Plan for Smart Philanthropy, New York, 2008, p. 143

[I]n 1997 Americans gave a total of 154 billion to philanthropic causes, either as individuals, or through foundations, corporations, or charitable bequests. But the vast majority of that went to religious institutions, alma maters, and so on, and only a small fraction of it, two billion, went to international aid. Still, two billion sure seems like a big number, so let me note a few other figures for comparison. […] Some years back, I read on the back of a Lays potato chip bag that Americans consumed 390,000,000 pounds of Lays potato chips per year. I found that a staggering number, as it did not include all of the other brands of chips and such that Americans consume: Fritos, Tostitos, Doritos, pretzels, Corn Curls, onion rings, popcorn, and so on. So I did a quick check on the Internet. In the year 2000, Americans spent approximately 190 billion dollars on soft drinks, candy, chips, and other snack foods.

Larry S. Temkin, Thinking about the needy, justice, and international organizations, The Journal of Ethics, vol. 8, 2004, pp. 349–395, pp. 362-363