It is huge that they give unrestricted grants. I've been involved in the nonprofit world a lot in the last few years, and the most surprising thing I've learned is how depressingly common restricted grants are.<p>Restricted grants are when you give money to a nonprofit to do what you want, rather than what they want. Usually this is some highly visible thing that the donor can then claim credit for. These projects are almost never what the nonprofit would have chosen to do themselves. Often they damage the nonprofit significantly. I was talking to a nonprofit a few months ago that had branches in two different cities quite far apart. I asked them why they'd chosen to expand to another city rather than expand in the city they were in. Wasn't it a distraction? They said it was, but that they'd gotten a restricted grant to open a branch in the new city.<p>The less powerful nonprofits have no choice but to take such money. And they don't dare complain about it, which is why you've never heard about this issue. Exactly the opposite, in fact: they have to issue press releases lauding the generosity of the donors. Which then perpetuates the problem, by making it seem to future donors that restricted grants are how you're supposed to do charity.<p>I don't know how Dropbox figured out that they should do unrestricted grants. It's a remarkably sophisticated insight for beginners.
A foundation with 20M$ and these ambitious goals is a gift for the society. However, it is also the typical American way of company-society interaction. The actually intended way is called "paxing taxes". Dropbox, like a good part of the US tech companies, has it's European site in Ireland, a country known for its low tax rates [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/dropbox-confirms-irish-tax-dodge/news-story/1b9ac0b9df2139eb4d42d00c4bf21969" rel="nofollow">https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...</a>
This is really great to see unconditional grants! It would be really wonderful to see this catch on as a norm for aide.<p>It seems a lot of time the specific conditions that are attached to a grant are used as a way of trying to hedge against the PR risk for a foundation/nonprofit that a grant was used improperly. I don't think empirically it's that effective of a hedge against money being used poorly anyway, organizations that will squander money will squander money.<p>It's also super exciting to see that they're offering in-kind support from employees as well. We're working in rural Kenya where the internet can be really challenging and I know that we'd be incredibly excited to work with some of Dropboxes team on sync'ing problems. My impression has been that the reliability and seamlessness of sync'ing at Dropbox has been primarily driven by some absolutely world class distributed systems talent, and it'd be phenomenal for organizations to get access to those employees/teams.
> A big part of our mission has always been helping our users achieve their missions.<p>Do these types of PR lines from companies that make productivity tools actually resonate with folks? At Dropbox’s scale, they probably materially increase economic productivity, which is great. Why push some narrative about helping aid workers achieve their mission?<p>This sort of language seems especially strange to me when announcing something that actually can make significant social impact. The juxtaposition between the Dropbox product and the work of this foundation jumps off the page.<p>Maybe it’s just me as I get older, but it seems so patronizing.<p>Anywho, this seems like a great project — great work DB, PR quibbles aside :)
> For the past 10 years, we’ve seen the impact our products can have when they free up our time to focus on work that truly matters. Medical researchers share data sets to develop vaccines. Musicians compose scores. Aid workers access and coordinate information from the field.<p>Is it just me that think this is very cringy and reminds me of <a href="https://youtu.be/J-GVd_HLlps?t=31s" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/J-GVd_HLlps?t=31s</a><p>I like that they help fund stuff but I just think the statement is kind of hilarious.
I suppose when you're not able to give an unwavering commitment to protecting your customers data, coming up with a completely unrelated corporate social responsibility plan like this makes sense.
<bus joke>You wait all day for a Foundation to come along...<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16431800" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16431800</a> </bus joke>
Open Question: What's the consensus of opinion regarding Dropbox while they still have Condoleezza Rice on the Board of Directors?<p>Personally, I want to love them. I think Drew has built up a decent company. However choosing Dr. Rice for the board, although she probably brings a lot to the table, was an unforgivable act. The creation of the foundation is laudable but feels a bit of a band-aid to solving their image problem. The choice of War Child UK just rubs more salt into the wound for me however.
So I guess they'll be sued any second now? Because people on the internet keep telling me companies can't just give away shareholders' money? /s
> The Foundation will instead offer flexible, unrestricted grants that our partners can use to meet their greatest needs.<p>When you read that and have the recent Oxfam scandal in mind, it creates some interesting pictures.<p>Btw. I don't want to criticize the decision for unrestricted grants in any way, as I don't have enough expertise in the field.