DoSomething.org’s CTO George Weiner announces that DoSomething.org will not enter any online crowdsourced philanthropy competition that has not been responsibly built and undergone a third party security evaluation. Weiner also calls for the designers of these competitions to even the playing field and adhere to responsible architecture standards.
Al Davis, the owner of 1970s Raiders was willing to do anything and everything to win. He (allegedly) bugged the visiting team’s locker room, watered the field to slow faster teams down, spied by helicopter, and used dirty pile tactics. The Raiders dirty reputation inspired Glenn Dickey to write Just Win, Baby, a book dedicated to Al Davis’ approach to the game.
“If you ain’t cheatin’, then you ain’t tryin’ ” still rings true in football today. Coaches still cover their mouths with their playbooks when talking for fear of lip readers on the other team and any player not on steroids is at a disadvantage. A little bendiness is apparently part of the unwritten rules of the game.
Different Rules: Crowdsourced Philanthropy Cheating
This article is not about football. Replace “football” with “crowdsourced philanthropy”. Crowdsourced philanthropy is the buzzword for an online voting competition that determines the distribution of grant money to good causes. Currently these competitions only comprise about 1 percent of United States philanthropic dollars, but this number continues to grow as more companies, such as Pepsi, Kohls, American Express, Best Buy, and J.P. Morgan Chase, join the game.
