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by pjc50 122 days ago
This sounds like a strange set of examples that may have been scams from the start. Can you name them?

The UK is full of long lasting charitable foundations. Many attached to schools and universities, but the highest profile example is probably the National Trust and its collection of historic buildings.
1 comments
toyg 121 days ago
A lot of those charities are precisely in the process of being "cracked open", or have been captured by small groups who manage them as their personal fiefdom. The level of everyday corruption in this country is incredible.
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pjc50 121 days ago
> captured by small groups who manage them as their personal fiefdom

Isn't that intrinsic to what a charity is? They don't have customers, they're not trusts set up on behalf of someone else specific, they're a tax exemption with an ideological mission.

(still short on named examples in this subthread)

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some_random 121 days ago
The key there is "ideological mission", which is immediately abandoned in all but name in favor of slinging money around the non-profit industrial complex.

Edit: A great example that comes to mind for me is Wikimedia. They beg for money every year telling you that it's to keep Wikipedia running, but not only do they have enough money to keep running for years, not only is running Wikipedia not their main expense, but they redonate some of that money to other nonprofits. Even if you agree with the missions of those other nonprofits (which are not in line at all with the mission of Wikimedia), you're trusting that an organization that already lied to you about where the money is going is making good choices with that money.

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toyg 120 days ago
> (still short on named examples in this subthread)

UK libel laws are no joke here, and coupled with the abandonment of basically any public subsidy for legal expenses of normal people, it means most people (me included) are not going to name names.

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embedding-shape 121 days ago
> The level of everyday corruption in this country is incredible.

Sounds like the solution is to stop trying to make something like that work in an environment (country) which sounds setup to prevent those sort of efforts. There are lots of countries out there, some are surely a better fit.

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pjc50 121 days ago
It's pretty hard to move the National Trust for England preserving England's historic buildings to a different country. Sometimes things are local.
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