Media vs. The Whiz Kid

I'm in Vancouver this week and going to the Northern Voice blogging conference at UBC. While going through their site I clicked through on one blogger's name to get a feel for attendees.

THE WHIZ KID
Tom Williams was the youngest employee at Microsoft (14) and the CEO of Give Meaning - an organization that provides free web hosting for cause-related fundraising pages. After reading Williams' blog, The $5 Philanthropist, it seems the Vancouver Sun's David Baines has published a very negative four part series on Williams and I'm not completely sure why.

CANADIAN MUCKRAKING: The Articles

Giving Sounds Good
Carefully Cultivated Image Masks Money Woes
'Whiz kid' tale runs up against some hard numbers
Taxpayers end up funding circles of money

Basically it appears David Baines dislikes the idea of Give Meaning because:

There were high administrative fees for year one on undesignated donations (In the past, many orgs including the United Way have charged up to 25% on undesignated funds);

Williams showed little respect for media as a cocky and affluent teen;

Williams pays himself a $90,000 per year salary (The CEO of United Way King County makes $230,464); and,

Like any donation, the Federal government is affording a percentage of a tax receipt on these donations.

WHAT I WANT TO BELIEVE
Like in any community, tech boasts both jerks and upstanding citizens. I have no idea what the circumstances are between the Vancouver Sun and Give Meaning, but the narrative I want to believe is that Tom Williams is a decent human being who has chosen to use his place of privilege for good - and he doesn't have to. I'm living in the second dot com bubble right this second and I know for a fact that Williams could easily negotiate $90,000 a year at another company plus stock options, free meals, a gym membership, an education subsidy, a noon clock-in time and medical benefits for his family. But he chooses to stay in Vancouver, where the cost of living is just as high, where government grants are the only remotely dependable funding for NGO's and where one media outlet reports to the entire country. I want to believe he is trying to help Canadians get the resources they need rather than defrauding individual donors.

PLAYER HATERS
You're never going to make everyone happy. I wrote an article about the laptop project a few months ago and a reader emailed to say that health care is more important than laptops. This may be true, but I find it irrelevant. The guys at the MIT media labs are not doctors or even grassroots activists so I don't really see how a privately-funded venture with an altruistic mission can be faulted for not being health care. They're trying. Give Meaning is a great story not because it is the perfect organization, but because a couple of guys who have every privilege in the world seem to be trying. To cut them down without offering an alternative model of support is really just a call for no support at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but with all good intentions, I'm trying as well.

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Media vs. The Whiz Kid

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