I’ve received several inquiries about how to send gifts, or donations, or whatever they would be called, to Ethics Alarms. I was going to respond yesterday, but “Giving Tuesday” annoys me, so I put it off a day.
I’m enrolled in both Zelle and BILL, though I must say I’m unimpressed with both so far, and my bank loused up my attempts to set up Stripe. Obviously, I appreciate any expressions of appreciation: I don’t work on Ethics Alarms for money, but I have to do something for money. I know many of you have sent suggestions for monetizing the blog, but it is more important to me to have readers than to make this a profit center. I think, all things considered, EA had a good year even if I personally did not.
I also appreciate feedback, on the blog or off: my email is jamproethics@verizon.net, my phone in the office is 703-548-5229, and my address, should you be moved to engage in holiday charity (but I’m not a non-profit!) is
Jack Marshall, 2707 Westminster Place, Alexandria, VA, 22305.
Ethics Alarms 
PayPal works nicely for freely transferring small amounts of cash from one account to another and all you have to have is an email address and a bank account. I use it all the time to transfer a few dollars to and from family and friends. It’s free as long as no one is using a credit card for the dollars.
In our family, we take our tithing/charitable obligations seriously. So, yesterday I tried to make some annual donations to some worthy organizations.
My preference was to do a direct transfer from my Credit Union account to to recipient – an approach that avoided the 3% (or more) “convenience fees.” However, for a couple of the the recipients, setting up the process required me to agree to give the recipient (application) access to the balances for each of my Credit Union sub-accounts (e.g. checking, savings, CDs, etc.) and also to each of my CDs. Are you nuts!?
My response? Screw you! I made the donation via credit card (minus a ~3% fee to the recipient), but didn’t worry about giving unwarranted access to personal information to a mere financial facilitator. Online fraud is real – I have no desire to facilitate it.
A lot of the donations I make are via patreon.com, which is a service that lets content creators (bloggers, streamers, authors, etc) hook up with their fans who want to support them. I end up generally being charged once a month by patreon to my credit card, and they handle getting the money to the creators. Yes, they do take a cut, but they also are somewhat more than just a money conduit.
Most of these folks are entrepreneurs trying to make a living via streaming, writing, etc. and provide content that I appreciate or enjoy. It seems to work reasonably well for everyone.