Please Write A Short Piece Of President Barton. Just - It Will Make A Lot Of People Feel Better. Please?

Please write a short piece of President Barton. Just - it will make a lot of people feel better. Please? (I understand if you don't, but please?)

(This is also somewhat to fulfill Mem’s request for a winter story post-election, which has been in my inbox for like a month. For reference, the rest of the “Clint Barton becomes President” AU is here: Leader Of The Free World.)

The first new snowfall in Washington DC in 2017, a few weeks after the Inauguration, brought icy road advisories, the roll out of the salt trucks, and Vice-President Steve Rogers banging on the window of newly-minted President Clint Barton’s bedroom, which was on the second floor of the Residence.

“Agh, God,” Clint mumbled, rolling over and coming face to face with Steve, wearing a jaunty knit hat and pressed up against the glass. “What is he doing?”

Maria, who had already been up for an hour (”Executing the queer agenda requires getting up earlier than the Republicans, darling”) and was putting her earrings in at the vanity, said, “I think he’s waving madly and asking if you want to build a snowman.”

Clint sat up, rubbing his bristly hair the wrong way. “HOW DID YOU GET PAST THE SECRET SERVICE?” he yelled at the glass.

“LIKE THE SECRET SERVICE WOULD STOP ME?” Steve yelled back, muffled. It was a point. The Secret Service had already given up stopping Steve doing anything.

(There is a readmore below! Read More!)

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Congratulations to @KamalaHarris who is officially the FIRST Black female Senator since 1999! #BlackGirlMagic #BlackExcellence

Hi Sam! I've been a lurker since back in the LJ days, and first off, I just wanted to thank you for all that you do. Second, in the wake of the election, I want to set up recurring donations to a few nonprofits that are doing work that I want to support and that may soon be in serious jeopardy. This is the first time in my life I'm really financially solvent enough to do much donating, though -- do you have any tips for how to evaluate which organizations are most effective?

Aw, hello longtime lurker! 

This is an ongoing debate in the NFP world, Anon, because it really is very difficult to evaluate charities even when they are transparent, and “effective” has different meanings for different people. CharityNavigator.org scores charities based on a number of factors, and these scores have been alternately praised and vilified, but they’re really the only game in town that I’m aware of (being clear: this is not actually my specialty, so there maybe others that people will want to recommend). 

I don’t recommend using CharityNavigator to find a charity, necessarily, though you can. I recommend finding a charity via other methods and then if you’re still uncertain, going to CN to vet it – to have a look at how it spends its money and how transparent it is. For example, the Salvation Army for many years has refused to provide its tax documents for evaluation. As a religious organization, they’re within their rights to do so, but the fact that they don’t is highly suspect because it means they don’t want you seeing where their money goes. Any religious charitable organization that doesn’t make its financials available is automatically super suspect in my book. 

Conversely, if you do go to CharityNavigator, please don’t fall into the trap of thinking that because a charity spends a significant amount on administrative or operational costs, it’s a bad charity – people who work in not for profit have to eat, and attracting talented fundraisers is not cheap. Obviously if that’s where 90% of the money goes it’s no good, but a decent slice of the pie chart should be paying the salary of the people who work there. 

So to find a good charity to support, I would start by asking friends and family, people you trust who share your ideals, where they give; vet their charities and see if there are any you like. (Given your motivations for offering support, I will put in a bid here for Planned Parenthood and Black Lives Matter.) You can also make a list of what your philanthropic priorities are: do you want to focus on queer youth, on rights for people of color, on support for the elderly, on political activism? Are you okay supporting religious organizations, or would you prefer secular? National or international? Think about where in specific you want your money to go.  

And you can start with Google, if you want to. You can find a lot of charities on Google by searching your interest keywords, and most of the good ones will have websites that explain clearly what they’re doing and where the money goes, who their leadership is, whether they’re religious, what projects they’re working on. If you google a specific charity you can find news articles that might talk about whether they’re effective at what they do. Be careful where the news is coming from, of course, but you’re on the internet, you probably have a decent bullshit detector. And if your alarm bells go off but you’re not sure why, listen to them – they’re warning you to dig deeper, or to move on. 

It takes work, for sure. It’s not easy. But once you’ve been to a couple of websites you start to get the hang of what to look for, and you figure out where to look to get what you want. 

And of course, make sure you save your receipts (which are sometimes in the form of thank-you letters that list the specific amount you gave) – they are tax-deductible come tax time! 

If others have helpful input, by all means comment or reblog – please don’t send an ask, I don’t repost asks sent in response to other asks. :) Thanks! 

November 9, 1989 

The fall of the Berlin Wall

Perfect. I nominate @copperbadge to inherit this task. 

(Any longer version in the works?) 

Yet another reason I’m sad Terry Pratchett is dead is because I just know that the Discworld novel he would have written in response to recent developments in Britain and the world would be fucking scathing.