# Giving Back, 2023 edition


- Date: 06-Apr-2023
- Author: Prateek Rungta
- Tags: Miranj, Social Impact
- URL: https://miranj.in/blog/2023/giving-back-2023


It was probably sometime in the late 2000s that I first came across the idea of an organisation pledging to donate a percentage of their profits to charity. I cannot recall exactly where I first read about this practise but it was probably on one of the early web 2.0 [ gang](http://simplebits.com/) [members'](http://cameronmoll.com/) projects. The idea seemed so novel at the time, yet also felt right, and I made a mental note to do the same <del>if I ever</del> when I ran my own shop.

Fast forward a few years, I _was_ co-running my own shop, booking some profits, making an odd donation or two, but not really following the principle that had inspired me back then. 

That finally changed in 2020. A lot of things got upended in that *First Year of Covid™*, but new practises also emerged as a result. We deliberated, sought opinions from the team, and [put in place a process to make annual donations][1] to three types of causes. Our pool is split three ways between:

1. Issues that impact _our work_.
2. Issues that impact _our industry_.
3. Issues that impact _our society_.

[1]:https://miranj.in/blog/2022/2020-21-in-review#giving-back

This is the fourth time we’re following through and giving back a percentage of our profits. This year we donated to:

- [Prettier](https://prettier.io/), for keeping our code consistent and saving countless trivial formatting and style-guide reviews.
- [Electronic Frontier Foundation](https://www.eff.org/), for continuing to fight for digital rights.
- [Wikipedia](https://wikimediafoundation.org/support/), for documenting so much of the universe, and showing the best of the power of the web.

Just like the first three times[^1], we are talking about this publicly in the hope that it encourages others, like it once encouraged us. Please join our efforts by amplifying the contributions to these organisations and projects.

[^1]:
    Past recipients include:
    
    - _Our work_ - [Gulp](https://gulpjs.com/), [Mercurial](https://sfconservancy.org/projects/current/), and [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/)
    - _Our industry_ - [The Internet Archive](https://archive.org/), [Mozilla](https://donate.mozilla.org/en-IN/), [SFLC](https://sflc.in/), and [Internet Freedom Foundation](https://internetfreedom.in/)
    - _Our society_ - [Goonj](https://goonj.org/), [AltNews](https://www.altnews.in/donate/), [Magic Bus](https://www.magicbus.org/), and [Médecins Sans Frontières](https://www.msf.org/india).