This is a time of year of traditions and celebrations — and we have a tradition at Stack Exchange where we set this time aside each year to give back to the groups and organizations that need our help. Each year, we reach out to our moderators and offer to make a $100 donation to charity on behalf of each moderator for their Stack Exchange community. It's just a small gesture of thanks for the tremendous amount of work every community has contributed to make this entire thing possible.
This "giving back" program actually goes waaay back to the beginning when we started with only 18 moderators and three sites. As our ranks grew, so did the donations. So on behalf of the 375 moderators this year, we have made the following donations to charity:
It is also important to remember and support the tools and organizations that make what we do possible, so we also made the following donations:
- HAProxy — $1,000.00
- jQuery Foundation — $1,000.00
- Linux Foundation — $1,000.00
- OpenSTV, the voting engine that drives our elections — $1,000.00
In addition, we continue to be a MathJax Partner with a donation of $20,000 in our commitment to helping math and science communities on the web.
As we approach 2014, I think a lot about what we have built here together. I think about the fact that this is all made possible by people who DONATE their time and GIVE freely their knowledge to benefit future readers who come here seeking help. It's your contributions here that make all this possible. It's what keeps the lights on and the wheels turning… and what makes this small gesture of giving back possible.
I take a lot of pride in what we do — and you should, too. This giving back program is just one of the many things we as a community do that is easy to feel pretty good about. It makes me delighted to be a part of this organization and part of a community that works so hard to help people they will probably never meet.
Take care, and see you in 2014!
