Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/damnload/an-informal-experiment/

In England in 1765, John Newbery published a children’s book that would go on to become tremendously popular in the English-speaking world. In the book, the character Margery Meanwell is a poor but virtuous orphan girl with only one shoe, too poor to own a pair. When a rich gentleman intercedes with a complete pair, she is sufficiently ecstatic that she informs anyone who will listen that she owns two shoes. This is the story that popularized the phrase “goody two-shoes.”

Historically, we at Damn Interesting have dedicated a portion of all of our proceeds to a worthy third-party cause. This is our way of helping to chip away at injustice and suffering in the world, with the side benefit of making us feel lofty and goody-two-shod. We intend to carry on with this tradition, but starting in February of 2017, the recipient of the proceeds will change more frequently, as often as once per month (though not necessarily that often).

We’ve always tried to do our part to make the world a bit less terrible, and we hope that this experiment will improve our ability to do so. It gives us an opportunity to directly support worthy causes, as well as offering indirect support by drawing attention to worthwhile work. We know that the axe-grinders are sure to materialize, but we hope that the lovers love more than the haters hate.

Our current recipient is:

[current_donee]

If you have an organization to suggest as a future recipient, you may use the form linked at the bottom of this page. Our selection criteria exclude religious or partisan organizations, and instead adhere to our ongoing focus on science, education, human rights, and worldwide health. We’ll vet every suggestion before giving, as we’re sure we’ll see some suggestions to support cranks and frauds. Probably too frequently. Yes, that sentence was 100% adverbs. This sentence no verb.

If you wish to be informed when we select a new recipient, simply follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.

Past Recipients

[past_donees]

Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/damnload/an-informal-experiment/

Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?