Quote from: julz on October 03, 2012, 04:23:05 AM

Today I received this response from adainitiative.org, regarding my query as to whether they would accept Bitcoin donations:

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Thanks so much for your interest in supporting the Ada Initiative. We've
had a couple of donors interested in donating via Bitcoin but for the
foreseeable future the legal and tax overhead of Bitcoin donations is too
high for us. We've added information to our FAQ:
http://donate.adainitiative.org/donation-faq/#bitcoin

Notice in the FAQ - they cite EFF's stance:

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Do you accept donations in Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a online payment system and digital currency. Some donors have expressed interest in donating in Bitcoin, but we have decided not to accept Bitcoin donations for the foreseeable future. The legal and tax issues surrounding a non-profit accepting and spending Bitcoins remain unclear and therefore the overhead of accepting Bitcoin donations and spending them on our programs would be very high. In 2011, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) made a similar decision for similar reasons.

It's one thing for the EFF not to accept Bitcoin for it's own reasons specific to legal advocacy - but from the above, we see that their about-face and public statements continue to damage Bitcoin's reputation in the non-profit sphere.

From earlier this year: ( http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/effs-own-chilling-breeze.html )

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When the founders of Humble Bundle were approached they replied:
"Hey there, we have talked with the EFF and an attorney about this and it is very complicated to say the least. The stakes are very high and there are some extremely serious unknowns about using Bitcoins. While the concept is great, we are not prepared to be its first major test case, after listening to the advice weve been given."

also:

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A statement from someone at Kiva.org (a technical person, not a legal rep) was particularly illustrative of the chilling effect:
"We talked to some fellow non-profits, and the lawyer from one particular organization gave us some strong reasons to not move forward. We then talked some with our lawyer, who cautioned against doing anything that could distract from Kivas core mission by bringing about controversy."

I'm not completely certain - but pretty sure the 'particular organization' referred to above is the EFF.

So... is it any wonder the bitcoin100.org project (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52543) has struggled to find recipients for Bitcoin charity?

The EFF is an asset to the online community - but their stance here from 2011 (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/eff-and-bitcoin) seems to be an ongoing impediment to Bitcoin adoption amongst non-profits.
Does anyone have any inside contacts at the EFF to see if they're ready to revisit their public position - and just as importantly, the obvious behind the scenes advice they have been giving to 'steer clear' of Bitcoin?

Donations would probably best be spent on things that will solidify the bitcoin network.