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Liam McHara

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Hi there!

I am currently working on the ideation phase of a Spanish donation platform to support highly effective charities ( somewhat along the lines of RC Forward). This is a relatively young idea so any feedback is highly appreciated!

I like rollerblading. I love cats.

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4

What would you desire in an EA dating site?
Answer by Liam McHara6
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I'll answer with some technical recommendations, as I'm not personally interested in a dating app (I love the name, though👍).

I'd suggest staying away from easy-site-builders like Wix or Wordpress. These could seem very attractive to not-yet web developers and maybe you could build some kind of (really) minimal prototype in no time, but on the long run you will most probably be missing some crucial features you need. 

I might be wrong, because I've just used those tools (Wix and Wordpress) very rarely. But in my short experience, it's like building with Lego: you can build anything... as long as the pieces you need actually exists. And you'll never be able to build a Lego sphere (again, I might be wrong with this methafor. It's been some years since the last time I played Lego).

What I'd recommend is building your MVP using:

That approach will require coding, and if you don't know how to code (and don't plan to learn) you might need to seek help from someone who is. Otherwise, reading your "I am not a web developer (yet)", I suposse you might either already have some coding experience on a different field or feel confident to be able to learn whatever skills you need. In either case, if I was to recommend you a learning path it'll be something like:

  1. Learn HTML5 and CSS. Just the basis. You don't need to be a pro to start creating something. You can go through the free tutorials at W3Schools.
  2. Learn Javascript. At W3Schools you'll find high quality tutorials too.
  3. Choose a framework and learn the basics. My personal favourite is Vue, but I don't have any reason to recommend it to you. Have a look, try and, when you've chosen one, learn to use it. There are so many talented people sharing their knowledge on Youtube, so I'm sure you can learn the basics there.
  4. Atlas or Firebase? Not sure what'll be best for your application. I might go for Firebase for a quick prototype, as it can easily handle all the autethication stuff, wich seems to be crutial with the kind of app you're planning to build.
  5. Play. Try to use all of these newly learned skills and mix them together. Start by something simple and stupid, so you can easily spot the bugs. Keep playing building increasingly less-simple  stuff (even if it's still stupid). Try combining things you've learn in interesting ways.

At some point, you might feel confident enought to start building the first prototype of your app from scratch.

I based these recommendations on my personal experience as a solo developer for the last few years. Being self-taught I might be missing some important points.

Courage!

 

Disclaimer: When I say stupid I don't mean to scorn. I just mean you don't need to build anything useful while learning. It's much more important you're having fun. Its usefulness lies in the fact that it helps you to learn.

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You Should Write a Forum Bio
Liam McHara3
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Thank you for writting this guide Aaron!

My short bio is written. I'd love to update it with more details once I feel more comfortable with the forum :)

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Open Thread: Spring 2022
Liam McHara1
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Hey Lorezo, thank you for your reply!

What a pitty that only Animal Ethics and Oxfam are the only tax-deductible listed charitities in Spain :/

Lately I have been seriously thinking about starting a Spanish platform like RC Forward. I may write a post soon about that idea, asking for the community's feedback.

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Open Thread: Spring 2022
Liam McHara7
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Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I started my research on how to donate cost-effectively. That journey led me to GiveWell, TheLifeYouCanSave, Animal Charity Evaluators  and, eventually, to the EA Community. I am so grateful for all the valuable resources, tools and concepts I could find thanks to the effective altruism movement. This has allowed me to start refining my mindset to maximise the positive impact, not only of my donations, but all my actions.

However, I have not found any way to donate tax-efficiently from my country (Spain). The charities I want to donate to are not among the 5 supported by Ayuda Efectiva, and neither among those listed in Transnational Giving ( I've seen that Transnational Giving has a process to donate to unlisted charities, but it is very complicated). Anyway, I have decided to donate directly to those charities.

Still, for upcoming donations, I'd like to know if you are aware of any other options to donate tax-efficiently from Spain that I haven't considered. 

Something like a Spanish RC Forward would be great, wouldn't it? I think it would be a good idea to create a similar platform/tool for Spanish donors. What are your thoughts about that?

Feel free to contact me! :)

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