• AlternateRoute@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    1 million dollars doesn’t go that far these days, at the world scale it is almost nothing.

    You could however make a lasting difference in your community by making a scholarship, building needed facilities, or doing something else where you directly make sure the funds go where needed and can’t be used for other uses. Lets face it, if you give it to some charities 90% of it will just go to the administration.

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      One of the things that I’ve seen is that politicians can be bribed for shockingly little money. I think with a 1million dollars you could bribe one high member of congress, or 10-20 low-level politicians.

  • lettruthout@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Follow in the footsteps of Gil Cisneros

    "…is an American government official, philanthropist, and politician who served as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness in the Biden administration. He served as the U.S. representative for California’s 39th congressional district from 2019 to 2021

    “In 2010, he and his wife won a $266 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot and became philanthropists, establishing endowments for scholarships to be given to Latino students at GWU and the University of Southern California. They also founded Generation First Degree Pico Rivera, with the goal of ensuring every Latino household in Pico Rivera has at least one college graduate, and the Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros Foundation with an initial investment of $20 million to provide mentorship in education.”

  • Didros@beehaw.org
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    2 months ago

    Hire as many hitmen as I can to kill the wealthiest people. But we would have to keep doing it, and it wouldn’t dissuade anyone from hording money…so?

    • Vanth@reddthat.com
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      2 months ago

      Put 3/4 on the hit and 1/4 betting on the stock market reaction only you know is coming. Profit. Repeat.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
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      2 months ago

      Well, every time assets get split between their 3 kids, you reduce the assets accumulated in one couple.

    • mke_geek@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      So you’d choose senseless violence. Good thing you’re not getting any money.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Dedicate the $1 million to funding zoning reform efforts in your city to allow for the construction of more housing and reduce the cost of housing for everyone.

  • Joshi@aussie.zone
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    2 months ago

    I have an idee fixe that I could set up a non profit that bought homes and rented them at a price somewhere between the maintenance cost and the market price. It would make a profit and slowly expand providing more and more affordable housing. Ideally it would start with more than 1 million but doesn’t need to.

    • mke_geek@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      If you rent at cost or even a little over you’ll go broke. People won’t pay their rent and trash the places. Non-profits are finding out that they can’t even support what they’re trying to do with housing because the actual costs are more than what you think are “at cost”.

  • Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Set up a trust to invest the money, from the compounding returns, use a sustainable portion of the dividends to fund a cause you believe will help change the world. Be very explicit to the trust managers as to the long term instructions of the trust.

    With compound market returns the million dollars could be worth $40 million in 50 years and would be distributing af a sustainable 3% dividend, 1.2 million a year to a cause you believe in.

  • Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    I think spending all of it on feeding people who are starving. You could keep a lot of people alive on a million, even if it was just for long enough to give them a second chance on their own. And even if that second chance failed, then at least all of the goodness of those people would have more time to be in the world.

    • lemming934@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      I’m generally against the idea of planting as many trees as possible.

      Trees are not very good carbon sinks because they decompose and burn. Also, there are also some ecological communities where adding trees makes the land a worse carbon sink.

      Avoiding cutting down forests to build suburbs is something I can certainly get behind though.

  • blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.uk
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    2 months ago

    You might be able to buy some land, build a playground and maintain it for a few years in a deprived neighbourhood. If you have money left over, do it again somewhere else.