Give Us Your Money So We Can Save You Less Money
You are about to voluntarily spend money on an organization whose entire mission is to prevent you from spending money. Please take a moment to appreciate this.
The CSTACE Donation Paradox
Here's how it works: you give us money. We use your money to fight a school tax. If we win, you save $1,664 per year. But you just gave us money. So you saved... less than $1,664. Possibly much less. In some cases, nothing at all. In some cases, you spent more than the tax would have cost you.
We are, in essence, a middleman between you and your own money. You give us dollars so that we can prevent a government from asking you for slightly fewer dollars. The net effect is that you have fewer dollars either way ā the only question is whether those dollars went to children's education or to our political consultants. We think the choice is clear.
If this sounds like a bad deal, that's because you're doing the kind of math we specifically asked you not to do. Please refer to our Outrage Calculator and focus on the large, scary number. Not the one we're about to ask you for.
š° The Donation Math (Please Don't Do This)
Note: This analysis assumes we win. If we lose, your net return is -$345 and a child learned to read. We consider this a worst-case scenario.
Donation Tiers
Choose the amount of money you'd like to spend to save money. Each tier includes an estimate of how long it will take for your "savings" to offset your donation ā assuming we actually defeat the tax, which is not guaranteed, and assuming you don't donate again next year, which you will.
$50
Funds one "Sneak-E Tax" text blast to 500 voters who will immediately delete it.
Donate $50ROI: Reasonable, if you ignore what schools do.
$250
Funds a Marin IJ op-ed placement explaining why $4.56/day is catastrophic ā from someone whose kitchen cost $180,000.
Donate $250ROI: Questionable. That's nearly two months of the tax you hate.
$1,000
Funds a full digital ad campaign with alarming red text and numbers stripped of all context.
Donate $1,000ROI: You just spent 60% of the tax to fight the tax.
$5,000
You have now donated three times more than the annual school tax you're fighting. Your name will be engraved on a plaque at the next playground we burn. You will receive a personalized thank-you letter from MeMe Grimsworth, printed on stationery that cost more than a teacher's daily wage. You will be invited to a private dinner at MeMe's $3.2M Tiburon home, where you can look out at the Bay and reflect on the $5,000 you just spent to save $1,664.
Donate $5,000ROI: You could have just paid the tax for three years and come out even. But then a child might have learned something, and we can't have that.
Where Your Money Actually Goes
Political consultants ($15,000ā$25,000): These are the professionals who came up with "Sneak-E Tax" and "Tax Tsunami." They are very good at making small numbers sound large. They charge large numbers for this service. The irony is noted but not discussed.
Campaign materials ($10,000ā$20,000): Yard signs, mailers, and digital ads that present $1,664/year as an existential crisis. The design budget alone exceeds what many Marin families spend on school supplies. The signs are printed on premium corrugated plastic because we believe in quality ā for our signs, if not for our schools.
"Nonpartisan" webinars ($5,000ā$8,000): Forums where our all-white, all-Republican board presents "both sides" of whether children deserve education. Moderated by a newspaper columnist who publishes our talking points in his column. Production costs include MeMe Grimsworth's ring light.
Legal fees ($5,000ā$15,000): Attorneys who scrutinize ballot language for procedural defects. Last year, Buckley Ashford-Pennington IV delayed a school bond election by four months over a dispute about hyphenation. Billable hours: 47. Children affected: 12,000. Hyphens disputed: 1.
š The Big Picture
You spent $800 and disrupted 12,000 children's education so that you could save half a latte per day. This is what we call a sensible use of your money.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: If I donate $250 to fight a $1,664 tax, haven't I already spent 15% of what I'm trying to save?
A: Please stop doing math. We've asked you several times now.
Q: Wouldn't it be cheaper to just... pay the tax?
A: In strictly numerical terms, yes. But you're not accounting for the emotional return on investment. The satisfaction of knowing that a school district somewhere is struggling to retain a reading specialist because you donated $250 to a political campaign ā that's priceless. Or rather, it costs $250.
Q: Is my donation tax-deductible?
A: Yes! Our 501(c)(3) Foundation arm means your donation to fight taxes is itself a tax deduction. You are deducting the cost of fighting deductions. We are aware of how this sounds. We've chosen not to think about it.
Q: What if you lose and the tax passes anyway?
A: Then your donation has purchased nothing except the knowledge that you tried to prevent children from receiving educational resources and failed. We will send you a lovely tote bag.
Q: I just want to pay less in taxes. Is there a simpler way?
A: You could move. Alternatively, you could support school funding, which improves school quality, which increases property values, which increases your home's equity by far more than $1,664/year. But that involves subtraction and multiplication, and as we've established, we only do addition here.
Still Want to Donate?
We admire your commitment to spending money to save less money. Truly, you are our kind of fiscal thinker.
šø Give Us Your Money šøSuggested amount: whatever the school tax would have cost you, plus a little extra for the irony.
This is a parody. No donations are collected. If you have money to spare and care about your community, please donate to your local schools ā they need it more than we do, because we made sure of that.