Charity that does begin at home

There may be a change of heart in the pipeline for this cash-rich industry, full of overnight millionaires and nerds who rake in the cash before their products are a reality.

This is a notoriously stingy industry as far as giving money to charity is concerned. I think I have been asked once to help hand over the traditional oversized cheque from a smiling benefactor to a grinning recipient since I joined the ranks of IT hackdom.

On a local newspaper, that type of picture adorns almost every page. There are two ways to look at this. IT hasn't grown up enough to realise the power of that photo opportunity or most of the people who have made the money are too tight to give it away.

But I think things are changing. Last year saw the first IT Relief, a spin-off from Comic Relief, the brainchild of the OST managing director John Cuming. The money raising efforts, which included a mad bungee jump and lots of cross-dressing, culminated in a charity ball on Comic Relief day that raised a sizeable wad of cash. About #100,000 as I remember.

Not bad for a first attempt.

Fuelled by a huge amount of goodwill the assembled IT great and good even fumbled around in their own wallets for cash. All of the money went towards charity projects in the UK and Africa.

Let's hope the money was better used than some of the ill-fated cash from Bob Geldof's Live Aid that managed to fritter large wads on bizarre projects with no hope of success.

Now, that doesn't mean all charities throw money down the drain. But some do. So I hope the philanthropists at Computacenter who have decided to donate #50 million to charity choose their charities well. Despite the differences of scale, I can't help but compare this to Live Aid.

One could be characterised as a selfless act in the face of a huge wave of riches; the other was an ill thought out gesture in the face of impending catastrophe, and badly executed.

Philip Hulme and Peter Ogden will end up with shares and options worth about #295 million from which they will fund their #50 million donation.

Giving away #50 million is a cool thing to do. And it's not as easy as it looks.

Every weekend most of us have that discussion where we pledge to give away huge amounts of our lottery winnings to poor relatives and the Rolf Harris animal hospital. But given the big win, how many of us would actually do it? And the standard epithet, 'well they can afford it - look how much money they've got left' sounds hollow in the face of this donation.

There are other IT millionaires - how many of them have plonked huge wodges of cash into the laps of the unwashed? (And I'm not talking about resellers here). Even if you are a charity sceptic, you have to admire people with the commitment to give away that much money.