Reddit gets a lot of flak for being a very dark corner on the Internet, but it often shows it has a big heart.

Last week, it rolled out its second annual Reddit Gifts for the Teachers, for example. It’s a gift exchange between the Reddit community and teachers across the country in need of basic supplies like pens and paper. Reddit is trying to prove that when you marry the power of the platform with the power of kindness, good things can happen, but it’s also showing how a social platform with a lean sales team can easily miss big advertising opportunities.

In four days, the platform signed up 8,000 teachers, more than three times as many as last year. It has also picked up 3,500 Redditors to send care packages, a thousand more than last year’s drive. While the numbers aren’t huge, the program could have provided an opportunity for advertisers to sponsor the drive or to match donations. But since Reddit Gifts, which is owned by Reddit yet runs fairly autonomously, doesn’t have a sales team, this becomes a missed opportunity.