Acumen Fund’s Novogratz on Charlie Rose. Fighting Poverty with Profits.
Charlie Rose was rocking today with two superb interviews that enhance and challenge our perceptions of how to think about the world’s most pressing problems of poverty and health in the developing world. [yes, I realize the global economy is part of this massive problem equation and agree that fixing it is of primary importance to developing world as well as to those of us who live higher on the hog].
Jacqueline Novogratz, a former Wall Street Banker turned Venture Capital Do-Gooder, on her book “The Blue Sweater” and her personal and business adventures using microfinance and entrepreneurial innovations. Brilliant: http://www.charlierose.com/view/content/10176
Connecting poor and wealthy to solve pressing problems in developing world: Acumen invests in innovative projects around the world, using the power of entrepreneurial capitalism to solve pressing problems of human need.
These approaches to development and poverty reduction are *so powerful* and *so effective* that it’s painful to watch how many people get bogged down fretting about issues like privitization of water and corporations as evil. We must focus on what *works*, regardless of our ideology. The best representatives of that approach are folks like Novogratz, Gates, Yunis, and many others who bring their business brilliancies to the challenges of international development.
Rose’s next guest was ethics professor Peter Singer on the ideas from his book “The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty”. Singer notes the major success of the Gates Foundation and also the fact that while most Americans tend to say they think “too much” tax money goes to international Aid yet fail to understand how small our contributions are to international development projects, and actually suggest we should send “about 5%” when the real amount is about 1%. Also makes the case that international development is actually in our own selfish best interest, but for many is not in our *perceived* self interest. http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10174
Microsoft wins on matching employee donations – way to go MS!
This in from Mercury news. Kudos to Microsoft for this level of generosity, and Google and Yahoo should do *at least* this much! C’mon Google, you of all companies owe it to the world to help your peeps give back from those fat paychecks and options!
Mercury News Item:
Company giving Microsoft boasts that it provides up to $12,000 in matching funds for employee donations to charity – far surpassing Google, Adobe, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo and eBay. It was the largest corporate giver to United Way Silicon Valley’s last campaign, with $1.2 million in employee and company matching gifts. About 60 percent of its employees donate, far surpassing the usual 20 percent of most valley companies, according to Mark Walker, president of United Way Silicon Valley.
LitLiberation
LitLiberation is a new idea about raising money for charity. Because of the “prizes” for top fundraisers I was thrown off a bit but when I saw the list of donation folks, which includes Matt Mullenweg and Marc Andressen, and saw the neat way they are having people help build schools in developing countries I thought I’d help point people to this great cause.
A bit later…. I’m really warming up to this great idea because it is connecting donors to the recipients and I think that is a key thing that has been somewhat lacking in aid, and is one of the reasons it’s hard for people to support US aid projects and other charities where you don’t generally see the results of your contributions. There is a practical reason for this – my understanding is that NGOs have to spend valuable resources arranging for visits and such. However I think connecting donors to recipients is a key part of expanding the global reach of charities.
I have not set up my own donation page but I just gave to this Vietnam “build a school” project by the founder of the LitLiberation idea, Tim Ferriss: http://www.firstgiving.com/timferriss
From LitLiberation:
…. 30-percent of rural children in developing countries aren’t enrolled in school. As one project, a group of people can choose to build a school for $17,000. When split among 10 friends, it breaks down to $1,700 each or $850 if 20 people contribute. Those involved will provide education to tens of thousands of children, have their names forever associated with the school, and also enjoy the opportunity to visit it in the future.
In conjunction with DonorsChoose.org and RoomToRead, Tim Ferriss formed LitLiberation to raise $1 million in 30 days, and in the process, help educate children around the world.
Described as a scalable education revolution, LitLiberation makes it incredibly simple for anyone to fund a specific project in developing countries or support U.S. public schools. It is the first time that anyone can, in five minutes, sign-up as a fundraiser and compete to raise money, winning world-class prizes in the process
Charity return on investment is important. Thanks World Vision!
There are a great number of groups doing a lot of good in the world, and I’m concerned that *something* in the way we process information about poverty and health needs in the developing world has made us far too skeptical of how easy it can be to save lives, and far too skeptical of the groups that are doing a good job.
This in part leads to what I’d argue is an immoral state of affairs in the charity world. Most people in the USA give far more to University, Hospital, and Museum endowments than they give to organizations serving the third world that are saving lives for a few bucks rather than simply making our already very comfortable middle class lives a *bit* better. I guess that’s OK but I’ll take the big ROI on my charity investments, thank you.
It feels very good knowing your money is actually saving lives, living because I chose to give to high ROI charities.
The simple story is that it costs very little to save lives in the developing world. Although it’s a little counterintuitive it’s also clear that reduced death rates lead to reduced birth rates and lower population. I’m floored by how poorly this is understood by otherwise intelligent people, and it seems to be the top reason people say they don’t want to give money to extremely poor people. Graft and corruption are major problems in the third world which is why you want to give to “NGOs” or “non-governmental organizations” which tend to be far more effective at making sure the money finds its way to the right people.
So, let’s apply this ROI in real life and give some money in honor of my Mother’s birthday today. I think charities like World Vision do a lot of good but also suffer from the kind of fatigue people show when presented with a lot of “dying children” information. This is unfortunate because World Vision leverages cheap and free expertise to deliver a lot per donated dollar. Here is the campaign mom likes:
Major pharmaceutical companies have recently donated over $174 million in medicines and supplies to World Vision.
But we need your help to distribute them where they’re needed most.
The medicine is Mebendazole and some others that fight worms and intestinal viruses – one of the leading killers in the developing world. World Vision has the meds but needs money to ship them. The “multiplier” in this case is 13x – ie a donation of a mere 7.7 cents delivers – literally – a dollar of medicines.
So, time to stop writing and do some good and give $770 dollars to this campaign for a health impact of just over $10,000!
| Donor Name: Joseph Hunkins |
| Donation Total: $770.00 |
| Donation Date: 27-Sep-2007 |
| Completed Date: 27-Sep-2007 |
| Payment Type: |
| Credit Card Type: |
Happy Birthday Mom!
Save the Children
Charlie Rose is hosting Cokie Roberts of ABC news and former Senator Bill First who both are working for children around the world as part of the superb efforts of “Save the Children” which is working for global health, poverty, and education for all children. Roberts is pointing out the fact that is routinely and tragically overlooked – helping reduce poverty in the developing world will *decrease* births and is thus likely to *increase* standards of living for everybody. Many fiscal conservatives fail to “do the math” on global development – an excersize that leads you to fund development efforts at very high levels rather than funding military efforts which generally have very dubious returns on the investment.
Frist, when asked why he wasn’t running for President, said he wanted to focus on his work to save children for the next few years. Bravo to him and to Save the Children for this excellent work.
American Express Members Project – finding and funding a good idea
IMPORTANT: This blog is NOT The Members Project Website. Go HERE for the official site.
The American Express Members Project is a really neat idea – members will submit and review “good deed” types of projects and American Express will fund the winning project up to 5 million. It’s so great to see that the new corporate standard is to step UP to the plate and do really good, really big things. It’s also (finally) considered very hip and cool to do good things, and that’s …. cool.
Happy Easter. Let’s solve some problems.
As well-fed comfortable primates our interests tend to turn to the superficial, but wouldn’t it be interesting if we could focus our great resources and enthusiasm on the real problems of the world, and focus attention in proportion to their impact on the globe?
This list of Global problems and potential solutions from the Copenhagen Consensus:
Challenge | Opportunity
Communicable Diseases | Scaled-up basic health services
Sanitation and Water | Community-managed water supply and sanitation
Education | Physical expansion
Malnutrition and Hunger | Improving infant and child nutrition
Malnutrition and Hunger | Investment in technology in developing country agriculture
Communicable Diseases | Control of HIV/AIDS
Communicable Diseases | Control of malaria
Malnutrition and Hunger | Reducing micro nutrient deficiencies
Subsidies and Trade Barriers | Optimistic Doha: 50% liberalization
Girl Scout Cookies are a great donation – not a bakery scandal
The Girl Scout Cookie economy is substantial. I’m still looking for data but it appears to be an economy of …. get this … about seven hundred million dollars annually. Given that they are only selling the boxes for a week or so per year I think we may want to cut GSA loose on ideas for balancing the federal budget by increasing cookie sales.
At $3-5 per box I was concerned that the cookie company might be exploiting the Girl Scouts because cookie sales to people, as economists like to say, have fairly inelastic pricing that is not really subject to market conditions. You pay what they charge and consider it a good deed. Obviously the cookies don’t cost much to produce based on market driven pricing for similar products at the supermarket.
But it appears the baker generally gets under $1 per box and the rest goes to the very good cause of GSA as I learned from this great breakdown on the Lac Baie Girl Scouts website.
Cost per box at this council: 3.50
Cookie Company–85¢
Troop–48¢ – 65¢
-day and overnight trips
-service projects
-camping events
-special programs and activities
Incentives–22¢
Support Services to all Troops/Girls–$1.87
-Financial assistance for girls
-Subsidize council sponsored program events and activities
-Adult volunteer and older girl trainings
-Outdoor education, camping and programs
-Maintenance of two camps and a program center
-Membership publications
-Travel opportunities for girls and adults
I also learned that each council sets their price and negotiates independently with the baker. Not sure why though. Here in Southern Oregon $4 gets you a box.
Therefore – you can feel comfortable buying more Girl Scout Cookies!
Disclaimer: We have a scout in the house
Google + Kiosks = Coolness!
Wow, I sure hope the rumors about a Google Kiosk project are true. I like Google and I like Kiosks. Here in Oregon I was involved in computer kiosks for over ten years. Back in 1990 I managed one of the USA’s earliest multimedia projects using IBM Infowindow Touch monitors, computers, and laserdisc players. That was a US Forest Service partnership with my former employer the Southern Oregon Visitors Association, and we had 30 units in tourism places all over Southern Oregon.
This project led to a new project I designed and deployed as part of a SOVA, State, and National Scenic Byways partnership that put internet connected units in about 15 places. The internet solved many of the problems with the early kiosk project such as real time information availability, though it brought a host of new problems with rural connectivity issues and eventually a lack of enthusiasm for a complicated, grant driven project.
Could Google bring the necessary ingredients to make Kiosks commercially viable? I think they could by deploying broadly and with enough of an advertising footprint to interest national players who would appreciate being both in the programs and on the sides of the cabinets.
Good luck Google, I’ll always root for touch computer kiosks!
Related link – HUGE touchscreen with mapping demo – fantastic!
There’s still time to give to a charity for 2006!
The Kim Family Search Discussion continues here and approaches 4000 comments!
I just learned that one of the charity causes I support has matching funds that might expire unused. It’s called Blessing Hands and helps fund school for poor kids in China. Here’s the form to donate this year and get your donation effectively doubled, adding to the already great charity ROI projects like this attain by helping those in really poor countries.
Another great charity is KIVA at Kiva.org these are actual *loans* rather than money you simply give. I’d heard of KIVA but only decided to get involved when Adam Lasnik showcased a project on his blog that looked great. Thanks Adam!
Lastly consider NetAid.org which works to alleviate extreme poverty in 3rd world, mostly through water, health, and education projects. Here also you get to pick the type of project to support and learn a lot about the situation.
Why am I not listing US Charities here? I do believe in supporting your local neighborhood, schools, city, and local charities for the obvious reasons. However as a business guy I really believe that you should also look to the places where you get a very high return on investment whether it’s running your business or helping out other people.
Here in the great USA we have a lot more disposable income and affluence than in most other areas, so it’s easy and painless to have a huge impact on the lives of those in the third world by making even modest donations. It’s neat to know that your money has maximum impact in places where even a hundred dollars can wind up saving a child’s life.
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