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They are not poor because they lack smarts, talent, motivation, or will. They are poor because they lost the income birth lottery, born in countries where but for those lucky few with resources and connections, the chances of finding work that pays more than three dollars a day are slim to none. Even in developing countries, that’s barely enough to survive.
Solving this problem is not simply a moral imperative—it’s critical for our survival as a species. At the root of almost all the world’s worst scourges, from terrorism to domestic violence, from piracy to prostitution to poaching, are unemployment, poverty, and lack of opportunity. Erase these three culprits, and you remove the impetus for all the world’s ills except for climate change.
I’d learn that the colonial educational system in developing countries enforced a sort of inferiority complex on students. Even in the year 2000, the materials still drew from Western countries that had little bearing on life in a place like West Africa, rather than drawing from the children’s own cultures.
It was not hard to see that I had landed in America and they’d landed in Apirede by an accident of birth, and that our fates were, statistically speaking, tied tightly to this accident.
Anytime I put gas in my car, buy something made with parts, minerals, or labor from overseas, or otherwise participate in the global economic system, I’m part of it. And as a part of it, I’m therefore responsible in some way for the other people in the system.
Pogge gave legitimacy to something I’d felt in my heart but had never been able to rationalize in my head: that I had a moral duty to help people who were far away from me physically, yet victimized by a system in which I was complicit.
In his book The Hypomanic Edge, psychologist John Gartner posits the theory that the reason America produces such a high number of entrepreneurs is because so many of us are descended from immigrants. The thinking goes that anyone willing to leave behind everything they’ve ever known to build a new life in a strange, foreign country might be genetically programmed with a higher-than-average tolerance for risk. Perhaps it’s true.
We should take a page from the consumer tech industry, which uses the Net Promoter Score to measure how likely a user is to recommend a product or service to someone else. Imagine
she felt that being a Catholic meant taking action on behalf of the poor.
Domestic workers, often kept at home and frequently illiterate and unable to access education, are some of the most mistreated workers on the planet.
The impulse to give from the heart and to help people is noble and beautiful. But to make a difference—a real difference—we can’t just throw money at a cause or do what feels good for our own psyche.
The effectiveness of nonprofits shouldn’t be based on how little they spend on overhead; that keeps their benchmarks too low. No one cares how much money it takes to develop a lifesaving drug. All they care about is that the drug works, that it offers a competitive return on investment, and that it gets into the hands of those who need it.
We doled out food aid by the ton, and in the process undermined local farmers’ ability to supply their countries with affordable food.
The charity industry has become too wrapped up in making donors feel good about giving—to keep donations coming in—rather than concentrating on treating marginalized people as equals who want the same prosperity and security that we have.
A job really empowers you.”
Launching any start-up is brutally hard. Launching a nonprofit just as the country starts staggering through a financial meltdown can make you question your sanity.
There were days when I was consumed with self-doubt. What the hell was I thinking? Did I have some kind of messiah complex? Who was I to think I could actually make any kind of a dent in poverty?
I wish more leaders would go into therapy or at least executive coaching to better understand their patterns and ensure that they don’t carry bad habits into the workplace.
highly analytical, thoughtful people who had some sort of catalytic moment that made them want to quit working for The Man and spend their days serving a greater, higher purpose.
