Apr 3 2013: Very interesting talk. The part with the example of Lawrence's son really hit home. We can't continue to let elections be bought by people/companies with the most money. It will never lead us to having the most good for the most people. But with that, I also think people need to rely less on government. A system has and is being built that majority of our citizens look to government to support them, take care of them and even clothe and feed them. If that continues those people/companies with the most money eventually own all the people. It is a tough system to break because the people receiving that aide don't want to give it up. It is almost like a drug that they can't get off of. As Lawrence said, we need to do something. I am doing something by starting www.RepaySomeday.com It is a way to get people to help and rely on and help each other instead of sitting around for relying on government help. An incident resulting from Hurricane Sandy brought it to my attention and instead of saying, it is too big to fix, I decided to try to do something. It won't change the world, yet, but hopefully it can start the change of people helping people and in a small way giving our Republic back to the people.
Mar 12 2013: I agree with Dan's case but I'm still not sure how the pie can get bigger and grow from 2% to 3% of GDP with the way things are currently done. I think everyone is aware of the causes that are out there but they simply designate a certain amount to whichever cause they believe in. I'm not sure expanding a nonprofits overhead will increase the pie too much but instead maybe shift money from one part of the pie to another.
Just as Dan mentions of looking at the nonprofit way of operating differently I also think they need to think outside the box when it comes to growing the pie. It is human nature to think of one's self interest first. It is pretty obvious when someone like Michael J Fox and Lance Amstrong are linked personally to a cause they themselves become much more involved in bringing awareness, funds, etc to that cause.
If you can tell me someone wouldn't be 100x more involved in a cause if it was them or their mother, sister or brother that is affected by it, then I will totally drop this argument. But I think that the nonprofit world needs to figure out a way for people to be more attached to a cause instead of just relying on the fact that in general people want to be helpful. For the most part by Dan's numbers it seems like people wanting to be helpful gets you about 2% of GDP.
I consider myself an overall good, caring and giving person but if I knew that I or a member of my family would have skin cancer in 5 years, you can be sure I would put just about all my time, effort, and money into working on a cure for skin cancer. It is human nature and I think nonprofits need to find a way to tap into that to increase the pie from 2% of GDP to who know what it could be.
I'd be curious to hear what others think about this.
Mar 11 2013: "Change the way we think about things" Dan Pallotta is brilliant and this is one of the best speeches I've ever heard!
Just one of the great points he made had to do with attracting top talent. Why are nonprofits and causes put at such a disadvantage? It really should be the opposite. Nonprofits and causes should be able to incentivize the best and the brightest to bring them to their causes so they can help grow them instead of some company who is just trying to sell more "stuff". Why shouldn't nonprofits and causes be able to run them as a business where the end results are for the overall benefit of the cause compared to profits for shareholders. For example, lets say a nonprofit was able to pay someone like Warren Buffet to run the finance department of their company. Wouldn't it make sense to pay Warren Buffet $10 million a year compared to paying John Doe $30,000 year? Warren Buffet could take the funds from the company and generate $500 million leaving the nonprofit with $490 million to use to benefit the cause while John Doe will generate $200k leaving $170,000. Or is that bad because a nonprofit should never pay anyone $10 million?
This speech really reaffirmed what we are doing at www.RepaySomeday.com We have the same idea only it has to deal with people doing good deeds for each other. This speech goes hand in hand with a blog I wrote, which is an exaggerated example, but makes the point of where we are trying to take things. http://www.repaysomeday.com/3/post/2013/02/how-one-pledge-changed-the-world1.html
By what he has to say I would hope Dan Pallotta would agree with what we are doing. Coming from an entrepeunuer who has also worked for a few big companies, I think it is good to make nonprofits more competitive. Or we will be all left with just a lot of "stuff"
Mar 11 2013: I have not even finished listening to this whole talk yet but I already have to say "Amazing"
Dan's views on why their is such a negative view on incentivizing charities and doing good is at the core of our movement. Our site, www.RepaySomeday.com promotes people helping others and doing good deeds and allowing those people to AT LEAST have a little bit more future security because of the good they are doing, everyone will win. What if, people who do more good are more secure because others will pledge to do more good for them? Keep that cycle moving forward and what do you have? In our eyes, a better world.
Mar 6 2013: This is so true. It is exciting working to get to the tipping point and the first followers are so important to making that happen.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
(our movement, help us get to the tipping point)
Mar 5 2013: Mike, I understand what you are saying about the tag line I use "Do Well by Doing Good" but it is not aimed at saving all of society and the problems it has. I have always said my idea is simple but it could generate some changes if a large enough amount of people join in. And really the idea is more geared toward trying to make things a little more fair. It is kind of a longer read but if you take a look at the website www.RepaySomeday.com and read the page titled "The Reason" you will understand where I'm coming from.
And very briefly, my thoughts are that most people want to do good deeds and/or help other people. But doing so, more than just doing minimal amounts, conflicts with a person's efforts to make sure they and their family are secure in the future. Besides those who live lavishly, most people concentrate on working to buy life insurance, save for retirement, kids education, etc and the basics to make sure they feel "comfortable" for the future. The idea is just as companies incentivize people to work harder and longer so those people can provide for their families, I think the concept of doing good should have the same type of incentive. My idea is in a basic form now but if you could concentrate more on doing good deeds knowing those good deeds can result in you and your family being secure in the future, than you can concentrate more on doing those good deeds. Hopefully the page on the website explains the idea and the reasoning behind it.
So overall, I think if people can concentrate more on doing good things for others, the people receiving the good deeds will be better and the people offering the deeds will be able to continue to do more. Hopefully resulting in a snowball affect of more people helping each other.
Thanks for your comments and insight.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
I agree with that wholeheartedly, and I am so glad you made that point. There is a balance we need to achieve to evolve as individuals but also contribute to the global community. I believe it starts on a small scale and over time can snowball into and have a much bigger effect on the world. That is exactly why I started the Repay Someday project. The catalyst came from a sequence of events resulting from Hurricane Sandy but the overall much bigger goal is to accomplish what you mentioned, "evolve in ourselves as individuals, AND contribute to the global community AT THE SAME TIME"
Thank you very much for your feedback and thoughts. I really appreciate hearing others thoughts and insight on this subject.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
Mar 5 2013: We could possibly eradicate poverty but that doesn't mean there won't be a lower, middle and upper class. Capitalistic incentives and self interests will most likely always result in some people having more than others. We could increase the velocity of poverty being eradicated if society used the same principles of capitalistic incentives and self interests with social causes as it does wealth creation. What if people could concentrate on eradicating poverty, even dedicate their lives to it, and know they and their family will have security in the future because of it? That would create an environment that allows different new ideas and more involvement to accomplish that goal much quicker.
Thanks for reading and your feedback.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
Mar 5 2013: Technology will be part of solving big problems but it is only a tool for it. People will always look after their own self interest which is the main reason most big problems have not been solved or even why more problems have been created. The internet itself is an amazing tool to share information and ideas but it eventually evolved into a mechanism for people and businesses to make money. Sure their are a lot of people who use technology to do good things and work to solve problems but the underlying theme has always and will always be human nature to advance for its own self interest. If that wasn't the case their would not be such a huge inequality which creates many of the world's big problems.
It does feel like society is changing course a bit and it becoming more focused on the greater good for all which in turn will help the individual (self interest). Technology is helping this movement a huge way mainly because it helps spread the message about different causes and reasons to help make things better. Generally people tend to have a "herd" mentality and as the direction of the "herd" is changed by influential people it will, over time, generally will start to move in that direction. It seems like the overall direction is starting to set a new course but it takes generations for that to happen. Technology is making that change quicker and more efficient but overall it is still the people who control which direction that is taken.
We are using a simple concept along with technology to help move things in that direction. We use technology to allow people to Do Well by Doing Good which will give people some sense of future security by doing good deeds. Incentivizing people has always worked for our economy as a whole advance with incredible strides but hasn't really been used for the advancement of good causes (causes for some reason stigmatize using incentives) . We think it is time to change that, www.RepaySomeday.com Thanks for reading!
TEDCred score: +0.50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.
A comment on Talk: Lawrence Lessig: We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim
A comment on Talk: Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong
Just as Dan mentions of looking at the nonprofit way of operating differently I also think they need to think outside the box when it comes to growing the pie. It is human nature to think of one's self interest first. It is pretty obvious when someone like Michael J Fox and Lance Amstrong are linked personally to a cause they themselves become much more involved in bringing awareness, funds, etc to that cause.
If you can tell me someone wouldn't be 100x more involved in a cause if it was them or their mother, sister or brother that is affected by it, then I will totally drop this argument. But I think that the nonprofit world needs to figure out a way for people to be more attached to a cause instead of just relying on the fact that in general people want to be helpful. For the most part by Dan's numbers it seems like people wanting to be helpful gets you about 2% of GDP.
I consider myself an overall good, caring and giving person but if I knew that I or a member of my family would have skin cancer in 5 years, you can be sure I would put just about all my time, effort, and money into working on a cure for skin cancer. It is human nature and I think nonprofits need to find a way to tap into that to increase the pie from 2% of GDP to who know what it could be.
I'd be curious to hear what others think about this.
A comment on Talk: Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong
Just one of the great points he made had to do with attracting top talent. Why are nonprofits and causes put at such a disadvantage? It really should be the opposite. Nonprofits and causes should be able to incentivize the best and the brightest to bring them to their causes so they can help grow them instead of some company who is just trying to sell more "stuff". Why shouldn't nonprofits and causes be able to run them as a business where the end results are for the overall benefit of the cause compared to profits for shareholders. For example, lets say a nonprofit was able to pay someone like Warren Buffet to run the finance department of their company. Wouldn't it make sense to pay Warren Buffet $10 million a year compared to paying John Doe $30,000 year? Warren Buffet could take the funds from the company and generate $500 million leaving the nonprofit with $490 million to use to benefit the cause while John Doe will generate $200k leaving $170,000. Or is that bad because a nonprofit should never pay anyone $10 million?
This speech really reaffirmed what we are doing at www.RepaySomeday.com We have the same idea only it has to deal with people doing good deeds for each other. This speech goes hand in hand with a blog I wrote, which is an exaggerated example, but makes the point of where we are trying to take things. http://www.repaysomeday.com/3/post/2013/02/how-one-pledge-changed-the-world1.html
By what he has to say I would hope Dan Pallotta would agree with what we are doing. Coming from an entrepeunuer who has also worked for a few big companies, I think it is good to make nonprofits more competitive. Or we will be all left with just a lot of "stuff"
A comment on Talk: Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong
Dan's views on why their is such a negative view on incentivizing charities and doing good is at the core of our movement. Our site, www.RepaySomeday.com promotes people helping others and doing good deeds and allowing those people to AT LEAST have a little bit more future security because of the good they are doing, everyone will win. What if, people who do more good are more secure because others will pledge to do more good for them? Keep that cycle moving forward and what do you have? In our eyes, a better world.
I can't wait to listen to the rest!
A comment on Talk: Derek Sivers: How to start a movement
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
(our movement, help us get to the tipping point)
A reply on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"
And very briefly, my thoughts are that most people want to do good deeds and/or help other people. But doing so, more than just doing minimal amounts, conflicts with a person's efforts to make sure they and their family are secure in the future. Besides those who live lavishly, most people concentrate on working to buy life insurance, save for retirement, kids education, etc and the basics to make sure they feel "comfortable" for the future. The idea is just as companies incentivize people to work harder and longer so those people can provide for their families, I think the concept of doing good should have the same type of incentive. My idea is in a basic form now but if you could concentrate more on doing good deeds knowing those good deeds can result in you and your family being secure in the future, than you can concentrate more on doing those good deeds. Hopefully the page on the website explains the idea and the reasoning behind it.
So overall, I think if people can concentrate more on doing good things for others, the people receiving the good deeds will be better and the people offering the deeds will be able to continue to do more. Hopefully resulting in a snowball affect of more people helping each other.
Thanks for your comments and insight.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
A reply on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"
A comment on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"
I agree with that wholeheartedly, and I am so glad you made that point. There is a balance we need to achieve to evolve as individuals but also contribute to the global community. I believe it starts on a small scale and over time can snowball into and have a much bigger effect on the world. That is exactly why I started the Repay Someday project. The catalyst came from a sequence of events resulting from Hurricane Sandy but the overall much bigger goal is to accomplish what you mentioned, "evolve in ourselves as individuals, AND contribute to the global community AT THE SAME TIME"
Thank you very much for your feedback and thoughts. I really appreciate hearing others thoughts and insight on this subject.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
A comment on Conversation: Is capitalism sustainable?
Thanks for reading and your feedback.
Dave
www.RepaySomeday.com
A comment on Conversation: "Why Can't We Solve Big Problems?"
It does feel like society is changing course a bit and it becoming more focused on the greater good for all which in turn will help the individual (self interest). Technology is helping this movement a huge way mainly because it helps spread the message about different causes and reasons to help make things better. Generally people tend to have a "herd" mentality and as the direction of the "herd" is changed by influential people it will, over time, generally will start to move in that direction. It seems like the overall direction is starting to set a new course but it takes generations for that to happen. Technology is making that change quicker and more efficient but overall it is still the people who control which direction that is taken.
We are using a simple concept along with technology to help move things in that direction. We use technology to allow people to Do Well by Doing Good which will give people some sense of future security by doing good deeds. Incentivizing people has always worked for our economy as a whole advance with incredible strides but hasn't really been used for the advancement of good causes (causes for some reason stigmatize using incentives) . We think it is time to change that, www.RepaySomeday.com Thanks for reading!