Some people argue that we should not allow nonprofits to pay people the same kind of money that “greedy” corporations pay people because more money does not buy you more talent and does not incentivize people to produce more. To this I say, you cannot simultaneously argue that corporations are greedy profit-seekers AND that the profit they forego by paying higher salaries is wasted. Either they do not care about profits, or the profits they forgo by paying people higher salaries buys them more value.

Hi All,

Please go to the comments section on my TED talk and add your voice, thoughts  and experience.

In just 20 hours online this talk on the need to change the way we think about charity has been viewed by 166,000 people. That’s more than five people for second. More than all the people I’ve given speeches to in the last four years! This is a chance unlike any other for us to change minds. We must seize this moment.

If you look at the comments section, there are a lot of traditionalists who have simply ignored the talk and are  preaching stale, cynical rhetoric about how nonprofits waste money, people in nonprofits shouldn’t make money, telling stories about charities they’ve heard of that are committing fraud, etc. And our voice is not there in near the strength it ought to be offering a rebuttal.

WE CAN NO LONGER CONTINUE TAKING PUNCHES TO THE FACE LIKE THIS. 

We must defend ourselves and our work and offer the world a new vision of possibility.

WILL YOU GO ONLINE TODAY AND ADD YOUR VOICE? WILL YOU JOIN THIS MOMENT IN HISTORY AND HELP US CHANGE THINGS FOREVER? PLEASE CLICK HERE NOW, VIEW THE COMMENTS, AND ADD YOUR OPINION BE HEARD!  

Apple sold 10 million more iPhones this past quarter than it did the same quarter a year ago. Its stock drops ten percent. Netflix adds 2 million customers for the quarter and its stock goes up 40%. Apple’s profit was $13 billion for the last quarter. The stock drops. Amazon lost $247 million last quarter. Its stock is up. Average weekly revenue for Apple was was $4.2 billion last quarter, up 27% from $3.3 billion per week in the year-ago quarter. The stock gets hammered. People panic. Investors sell.

Apple is the largest company in the world by market cap. It is an American success story unlike any other. And it is managing to grow, substantially, despite its place on the mountain top. It is an entrepreneurial success story unlike any other. One would think that a country in the throws of a recession would celebrate its champion. Do everything it could to support it, especially in light of this kind of stellar performance. Instead, the pundits use the results to predict its demise and spread fear throughout the market. They criticize. They denigrate.

This is the same impulse that laughed at Apollo, and called for its cancellation when three astronauts were killed in a fire on the launch pad of Apollo 1. This is the same mindset that said we don’t need to go to the moon any more, or explore any further, after Apollo 17, and left those glorious launch pads abandoned in place.

This is not the mindset that will take us to the world we dream of. It is not even the mindset that will take investors to prosperity. Because it thrives on destruction. It is only happy with disaster. It predicts it, and obsesses over making the predictions real. It is the human tendency to self-sabotage.

This is not about Apple vs. pundits. It’s about possibility vs. cynicism. In the long run, possibility always wins. Because despite self-sabotage being an impulse in our nature, the impulse to life is stronger. People are drawn to it.  Just like those 10 million extra iPhone buyers this past quarter.

“I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I can feel and sense my emotions, and what can be felt and sensed is not the true Feeler. Emotions pass through me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have emotions but I am not emotions.

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can know and intuit my thoughts, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come to me and thoughts leave me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have thoughts but I am not my thoughts.

This done—perhaps several times—one then affirms as concretely as possible: I am what remains, a pure center of awareness, an unmoved witness of all these thoughts, emotions, feelings, and desires.

If you persist at such an exercise, the understanding contained in it will quicken and you might begin to notice fundamental changes in your sense of “self.” For example, you might begin intuiting a deep inward sense of freedom, lightness, release, stability. This source, this “center of the cyclone,” will retain its lucid stillness even amid the raging winds of anxiety and suffering that might swirl around its center”

Excerpt From: Wilber, Ken. “The Pocket Ken Wilber.” Shambhala Publications. iBooks.

Too many people think that for a charity to become “sustainable” it has to wean itself off of philanthropy - it has to find sources of unearned income or create some enterprise that will generate revenues based on its core competencies. Well, one of a charity’s core competencies is fundraising - the generation of revenues by the sale of the promise of some service provided and the good feeling that goes with it. That’s sustainable. That’s a market that can be expanded. By “philanthropy,” most people typically mean foundations and wealthy individuals. That definition is part of the problem. A kid giving $5 from her piggy bank is a philanthropist. So let’s agree to expand the definition of the term. Charities are selling good. They are selling good to the donating public. And the market for good, and for feeling good about doing good, is at least as big as the market for feeling good from the song you just bought or the chocolates you just purchased, and the donating market is the same as the music-buying market, or the car-buying market. Massive. We have yet to truly tap its potential. Why? because we discourage the fundraising expense it would take to do so.

We have to re-train people - especially leaders and program officers at foundations (who have rightly grown weary of charity dependence on them.) They believe philanthropy is not sustainable or scalable in and of itself. It is, and it’s likely to generate far more massive revenues than any other scheme, if enough money is invested in fundraising staff and resources to promote it.

The President’s push to eliminate the benefits associated with the charitable giving tax deduction, a century-old tradition in the United States, highlights the tension between the State and civil society. Lawrence Solomon wrote an excellent article on the subject.

Big government is the enemy of the full potential of the humanitarian sector. The more the state insists on providing services, the less inclined private individuals are to fund similar services with charitable contributions. This is why charitable giving is so much less as a percentage of GDP in Italy, Spain, Greece and other western European countries with a wide array of government-provided social services. As a % of GDP, charitable giving in the United States is about double that of its closest competitor, the UK. And yet the funds given to charity in the United States are not nearly enough to solve our social problems. We must get charitable giving to a substantially higher percentage of GDP in order for that to happen.

But it is going to go the other way if the public perceives that its higher tax payments taxes are a substitute form of charitable giving for the substitute charitable services it perceives the government as providing. Worse, when assistance comes through the government (in the form of services provided by charities that are contracted by the government) the government has a level of control over those charities that it would not if those charities were funded by private individuals. For example, the government can mandate that a charity not spend more than 15% on overhead, as New York is currently proposing. So charities have a lot less flexibility to do the innovative things we all know they need to do in order to grow when the money comes from the state.

This tension between charity and government is real. And all those of us in the humanitarian sector need to ask ourselves whether we believe that we — private individuals with entrepreneurial spirit and innovative ideas — can solve the world’s most pressing problems, and whether we want the freedom to choose to do so — or whether we intend to cede that responsibility, and opportunity, to the state.

If you want to get a true sense of Apple’s attention to detail:

• Check out their window displays. When Apple puts a pop-up person in a display, the back of the figure isn’t white. During the photo session, they shoot the front AND the back of the person, and apply an image to both sides of the display so when you look from the front, you see the person’s front, when you look at the back, you see their back. Like in real life.
• Check out the easels in their stores. They are custom made, with special sleeves so the signs can never tip over. I contrast that with an easel in the new Microsoft headquarters here in Kendall Square which looks like something they purchased on the cheap at Staples.
• Note where they store the bags. In special compartments under the display tables, so you never see an unsightly supply of shopping plastic.
• The back plate of the iPhone 5 is one of more than 700 different sized plates Apple manufactures. A high speed camera on the assembly line takes a photo of each phone and decides down to the micron which of the 725 minutely different panels will fit each slightly different iPhone most tightly. The result is seamless to the eye and the touch.

When you are willing to pay this level attention to detail you can be as great as Apple, and not a moment sooner.

It’s December - the time of year the media likes to write about giving. So I’ve given them an earful. Here are three recent articles/interviews. Please distribute far and wide!

Kiplinger

Fiscal Times

Associations Now

Hope everyone enjoys a peaceful and happy day with friends and family. I’m grateful to all those of you that support me and the books I’ve written, the Charity Defense Council, Change Course and Advertising for Humanity. That these things can prosper and grow in the world is a testament to people who see the bright future of humanity and will not abide it remaining but a vision - those determined to make it real. I am grateful most of all for that spirit in you.

 In its review of my book, “Charity Case,” the “Chronicle of Philanthropy” says I start from a false premise in arguing that the charitable sector needs to transform its standing with the public. Who among us has not heard the frustratingly familiar lay refrain about charities that, “the money never gets to the people who need it?” 

But the Chronicle fails to cite specific data in claiming that I have my facts wrong. In “Charity Case,” I write that the general public has an unfortunate and unnecessarily low opinion of the charitable sector which it doesn’t deserve. To discredit me, the Chronicle reviewer, Phil Buchanan, quotes a summary statement from the Economist, summarizing surveys by American Express and Merrill Lynch, which states that “Few institutions in the modern world enjoy more trust than charities.” It is unclear whether or not they are speaking of the sector as a whole. On the other hand, I used data from the Organizational Performance Initiative at the Wagner School of Public Service at NYU. It found that only 17% of respondents surveyed felt that charities did a “very good job” running programs and services, and that 70% believed that charities waste “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of money. Just ten percent of those interviewed thought charities did “a very good job” of spending money wisely. I backed this up with survey data from Ellison Research of 1,007 Americans which found 62% of respondents believing that, “the typical nonprofit spends more than what is reasonable on overhead expenses such as fundraising and administration.” The sources are clearly cited. If the Chronicle has an issue with the data from the Wagner School or Ellison, it should take that up with them. There is no foundation for discrediting me. 

In light of these statistics, I argue that our sector needs to take a stand for itself. But the Chronicle states instead that I, “disparage nonprofits,” because I once wrote that for-profit companies also make a difference - and they don’t necessarily make any less of a difference than nonprofits just because of their tax status. Witness what Twitter has done to facilitate movements for freedom this year alone, for example. The Chronicle sadly chose not to quote the statement I made up front in “Charity Case” that, “I come from this sector. I have worked very closely with many dozens of humanitarian organizations for over three decades. I have worked with hundreds of leaders and professionals inside the sector. And I can tell you that there is no legitimate reason for so many people to have such a low opinion of charities.” 

The review states that I am “not a credible defender of nonprofits because,” I don’t “seem to really care for them.” I’ve put my heart and soul and seven years of work into writing two books that champion the sector. I’ve raised in excess of $580 million for nonprofit organizations. I have created an advertising agency dedicated to the sector. While thought leaders at the Social Capital Conference are saying that philanthropy’s time may be done, and that we should let business solve the world’s problems, I am there saying that the nonprofit sector is our only hope for solving the great social problems that confront us, but only if we release it from its chains. It’s deeply saddening that the Chronicle would try to position me in opposition to the very constituency to which I have dedicated much of my professional life and about which I care passionately. 

The Chronicle also says that my argument for a stronger voice for the sector is correct, but that I’m not the right person to make it.  I have spoken about these issues to 125 audiences in 29 states and seven countries over the last three years to enthusiastic crowds calling for a movement. Their passion about it is the reason I wrote “Charity Case” in the first place. As a result, I’m not the only person carrying the message. The book has been endorsed by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., by the heads of Independent Sector and the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, by the head of X PRIZE Foundation and the co-founder of Product (RED) and contains essays written especially for the book by the former President of Guidestar, the founder of Share Our Strength, the President of the Boston Foundation, the founder of Third Sector Capital partners, the co-founder of Inside NGO, the head of American Charities for Reasonable Fundraising Regulation, representatives from Humanity United and the Kauffman Foundation, as well as the heads of  Independent Sector and the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, among others. 

It’s regrettable that readers were told, in the last sentence of the review, not to read what any of us had to say. 

We are up against obstacles great enough outside of our sector without having to be assaulted by our own.