I know the financial crisis is SO last week, but stop and think for a moment about how we got into this economic mess.
We traded futures on mortgage lending, based our betting on whether people would default, and tried not to get left holding the bag when they did. We based our trading on betting that bad things would happen. These derivatives caused a false boom and huge bust which has left the entire world reeling. Greece’s financial meltdown is only the latest in a series of flops leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless, savings destroyed, and futures uncertain. And now Japan is worried they will follow suit. What’s next?
Anyone with half a brain cell (who isn’t getting a bank payout )would probably agree that the big banks should be broken up into smaller ones, and more stringent regulations placed on them.
What about basing our trading and our economy on something more tangible?
What about letting charities operate more like businesses, and allow people to take stock in the company?
Common Misconception: No one should seek to earn a profit in charity. Profitmaking is for the for-profit sector. -Dan Pallotta
This prohibition on investment return brings us to “The limits of no return.” Which means that your Development Director, Executive Director, and Board have no real reason to keep getting more and more success for your nonprofit. They’ve got nothing to lose. All they’re trying to do is keep their jobs. They won’t get any more money if they raise more money for you.
Profit is the key to investment capital. if people could make the same return from investment capital in charity as they can in for profit investments, charity would raise massive additional investment capital.
So why aren’t we trading charity futures right now? Because we’ve never done it? Because it’s just so…non-puritan? Because what we’d have to do is rename the entire nonprofit sector?
That’s okay! Lynne Twist, head of The Soul of Money Institute, is so ahead of you on this one! She suggests re-naming the nonprofit sector as the social profit sector. Because that’s what we’re doing. We’re creating social profit, which takes time to produce, and will not be held to some arbitrary grant deadline.
“The most important need of humanity today is to be made aware that its past has betrayed it. There is no point in continuing the past, it will be suicidal.” -Osho
Let’s create a stock market for charity. Why not bet on good things happening, instead of bad things happening, for a change?
Who’s with me?
Follow me on Twitter! Because you like getting relevant updates about fundraising, marketing, and making a difference!