The 15 Global Challenges from t he Millennium Project, a global participatory think tank. 1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all while addressing global climate change? 2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict? 3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance? 4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes? 5. How can decisionmaking be enhanced by integrating improved global foresight during unprecedented accelerating change? 6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone? 7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor? 8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced? 9. How can education make humanity more intelligent, knowledgeable, and wise enough to address its global challenges? 10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts,...
I recently watched a TED talk about how we look at charities
and other organisations which try to help people or causes they believe in. It
was a real eye opening moment for me. I was always suspicious of large
charities and their high “overheads” which I read as the organizers taking home
a nice pay packet. I would also wonder why so many charities spend so much on
advertising and not actually on the cause itself.
Well I can explain why this is not the best way to analyse a
charity in a few examples. Firstly it is acceptable for a very successful
professional to go to work make money for his or her organization and be
sufficiently compensated for this at the end of the month. Now, if we were to
have a professional who was making a charity a lot of money and took home a
good competitive salary we may deem them to be a parasite. This attitude is not
useful, it makes many people have to choose between a life where they can
achieve financial success or one where they can help people and not do so. This
drives some of the best minds away from the non-profit sector.
Secondly, we have a small bake sale where the overheads are
very small and the total sales amount to £50. The overhead is only £5 so most
of the money goes to the cause. The alternative to this is to have a
professional event with actual chefs and the overheads are high. In this case
you make £50,000 but your overheads are 40%. Which do you think is better?
The non-profit sector cannot hope to compete and grow when
we have two different rules we judge the profit and non-profit sectors by.
Comments
Post a Comment