The Impact You Can Have
posted on July 30, 2010
If you are already well off perhaps it wouldn’t mean much: a vacation, a boat, perhaps even upgrading your house.
If you are comfortably well off, it might mean that your children could go to a private school or a better college; you could add to your retirement account.
If you are part of the working poor, it could mean you could eat more healthy food; your family could get decent medical care.
If you were part of the very poor, you could afford to buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria; your children could stay in school instead of working for a living.
What does it mean that half the people in the world are living on $2 a day? It means that for half the world 60 cents per day would be a 30% raise. Well guess what? One percent of the world’s productivity is equivalent to 60 cents per day for 3 billion people.
In other words, if just 1% of the world’s budget were added to the resources of the bottom half of the population they would be able to achieve far more than they can today. The resources might include: a village health clinic, schools, wells or water pipelines, better roads and communication to make it easier to earn money, or land ownership.
What’s needed varies from place to place. That’s why big anti-poverty programs frequently don’t work. But human-scale programs can and do work. One Percent Global has found programs that work effectively at
the community level and we’ve featured them here on our blog.
Human-scale donations also work. Ending poverty does not need government money or massive fundraising. Just 1% of your personal budget would be enough to bring several families out of poverty.
If you’re not ready to donate money, or if you already donate as much as you want to, you can contribute by talking about this. I believe that if people understood how far 1% could go things would shift in the world. So pick a friend, share this idea with them, and start a discussion. Or you could simply forward a link to this page to someone. 1% of your free time could go far to spread the word about human-scale donations.
What would it mean to you if you suddenly got a 30% raise?
If you are already well off perhaps it wouldn’t mean much: a vacation, a boat, perhaps even upgrading your house.
If you are comfortably well off, it might mean that your children could go to a private school or a better college; you could add to your retirement account.
If you are part of the working poor, it could mean you could eat more healthy food; your family could get decent medical care.
If you were part of the very poor, you could afford to buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria; your children could stay in school instead of working for a living.
What does it mean that half the people in the world are living on $2 a day? It means that for half the world 60 cents per day would be a 30% raise. Well guess what? One percent of the world’s productivity is equivalent to 60 cents per day for 3 billion people.
In other words, if just 1% of the world’s budget were added to the resources of the bottom half of the population they would be able to achieve far more than they can today. The resources might include: a village health clinic, schools, wells or water pipelines, better roads and communication to make it easier to earn money, or land ownership.
What’s needed varies from place to place. That’s why big anti-poverty programs frequently don’t work. But human-scale programs can and do work. One Percent Global has found programs that work effectively at
the community level and we’ve featured them here on our blog.
Human-scale donations also work. Ending poverty does not need government money or massive fundraising. Just 1% of your personal budget would be enough to bring several families out of poverty.
If you’re not ready to donate money, or if you already donate as much as you want to, you can contribute by talking about this. I believe that if people understood how far 1% could go things would shift in the world. So pick a friend, share this idea with them, and start a discussion. Or you could simply forward a link to this page to someone. 1% of your free time could go far to spread the word about human-scale donations.
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Comments
Awesome post! It only takes 1% of your career network or 1% of your ideas to make a transformation in your social impact career! The power of one or 1%....powerful! Keep up the great work. -Mark McCurdy, the social impact chef.