0:00:00.989,0:00:04.261 I want to talk about social innovation 0:00:04.261,0:00:07.609 and social entrepreneurship. 0:00:07.609,0:00:10.773 I happen to have triplets. 0:00:10.773,0:00:13.118 They're little. They're five years old. 0:00:13.118,0:00:14.187 Sometimes I tell people I have triplets. 0:00:14.187,0:00:17.508 They say, "Really? How many?" 0:00:17.508,0:00:18.952 Here's a picture of the kids. 0:00:18.952,0:00:22.997 That's Sage and Annalisa and Rider. 0:00:22.997,0:00:27.903 Now, I also happen to be gay. 0:00:27.903,0:00:30.393 Being gay and fathering triplets is by far 0:00:30.393,0:00:32.969 the most socially innovative, socially entrepreneurial thing 0:00:32.969,0:00:35.297 I have ever done. 0:00:35.297,0:00:39.771 (Laughter) (Applause) 0:00:39.771,0:00:42.809 The real social innovation I want to talk about 0:00:42.809,0:00:44.301 involves charity. 0:00:44.301,0:00:47.305 I want to talk about how the things we've been taught to think 0:00:47.305,0:00:49.598 about giving and about charity 0:00:49.598,0:00:51.558 and about the nonprofit sector 0:00:51.558,0:00:55.222 are actually undermining the causes we love 0:00:55.222,0:00:59.226 and our profound yearning to change the world. 0:00:59.226,0:01:01.639 But before I do that, I want to ask if we even believe 0:01:01.639,0:01:04.784 that the nonprofit sector has any serious role to play 0:01:04.784,0:01:07.167 in changing the world. 0:01:07.167,0:01:10.625 A lot of people say now that business will lift up the developing economies, 0:01:10.625,0:01:13.664 and social business will take care of the rest. 0:01:13.664,0:01:16.102 And I do believe that business will move 0:01:16.102,0:01:19.263 the great mass of humanity forward. 0:01:19.263,0:01:23.398 But it always leaves behind that 10 percent or more 0:01:23.398,0:01:27.870 that is most disadvantaged or unlucky. 0:01:27.870,0:01:29.399 And social business needs markets, 0:01:29.399,0:01:31.801 and there are some issues for which you just can't develop 0:01:31.801,0:01:35.134 the kind of money measures that you need for a market. 0:01:35.134,0:01:38.475 I sit on the board of a center for the developmentally disabled, 0:01:38.475,0:01:40.710 and these people want laughter 0:01:40.710,0:01:44.768 and compassion and they want love. 0:01:44.768,0:01:48.314 How do you monetize that? 0:01:48.314,0:01:50.560 And that's where the nonprofit sector 0:01:50.560,0:01:52.904 and philanthropy come in. 0:01:52.904,0:01:56.595 Philanthropy is the market for love. 0:01:56.595,0:01:59.016 It is the market for all those people 0:01:59.016,0:02:01.856 for whom there is no other market coming. 0:02:01.856,0:02:04.587 And so if we really want, like Buckminster Fuller said, 0:02:04.587,0:02:06.976 a world that works for everyone, 0:02:06.976,0:02:09.480 with no one and nothing left out, 0:02:09.480,0:02:11.642 then the nonprofit sector has to be 0:02:11.642,0:02:14.184 a serious part of the conversation. 0:02:14.184,0:02:16.888 But it doesn't seem to be working. 0:02:16.888,0:02:18.517 Why have our breast cancer charities 0:02:18.517,0:02:21.244 not come close to finding a cure for breast cancer, 0:02:21.244,0:02:23.312 or our homeless charities not come close 0:02:23.312,0:02:26.241 to ending homelessness in any major city? 0:02:26.241,0:02:29.592 Why has poverty remained stuck at 12 percent 0:02:29.592,0:02:33.478 of the U.S. population for 40 years? 0:02:33.478,0:02:36.600 And the answer is, these social problems 0:02:36.600,0:02:38.814 are massive in scale, 0:02:38.814,0:02:41.702 our organizations are tiny up against them, 0:02:41.702,0:02:45.265 and we have a belief system that keeps them tiny. 0:02:45.265,0:02:46.585 We have two rulebooks. 0:02:46.585,0:02:48.531 We have one for the nonprofit sector 0:02:48.531,0:02:51.546 and one for the rest of the economic world. 0:02:51.546,0:02:54.014 It's an apartheid, and it discriminates 0:02:54.014,0:02:56.958 against the [nonprofit] sector in five different areas, 0:02:56.958,0:02:59.350 the first being compensation. 0:02:59.350,0:03:02.262 So in the for-profit sector, the more value you produce, 0:03:02.262,0:03:04.153 the more money you can make. 0:03:04.153,0:03:06.105 But we don't like nonprofits to use money 0:03:06.105,0:03:09.975 to incentivize people to produce more in social service. 0:03:09.975,0:03:12.775 We have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone 0:03:12.775,0:03:16.182 would make very much money helping other people. 0:03:16.182,0:03:18.185 Interesting that we don't have a visceral reaction 0:03:18.185,0:03:21.944 to the notion that people would make a lot of money not helping other people. 0:03:21.944,0:03:24.220 You know, you want to make 50 million dollars 0:03:24.220,0:03:26.550 selling violent video games to kids, go for it. 0:03:26.550,0:03:28.538 We'll put you on the cover of Wired magazine. 0:03:28.538,0:03:30.545 But you want to make half a million dollars 0:03:30.545,0:03:31.904 trying to cure kids of malaria, 0:03:31.904,0:03:39.821 and you're considered a parasite yourself. (Applause) 0:03:39.821,0:03:42.781 And we think of this as our system of ethics, 0:03:42.781,0:03:44.918 but what we don't realize is that this system 0:03:44.918,0:03:48.022 has a powerful side effect, which is, 0:03:48.022,0:03:51.657 it gives a really stark, mutually exclusive choice 0:03:51.657,0:03:55.029 between doing very well for yourself and your family 0:03:55.029,0:03:57.702 or doing good for the world 0:03:57.702,0:04:00.654 to the brightest minds coming out of our best universities, 0:04:00.654,0:04:02.731 and sends tens of thousands of people 0:04:02.731,0:04:05.326 who could make a huge difference in the nonprofit sector 0:04:05.326,0:04:07.973 marching every year directly into the for-profit sector 0:04:07.973,0:04:12.674 because they're not willing to make that kind of lifelong economic sacrifice. 0:04:12.674,0:04:16.161 Businessweek did a survey, looked at the compensation packages 0:04:16.161,0:04:19.271 for MBAs 10 years of business school, 0:04:19.271,0:04:22.164 and the median compensation for a Stanford MBA, 0:04:22.164,0:04:26.855 with bonus, at the age of 38, was 400,000 dollars. 0:04:26.855,0:04:28.903 Meanwhile, for the same year, the average salary 0:04:28.903,0:04:32.119 for the CEO of a $5 million-plus medical charity in the U.S. 0:04:32.119,0:04:37.437 was 232,000 dollars, and for a hunger charity, 84,000 dollars. 0:04:37.437,0:04:39.301 Now, there's no way you're going to get a lot of people 0:04:39.301,0:04:43.503 with $400,000 talent to make a $316,000 sacrifice 0:04:43.503,0:04:47.615 every year to become the CEO of a hunger charity. 0:04:47.615,0:04:51.106 Some people say, "Well, that's just because those MBA types are greedy." 0:04:51.106,0:04:53.658 Not necessarily. They might be smart. 0:04:53.658,0:04:56.042 It's cheaper for that person to donate 0:04:56.042,0:04:59.730 100,000 dollars every year to the hunger charity, 0:04:59.730,0:05:01.814 save 50,000 dollars on their taxes, 0:05:01.814,0:05:06.133 so still be roughly 270,000 dollars a year ahead of the game, 0:05:06.133,0:05:08.748 now be called a philanthropist because they donated 0:05:08.748,0:05:10.587 100,000 dollars to charity, 0:05:10.587,0:05:12.612 probably sit on the board of the hunger charity, 0:05:12.612,0:05:14.789 indeed, probably supervise the poor SOB 0:05:14.789,0:05:18.303 who decided to become the CEO of the hunger charity, 0:05:18.303,0:05:21.984 and have a lifetime of this kind of power and influence 0:05:21.984,0:05:25.618 and popular praise still ahead of them. 0:05:25.618,0:05:29.328 The second area of discrimination is advertising and marketing. 0:05:29.328,0:05:32.833 So we tell the for-profit sector, "Spend, spend, spend on advertising 0:05:32.833,0:05:36.398 until the last dollar no longer produces a penny of value." 0:05:36.398,0:05:39.937 But we don't like to see our donations spent on advertising in charity. 0:05:39.937,0:05:43.711 Our attitude is, "Well, look, if you can get the advertising donated, 0:05:43.711,0:05:46.517 you know, at four o'clock in the morning, I'm okay with that. 0:05:46.517,0:05:49.068 But I don't want my donations spent on advertising. 0:05:49.068,0:05:51.316 I want it go to the needy." 0:05:51.316,0:05:53.008 As if the money invested in advertising 0:05:53.008,0:05:55.852 could not bring in dramatically greater sums of money 0:05:55.852,0:05:57.633 to serve the needy. 0:05:57.633,0:05:59.968 In the 1990s, my company created 0:05:59.968,0:06:03.072 the long distance AIDSRide bicycle journeys 0:06:03.072,0:06:07.564 and the 60-mile-long breast cancer three-day walks, 0:06:07.564,0:06:10.924 and over the course of nine years, 0:06:10.924,0:06:15.987 we had 182,000 ordinary heroes participate, 0:06:15.987,0:06:20.427 and they raised a total of 581 million dollars. 0:06:20.427,0:06:25.424 They raised more money more quickly for these causes 0:06:25.424,0:06:27.238 than any events in history, 0:06:27.238,0:06:30.056 all based on the idea that people are weary 0:06:30.056,0:06:32.882 of being asked to do the least they can possibly do. 0:06:32.882,0:06:35.280 People are yearning to measure 0:06:35.280,0:06:37.472 the full distance of their potential 0:06:37.472,0:06:40.616 on behalf of the causes that they care about deeply. 0:06:40.616,0:06:43.792 But they have to be asked. 0:06:43.792,0:06:45.391 We got that many people to participate 0:06:45.391,0:06:47.694 by buying full-page ads in The New York Times, 0:06:47.694,0:06:51.123 in The Boston Globe, in primetime radio and TV advertising. 0:06:51.123,0:06:52.925 Do you know how many people we would have gotten 0:06:52.925,0:06:56.434 if we put up flyers in the laundromat? 0:06:56.434,0:06:59.636 Charitable giving has remained stuck, in the U.S., 0:06:59.636,0:07:04.027 at two percent of GDP ever since we started measuring it in the 1970s. 0:07:04.027,0:07:06.327 That's an important fact, because it tells us 0:07:06.327,0:07:08.831 that in 40 years, the nonprofit sector 0:07:08.831,0:07:12.183 has not been able to wrestle any market share 0:07:12.183,0:07:14.895 away from the for-profit sector. 0:07:14.895,0:07:17.047 And if you think about it, how could one sector 0:07:17.047,0:07:20.239 possibly take market share away from another sector 0:07:20.239,0:07:23.224 if it isn't really allowed to market? 0:07:23.224,0:07:24.940 And if we tell the consumer brands, 0:07:24.940,0:07:27.759 "You may advertise all the benefits of your product," 0:07:27.759,0:07:30.933 but we tell charities, "You cannot advertise all the good that you do," 0:07:30.933,0:07:34.559 where do we think the consumer dollars are going to flow? 0:07:34.559,0:07:37.856 The third area of discrimination is the taking of risk 0:07:37.856,0:07:42.128 in pursuit of new ideas for generating revenue. 0:07:42.128,0:07:45.507 So Disney can make a new $200 million movie that flops, 0:07:45.507,0:07:48.355 and nobody calls the attorney general. 0:07:48.355,0:07:51.675 But you do a little $1 million community fundraiser 0:07:51.675,0:07:54.783 for the poor, and it doesn't produce a 75 percent profit 0:07:54.783,0:07:56.576 to the cause in the first 12 months, 0:07:56.576,0:07:59.396 and your character is called into question. 0:07:59.396,0:08:02.287 So nonprofits are really reluctant to attempt any brave, 0:08:02.287,0:08:05.807 daring, giant-scale new fundraising endeavors 0:08:05.807,0:08:07.805 for fear that if the thing fails, their reputations 0:08:07.805,0:08:09.710 will be dragged through the mud. 0:08:09.710,0:08:11.621 Well, you and I know when you prohibit failure, 0:08:11.621,0:08:13.432 you kill innovation. 0:08:13.432,0:08:16.348 If you kill innovation in fundraising, you can't raise more revenue. 0:08:16.348,0:08:18.404 If you can't raise more revenue, you can't grow. 0:08:18.404,0:08:23.235 And if you can't grow, you can't possibly solve large social problems. 0:08:23.235,0:08:25.944 The fourth area is time. 0:08:25.944,0:08:29.923 So Amazon went for six years without returning any profit to investors, 0:08:29.923,0:08:31.571 and people had patience. 0:08:31.571,0:08:34.157 They knew that there was a long-term objective down the line 0:08:34.157,0:08:36.078 of building market dominance. 0:08:36.078,0:08:38.904 But if a nonprofit organization ever had a dream 0:08:38.904,0:08:42.779 of a building magnificent scale that required that for six years, 0:08:42.779,0:08:44.659 no money was going to go to the needy, 0:08:44.659,0:08:46.844 it was all going to be invested in building this scale, 0:08:46.844,0:08:50.151 we would expect a crucifixion. 0:08:50.151,0:08:52.072 And the last area is profit itself. 0:08:52.072,0:08:54.735 So the for-profit sector can pay people profits 0:08:54.735,0:08:57.114 in order to attract their capital for their new ideas, 0:08:57.114,0:09:00.471 but you can't pay profits in a nonprofit sector, 0:09:00.471,0:09:04.972 so the for-profit sector has a lock on the multi-trillion-dollar capital markets, 0:09:04.972,0:09:07.348 and the nonprofit sector is starved for growth 0:09:07.348,0:09:10.316 and risk and idea capital. 0:09:10.316,0:09:13.581 Well, you put those five things together -- you can't use money 0:09:13.581,0:09:15.982 to lure talent away from the for-profit sector, 0:09:15.982,0:09:17.922 you can't advertise on anywhere near the scale 0:09:17.922,0:09:20.539 the for-profit sector does for new customers, 0:09:20.539,0:09:23.308 you can't take the kinds of risks in pursuit of those customers 0:09:23.308,0:09:25.448 that the for-profit sector takes, 0:09:25.448,0:09:27.204 you don't have the same amount of time to find them 0:09:27.204,0:09:28.622 as the for-profit sector, 0:09:28.622,0:09:31.399 and you don't have a stock market with which to fund any of this, 0:09:31.399,0:09:33.582 even if you could do it in the first place, 0:09:33.582,0:09:35.502 and you've just put the nonprofit sector 0:09:35.502,0:09:38.657 at an extreme disadvantage to the for-profit sector 0:09:38.657,0:09:41.361 on every level. 0:09:41.361,0:09:44.843 If we have any doubts about the effects of this separate rule book, 0:09:44.843,0:09:46.573 this statistic is sobering: 0:09:46.573,0:09:49.163 From 1970 to 2009, 0:09:49.163,0:09:51.434 the number of nonprofits that really grew, 0:09:51.434,0:09:55.122 that crossed the $50 million annual revenue barrier, 0:09:55.122,0:09:57.274 is 144. 0:09:57.274,0:09:59.479 In the same time, the number of for-profits that crossed it 0:09:59.479,0:10:02.739 is 46,136. 0:10:02.739,0:10:06.171 So we're dealing with social problems that are massive in scale, 0:10:06.171,0:10:08.613 and our organizations can't generate any scale. 0:10:08.613,0:10:12.588 All of the scale goes to Coca-Cola and Burger King. 0:10:12.588,0:10:15.542 So why do we think this way? 0:10:15.542,0:10:20.016 Well, like most fanatical dogma in America, 0:10:20.016,0:10:23.135 these ideas come from old Puritan beliefs. 0:10:23.135,0:10:26.485 The Puritans came here for religious reasons, or so they said, 0:10:26.485,0:10:29.799 but they also came here because they wanted to make a lot of money. 0:10:29.799,0:10:31.942 They were pious people but they were also 0:10:31.942,0:10:34.399 really aggressive capitalists, 0:10:34.399,0:10:37.978 and they were accused of extreme forms of profit-making tendencies 0:10:37.978,0:10:40.217 compared to the other colonists. 0:10:40.217,0:10:43.273 But at the same time, the Puritans were Calvinists, 0:10:43.273,0:10:45.947 so they were taught literally to hate themselves. 0:10:45.947,0:10:48.978 They were taught that self-interest was a raging sea 0:10:48.978,0:10:52.339 that was a sure path to eternal damnation. 0:10:52.339,0:10:54.611 Well, this created a real problem for these people, right? 0:10:54.611,0:10:57.347 Here they've come all the way across the Atlantic to make all this money. 0:10:57.347,0:11:01.103 Making all this money will get you sent directly to Hell. 0:11:01.103,0:11:03.044 What were they to do about this? 0:11:03.044,0:11:04.996 Well, charity became their answer. 0:11:04.996,0:11:07.173 It became this economic sanctuary 0:11:07.173,0:11:10.602 where they could do penance for their profit-making tendencies 0:11:10.602,0:11:14.079 at five cents on the dollar. 0:11:14.079,0:11:15.836 So of course, how could you make money in charity 0:11:15.836,0:11:18.953 if charity was your penance for making money? 0:11:18.953,0:11:23.063 Financial incentive was exiled from the realm of helping others 0:11:23.063,0:11:26.159 so that it could thrive in the area of making money for yourself, 0:11:26.159,0:11:29.338 and in 400 years, nothing has intervened 0:11:29.338,0:11:34.615 to say, "That's counterproductive and that's unfair." 0:11:34.615,0:11:38.804 Now this ideology gets policed by this one very dangerous question, 0:11:38.804,0:11:43.052 which is, "What percentage of my donation goes to the cause versus overhead?" 0:11:43.052,0:11:44.933 There are a lot of problems with this question. 0:11:44.933,0:11:46.780 I'm going to just focus on two. 0:11:46.780,0:11:51.237 First, it makes us think that overhead is a negative, 0:11:51.237,0:11:54.658 that it is somehow not part of the cause. 0:11:54.658,0:11:59.644 But it absolutely is, especially if it's being used for growth. 0:11:59.644,0:12:02.405 Now, this idea that overhead is somehow 0:12:02.405,0:12:03.754 an enemy of the cause 0:12:03.754,0:12:06.692 creates this second, much larger problem, which is, 0:12:06.692,0:12:09.964 it forces organizations to go without the overhead things 0:12:09.964,0:12:11.744 they really need to grow 0:12:11.744,0:12:14.894 in the interest of keeping overhead low. 0:12:14.894,0:12:17.109 So we've all been taught that charities should spend 0:12:17.109,0:12:20.255 as little as possible on overhead things like fundraising 0:12:20.255,0:12:23.653 under the theory that, well, the less money you spend on fundraising, 0:12:23.653,0:12:26.861 the more money there is available for the cause. 0:12:26.861,0:12:29.702 Well, that's true if it's a depressing world 0:12:29.702,0:12:32.647 in which this pie cannot be made any bigger. 0:12:32.647,0:12:36.509 But if it's a logical world in which investment in fundraising 0:12:36.509,0:12:39.807 actually raises more funds and makes the pie bigger, 0:12:39.807,0:12:41.777 then we have it precisely backwards, 0:12:41.777,0:12:44.691 and we should be investing more money, not less, 0:12:44.691,0:12:47.065 in fundraising, because fundraising is the one thing 0:12:47.065,0:12:49.733 that has the potential to multiply the amount of money 0:12:49.733,0:12:54.230 available for the cause that we care about so deeply. 0:12:54.230,0:12:56.616 I'll give you two examples. We launched the AIDSRides 0:12:56.616,0:13:00.425 with an initial investment of 50,000 dollars in risk capital. 0:13:00.425,0:13:05.149 Within nine years, we had multiplied that 1,982 times 0:13:05.149,0:13:10.933 into 108 million dollars after all expenses for AIDS services. 0:13:10.933,0:13:12.744 We launched the breast cancer three-days 0:13:12.744,0:13:16.849 with an initial investment of 350,000 dollars in risk capital. 0:13:16.849,0:13:21.190 Within just five years, we had multiplied that 554 times 0:13:21.190,0:13:24.795 into 194 million dollars after all expenses 0:13:24.795,0:13:26.775 for breast cancer research. 0:13:26.775,0:13:30.027 Now, if you were a philanthropist really interested in breast cancer, 0:13:30.027,0:13:31.373 what would make more sense: 0:13:31.373,0:13:35.273 go out and find the most innovative researcher in the world 0:13:35.273,0:13:38.347 and give her 350,000 dollars for research, 0:13:38.347,0:13:42.114 or give her fundraising department the 350,000 dollars 0:13:42.114,0:13:47.340 to multiply it into 194 million dollars for breast cancer research? 0:13:47.340,0:13:50.565 2002 was our most successful year ever. 0:13:50.565,0:13:54.007 We netted for breast cancer alone, that year alone, 0:13:54.007,0:13:57.853 71 million dollars after all expenses. 0:13:57.853,0:14:00.197 And then we went out of business, 0:14:00.197,0:14:03.309 suddenly and traumatically. 0:14:03.309,0:14:08.012 Why? Well, the short story is, our sponsor split on us. 0:14:08.012,0:14:09.863 They wanted to distance themselves from us 0:14:09.863,0:14:12.834 because we were being crucified in the media 0:14:12.834,0:14:16.044 for investing 40 percent of the gross in recruitment 0:14:16.044,0:14:19.427 and customer service and the magic of the experience 0:14:19.427,0:14:22.692 and there is no accounting terminology to describe 0:14:22.692,0:14:25.494 that kind of investment in growth and in the future, 0:14:25.494,0:14:30.467 other than this demonic label of overhead. 0:14:30.467,0:14:35.823 So on one day, all 350 of our great employees 0:14:35.823,0:14:40.179 lost their jobs 0:14:40.179,0:14:43.818 because they were labeled overhead. 0:14:43.818,0:14:46.110 Our sponsor went and tried the events on their own. 0:14:46.110,0:14:47.471 The overhead went up. 0:14:47.471,0:14:49.988 Net income for breast cancer research went down 0:14:49.988,0:14:55.984 by 84 percent, or 60 million dollars in one year. 0:14:55.984,0:14:58.536 This is what happens when we confuse 0:14:58.536,0:15:03.217 morality with frugality. 0:15:03.217,0:15:06.221 We've all been taught that the bake sale with five percent overhead 0:15:06.221,0:15:10.946 is morally superior to the professional fundraising enterprise with 40 percent overhead, 0:15:10.946,0:15:13.538 but we're missing the most important piece of information, 0:15:13.538,0:15:17.507 which is, what is the actual size of these pies? 0:15:17.507,0:15:22.313 Who cares if the bake sale only has five percent overhead if it's tiny? 0:15:22.313,0:15:25.169 What if the bake sale only netted 71 dollars for charity 0:15:25.169,0:15:27.217 because it made no investment in its scale 0:15:27.217,0:15:29.468 and the professional fundraising enterprise netted 0:15:29.468,0:15:32.295 71 million dollars because it did? 0:15:32.295,0:15:34.392 Now which pie would we prefer, and which pie 0:15:34.392,0:15:38.247 do we think people who are hungry would prefer? 0:15:38.247,0:15:41.991 Here's how all of this impacts the big picture. 0:15:41.991,0:15:45.327 I said that charitable giving is two percent of GDP in the United States. 0:15:45.327,0:15:48.064 That's about 300 billion dollars a year. 0:15:48.064,0:15:51.593 But only about 20 percent of that, or 60 billion dollars, 0:15:51.593,0:15:53.544 goes to health and human services causes. 0:15:53.544,0:15:57.220 The rest goes to religion and higher education and hospitals 0:15:57.220,0:16:00.142 and that 60 billion dollars is not nearly enough 0:16:00.142,0:16:02.349 to tackle these problems. 0:16:02.349,0:16:04.493 But if we could move charitable giving 0:16:04.493,0:16:09.750 from two percent of GDP up just one step 0:16:09.750,0:16:13.234 to three percent of GDP, by investing in that growth, 0:16:13.234,0:16:17.036 that would be an extra 150 billion dollars a year in contributions, 0:16:17.036,0:16:19.827 and if that money could go disproportionately 0:16:19.827,0:16:21.527 to health and human services charities, 0:16:21.527,0:16:24.708 because those were the ones we encouraged to invest in their growth, 0:16:24.708,0:16:29.313 that would represent a tripling of contributions to that sector. 0:16:29.313,0:16:30.676 Now we're talking scale. 0:16:30.676,0:16:34.279 Now we're talking the potential for real change. 0:16:34.279,0:16:36.591 But it's never going to happen by forcing 0:16:36.591,0:16:39.277 these organizations to lower their horizons 0:16:39.277,0:16:44.774 to the demoralizing objective of keeping their overhead low. 0:16:44.774,0:16:48.297 Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, 0:16:48.297,0:16:50.962 "We kept charity overhead low." 0:16:50.962,0:16:59.048 (Laughter) (Applause) 0:16:59.049,0:17:01.279 We want it to read that we changed the world, 0:17:01.279,0:17:02.924 and that part of the way we did that 0:17:02.924,0:17:05.990 was by changing the way we think about these things. 0:17:05.990,0:17:08.035 So the next time you're looking at a charity, 0:17:08.035,0:17:10.276 don't ask about the rate of their overhead. 0:17:10.276,0:17:12.495 Ask about the scale of their dreams, 0:17:12.495,0:17:16.406 their Apple-, Google-, Amazon-scale dreams, 0:17:16.406,0:17:18.305 how they measure their progress toward those dreams, 0:17:18.305,0:17:21.214 and what resources they need to make them come true 0:17:21.214,0:17:23.064 regardless of what the overhead is. 0:17:23.064,0:17:27.882 Who cares what the overhead is if these problems are actually getting solved? 0:17:27.882,0:17:31.331 If we can have that kind of generosity, 0:17:31.331,0:17:35.051 a generosity of thought, then the non-profit sector can play 0:17:35.051,0:17:39.287 a massive role in changing the world for all those citizens 0:17:39.287,0:17:45.421 most desperately in need of it to change. 0:17:45.421,0:17:50.485 And if that can be our generation's enduring legacy, 0:17:50.485,0:17:53.085 that we took responsibility 0:17:53.085,0:17:56.077 for the thinking that had been handed down to us, 0:17:56.077,0:17:58.917 that we revisited it, we revised it, 0:17:58.917,0:18:02.716 and we reinvented the whole way humanity thinks about changing things, 0:18:02.716,0:18:06.317 forever, for everyone, 0:18:06.317,0:18:11.117 well, I thought I would let the kids sum up what that would be. 0:18:11.117,0:18:12.537 Annalisa Smith-Pallotta: That would be -- 0:18:12.537,0:18:14.985 Sage Smith-Pallotta: -- a real social -- 0:18:14.985,0:18:16.886 Rider Smith-Pallotta: -- innovation. 0:18:16.886,0:18:20.382 Dan Pallotta: Thank you very much. Thank you. 0:18:20.382,0:18:29.518 (Applause) 0:18:29.518,0:18:33.518 Thank you. (Applause)