The way we think about charity is dead wrong | Dan Pallotta

Change the tax code. Eliminate deductions in the for-profit sector and only allow them in the nonprofit sector. Tax policy can change behavior and incentive better outcomes for society.

Very well said!

Go to Washington Dan!

This is a great speech ever. Thank you Dan!

non prof sector has tripled its part of gdp since, what a talk!!!

The biggest problem I see with his reasoning is: If total donations are stuck in 2% of the GPD, then the pie by definition is not getting larger. Your marketing initiatives are not getting more people to donate, they're getting people to donate to your charity. You're growing your pie at the expense of everyone else's. As a result, you might be moving money from low-overhead charities to money-raising behemoths. Few causes will get large sums while many smaller initiatives will starve because they're not capable of doing marketing at the same level. I still fail to see how using money raised for X to raise money for X (instead of doing X) is not a departure from the mission. Citing a few successful cases does not solve the problem. Should all charities now risk their revenue to try to multiply it instead of doing what they're meant to do in the first place?

There is just one charity I donate to.
March of Dimes.
Every time I say that, I have people tell me March of Dimes is a poor choice because they have a higher overhead than most charities.
I respond like this.
When I was a kid, the March of Dimes was a polio charity.
They worked themselves right out of a job.
So
They chose a new area to sponsor.
Premature births and birth defects.
Since they took on premature births and birth defects they have made a huge impact in that field. Entire new procedures, never before done in the womb surgery, new therapies, the list of new help in this field is just too long too list.
Maybe the overhead at the March of Dimes isn't too high.
Maybe the overhead at other charities is too low.
My oldest daughter lived for 93 minutes after she was born.
If the March of Dimes can keep another family from going through what we went through (and they are helping to make that happen) then they get my dollar.
It's not the overhead that counts.
It's making a difference that counts.
So
My charitable donations will always go to the March of Dimes.
The charity that is YOUR choice, don't worry about the overhead. If they are making a difference in the lives of people you chose the correct charity. You keep supporting them.

Üniversite yıllarında sosyal girişimcilik derslerimden hatırladığım nitelikli bir ted konuşması🤔🤗😉

Whatever orientation are poliitical religious institutional adminastrive or financial
in anyway
we should have or
we must - that much better - support each others by charity fact Meaning individuals communauties countries continents and so on ...
Otherwise do not complaining about what will be the result at the end
Time is running out
Do we have time to waste ?
As we waste the world before ?
Then to be involved in Charity before an another reality take place and take control uppon this one.
Charity Caritas charité... a master word for a material reality

I was 100% with Dan... right up until he blamed a set of people in the Christian faith for the problem. I was at World Vision, one of the largest Christian faith-based NGOs in the world (one of the "Hunger Charities" in his chart with low compensation), and at least 13 years before this TED talk, we were innovating like a for-profit company that many other non-profits have followed since. The founders of Charity Water, also for-profit-like innovators, are Christians and got into philanthropy via inspiration from Mercy Ships (a Christian charity). In my view it's the opposite: most of the high levels of scrutiny I have seen over the years have been from the government, secular watchdog groups, the media, and non-faith-based donors.

After watching this I get so frustrated that so many in animal welfare work for FREE. I deserve to be paid for this heartbreaking difficult work I do.

Interesting talk and valid points. Many charities do pay competitive wages and invest in processes and programs to expand their business. I think the challenge is a small percentage of charities spend more money on “overhead” than actually is spent on the issue or problem that the charity was created to solve. Even When the money raised increases year over year. Most philanthropic people or institutions do not want less than 30% of their contribution to go to the people in need. Many organizations/people do pay or enter into the “at risk” stage of starting a charitable organization. They realize the expenses will be high in the beginning but expect the % to come down over time.

crap as expected from most ted talks.

These approaches to charity are both restrictive, in that they limit the maximum effectiveness of charities, but they also restrict the most blatant cash grab scams.
The dislike of advertising stops charities from being more effective, but it also stops a self perpetuating system of donations -> adverts -> donations, with no good done at all. Low salaries deter most of the competent, and most grifters.

Also, if we make the dubious assumptions that people have a fixed charity budget, adverts just change where it goes, and the charity advertizing isn't above average is usefulness, then the adverts aren't helpful overall, even if they make that charity more money.

Non profits and society tend to have black and white mindsets and nuance is forgotten.

As a long term worker in the non-profit world and I battle peoples thoughts about non-profits everyday. My pay is a joke, I do fundraising, and where I work is all direct services therefore overhead. Donations help pay the salaries of the people who do the work.

Don’t be easily fooled by this guy. “Non profits” mostly shift the onuses of social services onto little pop-up organizations that have to reinvent the wheel ….instead of improving the infrastructure we already have via government and 501.c have so little transparency and accountability they are like little “Benevolent” dictatorships. America is so anti-government and worse yet doesn’t participate in government much and starves it both of oversight thereby and change but also of funds including through“Non profits”. The NFL is also a “Non-profit” folks.

I got a lottle angry, but mostly I cried out of empathy and hope. Thanks for sharing, Dan 😅

I still don't buy a lot of his premises. You can't compare a for profit company blowing money on a failed endeavor to a charity doing the same thing. When a company loses money, you know who it pisses off? The people who fund the company, it's investors and shareholders. The same is true of charities, if they waste their money they piss off the people who fund it, the donors. So charities are RIGHTFULLY criticized if they waste money. Regular companies aren't exempt from criticism, it's just that who is doing the criticism is different.

The charity CEO compensation thing is also something I don't agree with. If you're asking people, who make a LOT less, to give their money for your cause and you as CEO of this big charity is getting paid by that money, a salary that's way above the amount your donors and above the amount an average person needs to live comfortably, then it comes off as hypocritical.

This guy sounds like he want charities to have all the benefits a for-profit company has with none of the accountability that comes with it. Fact of the matter is, whether or not you're a for profit or a chairty, you're accountable to the ones providing the funding.

Not convinced, i agree charities need scale and money to become independent. But they shouldnt be held to the same standards as for profit.

The best of TED; not only an idea worth spreading, but one that radically illuminates and shifts thinking.

How much money is 2 percent of GDP? It would go a long ways if I could see the expenditures for the overhead. I have seen where the CEO of United Way makes a ton more that the CEO of the Salvation Army. I did like Dan's talk about overhead spending, it did make me question even more which hopefully is a good thing.

Misconception and distortion of reality. The difference between funding profit or non profit organizations is that the profit organisation advocates exact that. The non profit organizations claim to be ideological and ask for funding out of the goodness of our hearts without a personal gain other than the support we intended for 😮the object of the charity.
It is warped to expect donations from our average salaries to organisations with big earners. To keep the big earners happy surely first the expenses of the organizations have to be paid and what rests is for the charity. This is a revenue scheme, a business for the owners and personally I think fraudulent. Charity work has naturally to be done by volunteers so that all donations can go to the charity and not in the pockets of the fat directors. On misery they gain there income and make a revenue model.

This made me cry and gave me a whole new perspective on nonprofits.

I have a hard time to drink a cup of absolutely pure drinking water with one drop of Poison in it

Having spent many years working in the non-profit sector, I appreciate this perspective on the value of overhead and all expenses associated with running a charity. Thank you, Mr. Pallotta.

Losses are blessings
Don't feel sorry for my loss of job, u need to feel sorry & sad for yourself.

Every thing/person that we encounter, our IQ/gender/look including skin color are carefully designed by God, God wants to see for whom we will use our gifts for: for myself or for God?=>If only for myself, then I will selfishly convert the whole universe into bloody Gaza. Abraham & Jesus never held a paid job, they only selflessly return their only son & life & everything back to God, instead of selfishly steal/rob/colonizing God's gifts.

I was full of reluctance/pain whenever I was fired, similarly, when we get cancer/any horrible diseases/accidents, nobody can let God take our life/kids/anything away without tears.

Job in bible clearly illustrates that everything belongs to God, even if I lose everything & in agonizing pain/diseases, I shall love my God more & more & gladly let him freely take away my eyes/brains/hands/legs/life/etc.

God is entitled to take away whatever he gave, nothing to feel bad about it=no 1 animal like us worrying too much of losses.

I am a soul=no energy=nothing, God is controlling all the competence & bodies in the universe, when he needs u to have that job/body then he gave it to u, when he doesn't need u for that job/body, he removes u from it=>why try to fight with God?

Don't get attached to anything/anybody, if u feel sorry for my job loss, then u are fighting with God=Boss' heart has been hardened by God, regardless how hard u try, u will be fired=it was God who removed your job=>All hipay jobs are death traps. If your husband loves u more than anything else, then God gives u cancer to save his soul.

All living humans are equally competent, there is no incompetent man, if he already decided to fire u, even if u don't make errors he will make up some for u=I really don't deserve to be fired & banned from Duke by worldly standards, my eye sights & brain power & competence is at my peak. + my work is very easy=>so God fired me & is pushing me to seek life=>I am lucky, u are not lucky, feel sorry for yourself not me.

If u have a salary then u are definitely not working for God but money.

Losses are our blessings=>Matthew 16:25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

Some interesting points, but the initial point about CEO compensation is a false choice. The non-profit CEO compensation shouldn't be increased to compete with the for-proft, the latter's compensation should be decreased to be competitive with the former's. For-profit CEO compensation has disproportionately ballooned in the last decades, the answer isn't to then inflate non-profit's. Furthermore, he ignores that there are immoral ways to inflate overhead--like luxury trips, banquets (that aren't fundraising events), and ostentatious perks for executives.

400 years and then ... it's Dan time

I think it is a very interesting topic Dan Pallotta is talking about. My side-notes are: next time less jargon language and more simple explanations instead of making it so dreadful. Therefore I lost my ability to understand or follow this TED talk.

"Dan Playtriplotta"

I cannot love this more. A good friend in the nonprofit space sent me this video. We created a software platform and mobile device to help save lives in at-risk communities. We're aligned with nonprofits and corporates that care to help us save lives in at-risk communities like mental health, medical, and aging. We're creating a nonprofit company that Text Lifeline™ can donate to and also receive donations from corporations that will allow us to gift a subscription to those who can't afford it and to those who need it most, like Veterans. Dan opened my eyes to how we build the foundation for this nonprofit. THANK YOU, DAN!

i work in non-profit and have always struggled to answer the question "how can you claim to be doing good and giving money to (x, y, or z) when you yourself are making money?". now i can answer it.

May Gob bless everyone this TedTalk reached 🙏🏾🤍

Halloween Event WHEN?

I have spent 3 decades in non profit sector and vouch for genuinity of the points raised in the video

thank you for sharing!

I am working in charity shop name is life that very good shop I am happy ther what we need to do make more money with the charity shops with the Nike and Adidas and puma and more like this thank you

I know Dan. I met him back in 1996 during the Philadelphia to DC AIDSRide. We spent some time after the ride, discussing various topics. He was a visionary then, and he’s a still a visionary now. I’ve always believed in him.

This is one of the best Ted Talks I have ever watched 🙏

If anyone can help me with at least 1 dollar, I am very needy. I live in a country that has embargoes, it is suffocating me and my children.

My wallet address:

UQCTgFt0e8n1butOshNlqHA5VPK_dtTX1jk8eTT5FWxG0CnY

👆👆👆Still relevant as we roll into 2025.

11 years later I see the importance costing money to raise money. I dont have a problem with overhead. I have a problem with "why can't we solve anything?" Breast cancer, AIDS, homelessness, poverty. I think the answer comes from the same place; it is not profitable to solve these things. Someone must make money off this.

I wanted to complete the video put that “Gay” told me not to

Your problem is not with the charity sector - it's with the assumption that social and public health problems should be solved by charities. Start voting in governments that are properly funded to look after the poor, tackle disadvantage and do the medical research that you mentioned. Get your tax system straight and many of these problems can be solved.

Interesting about the Puritans. Almost like carbon offsets, eh?
One would think, logically, commonsense-wise, if their religion, their ideology, was SO anti-money and profit, why did they even make this part of their ethos in the first place, throwing them into self-conflict and self-hatred? We know that humans are prone to duplicity or even triplicity, quadplicity, etc. But there ARE people who didn't make money their god and lived more austere, non-materialistic lives in harmony with themselves, others, and nature. Why did the Puritans not do this? Interesting.
Great talk by Dan. 1000% spot on.

His logic around 4mins in applies to so many other things in life that alot of people have a backwards mindset towards.

First 10 minutes was amazing. I agree with most of the ideology. But he really needs to get his facts straight about those that came over on the mayflower. Calvinism just states that God is sovereign, no reformer/puritan/Calvinist says it's bad to make lots of money. We simply say you should be cautious, because the more you have the more areas that you can be tempted/falter/have people hate you. I've read their works. We believe in having Dominion, ruling, building and creating, all for the glory of God. Enjoy the benefits of that labor.

Thanks for the info. I agree marketing can and should be used by all who desire good to be done, and to promote righteous deeds. You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize.

Interesting perspectives!

Here from a course on regenerative leadership by UPEACE Centre for Executive Education 🤩