Some 44% of millennials believe they do more to support social causes than the rest of their family, according to the 2017 Millennial Impact. Guess what…it is not just millennials who want to make a difference. Some of us boomers and busters do as well.

Do you want to end poverty, comfort the homeless and expand human dignity? You are right on target. All are created in the image of God so all should be valued in these ways. How we approach this makes a difference. Here are Andy Kessler’s well stated ideas:

• If you’re volunteering at shelters or working for most nonprofits, that’s all very nice, but it’s one-off. It may feel good to ladle soup to the hungry, but you might be wasting valuable brain waves that could be spent ushering in a future in which no one is hungry to begin with.
• You can hoe and sickle and grow rutabagas to feed a few hungry folks, but maybe there is a better option: Find a way to revamp food distribution to lower prices. Or reinvent how food is grown and enriched to enable healthier diets.
• Don’t spend all your time caring for the sick. Prevent disease. Gene therapy, early detection and immunotherapy can change the trajectory of disease because they scale.
• Don’t only build temporary shelters. Figure out how to 3-D print real homes quickly and cheaply.
• Why tutor a few students when you can capture lessons from best-of-breed teachers and deliver them electronically to millions?

God gives us technology to bring change. When productivity increases it creates wealth that helps everyone. Listen to Bono as he told Georgetown students a few years ago, “Entrepreneurial capitalism takes more people out of poverty than aid.”

Oh…and you can listen to Bono’s music too.

Source:

Advice to New Grads: Scale or Bail. Want to change the world? Don’t bother volunteering—get a real, ‘boring’ job. By Andy Kessler. Wall Street Journal

May 20, 2018