When I Look At The World...

You have dreams. You have ideals. You want to help. You want to make a difference.

That's all you ever wanted. Heal the world. Or just do something. Feed the malnourished. Vaccinate the sick. Educate the illiterate. Lend a hand to the handicapped, the elderly, the socially disadvantaged, the unfortunate. Give a leg up to immigrants, refugees, minimum wage families, the unemployed. Sounds so good and altruistic, doesn't it?

Well, it never is as easy as it sounds. Nothing ever is. I certainly haven't heard of anything that is. Perhaps I'm just skeptical. I used to be idealistic, in the not too distant yet already far away past. I still am, but reality runs you over, mashes you up the way a bullet train grazes through hamburgers.

Selling girl scout cookies? Raising money for a breast cancer fund? Keeping old people company? Doing immigrant children's homework over the phone? Maybe it helps. Maybe it doesn't. And I'm probably leaning towards the negative. Why?

3 reasons: high OC, dramatic BP, and often unattractive LES.

Opportunity Cost - volunteers waste an exorbitant amount of their talent and time in the process of charity work. Smart volunteers could usually effect more change through the inherent job nature or simply by donating their high wages The humanitarian efforts are worth something if and only if the program or project is run in an extremely smooth manner - which rarely happens.

Bureaucracy & Politics - charity organizations, like any other sizable group, have plenty of administrative problems to worry about, yet they lack the quintessential incentive to maximize productivity since they are often non-profit parties. They usually attempt to have many layers of decision-making in order to divide up the labor, yet more often than not result in completely pointless job titles and altogether ineffective governing.

Leadership Efficiency Scale - only idealistic yet intelligent people can mold volunteering into a worthy (aka profitable) venture. And those people choose (based on  the 1st reason) to contribute through other channels, perhaps due to the high level of investment (and low return) required at the beginning stage. Moreover, resources (both human and monetary) are almost never devoted in the most efficacious way possible, where help is needed the most or where the most help can be done. Even charity follows 'Economies of Scale'.


My lesson from Pinghu : Summer 2006.

Compassion alone is not enough.