Sublime

Bargaineering,

This book is about finding the way forward to make our dreams for humanity a reality. It’s about confronting the four-hundred-year-old rule book by which all organizations fighting for worthy causes—from disease to poverty to injustice—are forced to play.

But if a charity has a long-term goal that doesn’t yield short-term direct services, it’s scandalous.

In the process, I founded a company called Pallotta TeamWorks, and we created a whole new category of civic engagement—the long-distance fundraiser and the long-distance life changer—which to date has raised in excess of $1.1 billion for important causes and given new meaning to the hundreds of thousands of people who have participated in them.

Self-deprivation is still the prescribed path to social change.

Although targeted toward a single charity, the assertion exemplifies the illogical yet widely held view that money not spent directly on what is perceived as “the cause” is money not spent on the cause at all.

The symbiotic relationship of donor and recipient has proved to be sustainable and perpetuating—to the detriment of vital social issues.

Critics were attacking this charitable endeavor for doing things that businesses are encouraged to do every second of the day and for “causes” that are far less urgent. It struck me not only as illogical but as unjust and, ultimately, destructive.

What good is it to know that 95 percent of your donation goes to the cause if you don’t know that all of the money going to the cause is being wasted?