The next time you're looking at a charity, don't ask about the rate of their overhead; ask about the scale of their dreams - their Apple-, Google-, Amazon-scale dreams - how they measure their progress toward those dreams, and what resources they need to make them come true, regardless of what the overhead is.
Dan PallottaWhat's important is how we use our time on this earth, not how conspicuously we give our money away. What's important is the energy and courage we are willing to expend reversing entropy, battling cynicism, suffering and challenging mediocre minds, staring down those who would trample our dreams, taking a stand for magic, and advancing the potential of the human race.
Dan PallottaThe next time you're looking at a charity, don't ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams.
Dan PallottaWhile business advertises, charity is taught to beg. While business motivates with a dollar, charity is told to motivate with guilt. While business takes chances, charity is expected to be cautious. We measure the success of businesses over the long term, but we want our gratification in charity immediately. We are taught that a return on investment should be offered for making consumer goods, but not for making a better world.
Dan PallottaWhen you prohibit failure, you kill innovation. If you kill innovation in fundraising, you can't raise more revenue. If you can't raise more revenue, you can't grow. And if you can't grow, you can't possibly solve large social problems.
Dan PallottaYour ability to stand up for your truth is a muscle, and the more you exercise it the stronger it gets.
Dan PallottaPhilanthropy is the market for love. It is the market for all those people for whom there is no other market coming.
Dan PallottaOur generation does not want its epitaph to read, 'We kept charity overhead low.' We want it to read that we changed the world.
Dan PallottaPeople are yearning to be asked to use the full measure of their potential for something they care about.
Dan PallottaWe have a visceral reaction to the idea that anyone would make very much money helping other people. Interesting that we don't have a visceral reaction to the notion that people would make a lot of money NOT helping other people.
Dan PallottaYou can't know if your values are being violated if you're ambiguous about what they are
Dan PallottaEveryone wants charities to spend as little as possible on overhead. That's backwards. Overhead is what drives growth. If charities can't grow, they can't solve problems. So overhead is a good thing. And I'm overhead.
Dan PallottaWe aren't upset when Paramount makes a $200 million movie that flops, but if a charity experiments with a $5 million fundraising event that fails, we call in the attorneys. So charities are petrified of trying bold new revenue-generating endeavors and can't develop the powerful learning curves the for-profit sector can.
Dan PallottaWhen we show people that something is possible that they didn't think was possible it does more than just change things. It changes the way people think about the possibility of things changing. It helps them see that life is not the same day-after day, unsurprising, unending drudgery that so much of life teaches them that it is. And that is a huge contribution to their humanity.
Dan Pallotta