When 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.

Our generation does not want its epitaph to read, 'We kept charity overhead low.' We want it to read that we changed the world.

When 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.

You can't know if your values are being violated if you're ambiguous about what they are

While 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.

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.

People are yearning to be asked to use the full measure of their potential for something they care about.