How To Be Great At Doing Good E-Book

Nick Cooney

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 334

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Get ready to question everything you've been told about charity, and to find out how you can truly succeed at making the world a better place. Many of us donate to charitable causes, and millions more work or volunteer for non-profit organizations. Yet virtually none of us have been taught what it means to succeed at doing good, let alone how to do so. In short, we've never been encouraged to treat charity with the seriousness and rigor it deserves. How to be Great at Doing Good is a complacency-shattering guidebook for anyone who wants to actually change the world, whether as a donor, a volunteer, or a non-profit staffer. Drawing on eye-opening studies in psychology and human behavior, surprising interviews with philanthropy professionals, and the author's fifteen years of experience founding and managing top-rated non-profits, this book is an essential read for anyone who wants to do more good with their time and money. * Find out how Bill Gates and a team of MIT grads are saving thousands of lives by applying business principles to charity work - and how we can too * Peer inside our brains as we donate, and discover how the same chemical forces that make us crave junk food and sex can steer us toward bad charity decisions * See why following our passion and doing what we're good at can actually doom our efforts to improve the world * Learn how two seemingly identical charities can have jaw-dropping differences in impact, and find out how to pick the best one when donating Sure to generate controversy among non-profits and philanthropists who prefer business as usual, How to be Great at Doing Good reveals that a more calculated, effective approach to charity work isn't just possible - it's absolutely necessary for those who want to succeed at changing the world.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Preface: Schindler's Regret

Chapter 1: Why Charity?

Asking Why

The Goal of Charity

Barriers to Good

The Challenge of “Why?”

Chapter 2: Doing Good or Doing Great?

A Tale of Two Charities

Doing Good, or Doing a Lot of Good?

Chapter 3: Facing the “Brutal Facts” on How Much Good We Are Accomplishing

Gritting Our Teeth and Heading Down the Slope

All Charities Are Not Created Equal

Asking the Genie in the Bottle: Making Comparisons When Comparisons Seem Hard

There Are Always Big Differences Between Charities

Accepting the Fact That We Can Always Do Better

It's Always Subjective, and There's No Way Around That

But Wait…Does That Mean All Theaters Are Doomed?

Chapter 4: Chasing the Bottom Line: How to Do More Good for Less Money

Defining Our Bottom Line

Doubling Down on Saving Rabbits

Where Following the Bottom Line Leads, and Why It Can Be Hard to Follow

When Following the Bottom Line Means Making Big Changes

Why We Lose Sight of the Bottom Line

Chapter 5: Why Efficiency Means Everything for Donors (and Charities, Too)

Bringing It Back to the Bunnies

The Space to Be Human

There Are Massive Differences Between Charities in the Same Field

Coming to Grips with the Hard Facts

Chapter 6: How We Can Drive Our Favorite Charities to Succeed

The $1,500 Bottle of Soda

The Free Market and the World of Charity

Giving Non-Profits the Incentive to Be Great

It's Not All Donors' Fault

Unhelpful Advice

A New Breed of Charity Advisors

Chapter 7: Our Brains Don't Want Us to Be Great at Doing Good, But We Can Outsmart Them

What Charity Looks Like on the Inside

Questioning Our Motives

Looking Out for Number One, in More Ways Than One

Our Biases Try to Rule Us, and This One Is Really Bad

Empathy and Evolution

More Biases and Other Mental Quirks

Defeating Our Brains and Doing as Much Good as Possible

Putting Our Self-Centeredness to Work

Chapter 8: The Advice We Are Given About Charity Is Wrong—Here's the Truth

Following Your Passion Is a Bad Idea

Being Great at What You Do Doesn't Matter Unless You're Doing the Right Thing

Not All Charity Work Is Needed or Worth Doing Right Now

We Have to Make Hard Decisions About Who to Help and Who to Ignore

Doing Good Doesn't Always Feel Good

Charity Is All About Winning

Chapter 9: Moving Forward with Humility: Admitting What We Don't Know

Knowing What We Don't Know

The Wonderful World of Science

Learning How to Do Good Instead of Guessing How to Do Good

Chapter 10: Nine Steps to Greatness

1. Get Serious

2. Never Forget the Goal of Charity

3. Shun Fuzzy Thinking and Feel-Good Rhetoric—They Are Self-Centered

4. Be Aware of the Psychological Biases We All Have

5. Be Willing to Face the Hard Facts

6. Define and Make Decisions Around a Bottom Line

7. Measure, Measure, Measure

8. Give Non-Profits the Incentive to Be Great

9. And Remember: Never Forget the Goal of Charity

Conclusion: The Joy of Great Charity

About the Author

References

Index

End User License Agreement

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Preface: Schindler's Regret

Begin Reading

Praise for How to Be Great at Doing Good

“Brendan Kennelly wrote, ‘If you want to serve your age, betray it.’ But what does it mean to betray your age? It means expose its lies, humiliate its conceits, debunk its arrogance, and question its certainties. Nick Cooney does this exquisitely. I would like his book to be in every school library and private bookshelf. But most importantly, I would like his words to be inscribed on the hearts of everyone who looks at the face in the mirror each morning and resolves to do all he can to make life better for the powerless. I am full of admiration for this young man.”

—Philip Wollen, retired vice president, Citibank

“Too often, charity makes us feel good, but fails to do good. This timely, thoughtful book shows how our contributions can make a bigger difference.”

—Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success

“Nick Cooney is great at explaining How to Be Great at Doing Good, and I hope his book will be widely read. Even more important, though, is that its key ideas should be widely practiced. Then the results will be great, too—and Cooney and I agree that is what matters most.”

—Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, author of The Most Good You Can Do, and one of TIME magazine's 100 most influential people

“Doing good is something we could all get better at. This book is the blueprint. Nick Cooney uses the same tools we use at OkCupid—math, logic, and analysis—but to an end that could benefit us all. If you're serious about making the world a better place, start here.”

—Christian Rudder, co-founder of OKCupid and author of Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking

“Impeccably written and extremely insightful. With eloquence and expressiveness, Cooney gives us a practical guide to examining our charitable efforts, measuring their efficiency, and maximizing their and our impact. If you've ever felt you could do more to make the world a better place, this book is for you.”

—Shushana Castle, securities specialist, Sovereign Investments, and former board member of the Clinton Climate Initiative

“For anyone looking to make the world a better place, I highly recommend considering the arguments presented in How to Be Great at Doing Good. We're accustomed to trying to get the most for our money, but donating is the area where this principle is perhaps most important and least appreciated.”

—Holden Karnofsky, co-founder and co-executive director, GiveWell.org

“Do you know that some charitable programs and organizations are thousands of times more effective than others (and not just because there are scams)? If you want to know who's doing the most good, this book will give you the tools to make accurate assessments. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, this book will show you the way.”

—John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and president of The Food Revolution Network

“Giving money to a social cause isn't merely a donation to charity; it's an investment. It won't yield a financial dividend, but the return on investment comes in the form of the kind of social change the investor wants to affect. Nick Cooney helps such philanthropists decide how they can get the biggest bang for their donated buck in this very worthwhile and clearly written book. Anyone interested in using his or her financial resources to help make the world a better place will be better off for reading it.”

—Paul Shapiro, vice president, the Humane Society of the United States

“This book will challenge everything you've ever been told about what it means to do good. Whether you work or volunteer at a non-profit, or just donate to one, this book is going to change the way you think about charity. Most importantly, it's going to leave you with the power to make an even bigger impact on the world.”

—William MacAskill, founder and director, The Centre for Effective Altruism, and author of Doing Good Better

“Wow, this is such a great book… Don't waste another dollar or a moment of your time chasing wistful dreams; get focused and make the profound difference you long to see by reading (and enacting) Cooney's brilliant thesis.”

—Kathy Freston, New York Times bestselling author of Quantum Wellness and The Lean

“Efficiency. Apply that word to charity work, and you're not just talking about saving dollars, but saving lives. In this book, Cooney expertly uses real-life examples to show how you can maximize your impact. Whether you donate to, volunteer at, or work for a non-profit, you need to read this book.”

—Jon Bockman, executive director, Animal Charity Evaluators

“The world faces one big problem: Do-gooders rarely choose the most effective strategies to do good, and highly effective people rarely center their careers around doing good. Nick Cooney's book provides fascinating insights to address this problem, and thus to change the world.”

—Adriano Mannino, chairman, Raising for Effective Giving

“Very well-written and remarkably well-researched, How to Be Great at Doing Good is a must-read book for anyone who's thinking about giving but needs a little help doing so.”

—Gene Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Forks Over Knives and Secrets of People Who Don't Get Sick

How to Be Great at Doing Good

Why Results Are What Count and How Smart Charity Can Change the World

Nick Cooney

Cover design: Wiley

Cover image: © iStock.com/koya79

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2015 by Nick Cooney. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file with the Library of Congress.

978-1-119-04171-9 (hardback)

978-1-119-04224-2 (ePDF)

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Preface

Schindler's Regret

In 1936, a Czech citizen named Oskar Schindler enlisted as a spy for the secret intelligence service of the Nazi Party. Schindler was a banker and businessman and, although he was not German himself, his family had German roots. As the drums of war began to beat, fueled by the fiery speeches of Adolf Hitler and mass propaganda from the Nazi regime, Schindler went to work collecting information on troop movements and military installations in Czechoslovakia in preparation for a possible German invasion.