32 Quotes by Dan Pallotta

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.

Everyone 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.

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

What'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.

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.

We 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.

Brand is much more than a name or a logo. Brand is everything and everything is brand.

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.

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.