Member Spotlight: Wilfred Godfrey
Our 25th member, Wilfred Godfrey, comes to us from New Zealand. As an early member, Wilfred has inspired both his brother, Lance, and close friend, Christina, to join the Altruist community.
Wilfred is endlessly curious and has a passion for life that, although we’ve never met in person, comes through in his writing and photography. His interests range from physics and psychology to nutrition, neurobiology, and biomechanics. He even trained parkour for nine years and helped found the New Zealand Parkour Association. He is inspired by people who are driven to be better versions of themselves and is always striving to do more. We are excited to introduce you to Wilfred so he can share his thoughts on philanthropy, humanity and life with the Altruist community.
Q: You are the 25th Altruist member — what inspired you to become a member so early on?
I can’t remember quite where I found Altruist, but the minute I saw it I thought “well that just makes sense.” I guess I’m a bit of an idealist, but the concept of getting everyone to chip in a tiny amount of money to affect positive change on a large scale rang a bell. I’m also very skeptical of charities that are more about marketing themselves than helping — The Red Cross empty trucks incident is a good example. I’ve also had telemarketers from large charities emotionally blackmailing me over the phone. A large part of the industry is just warped in a horrible way, and it’s hard for an outsider like me to tackle that and find where to put my money. So having someone say “just give me a dollar once a month and I’ll make sure it’s well spent, in a really transparent way” was a no-brainer.
Q: What has been your favorite featured nonprofit so far?
This is a hard question, but Books for Africa stood out to me. Our ability to teach one another is probably humanity’s greatest strength. Storytelling, the printing press, film and television, the internet. Each one has brought about innovation that has saved and improved lives remarkably. Bringing knowledge into regions with poor education is, as I see it, a crucially important step towards improving living standards on a global level.
Q: If you could change one thing to make the world a better place, what would it be?
I would make all human knowledge freely and universally accessible.
Connect with Wilfred on Twitter — @wjagodfrey
If you are interested in being featured in our next Member Spotlight, email us.
Learn more about the Altruist community and how you can make your dent $1 at a time at joinAltruist.com
