The Impact Pity Party

As long as Impact is about pity, the world will struggle to progress.

Organizations who are striving to make a difference in the world, promoting social, economic, health or environmental good, have long relied on pity. Pity that the world is a terrible place. Pity that bad things are happening all around us. Pity that tells you it is your moral duty to give money blindly to make the world better.

This the Impact Pity Party. And the impact industry is fueled by it.

From desolate pictures of remote places to videos of children starving in villages, the impact industry has thrived by pulling on the emotional heartstrings of the public. They rely on emotional arguments to win resources and funding towards projects.

There are two types of hosts of these impact pity parties.

1. Good actors who are working tirelessly within communities to make a difference.

2. Bad actors who are good at marketing and are simply capitalizing on poverty porn.

We can debate about the relative percentage of good vs. bad projects, but nevertheless, people who want to support good projects can’t tell who is who.

It’s true, the pity party has gained broad attendance. Its tactics have raised $Billions by exposing horrors in the world. But it’s also proven that it simply isn’t a scalable solution. The pity party doesn’t offer a tangible way of denting, let alone solving the core societal problems upon us.

The Pity Party Hangover

Relying on the emotional arguments of the pity party results in two profoundly negative side effects:

1. The pity party is not fun, it is sad.

Supporting social/environmental impact at the pity party is not inspiring. It’s downright depressing. Let’s think about the last time you went to one of these not-so-fun parties.

First, you are hit with a slew of bad feelings. You think:

“Wow, the world is a bad place. How could it have gotten this bad?”

“If I give will it even make a difference?”

“If I don’t give, does that make me a bad person?”

“If I give, will they use my money towards the cause?”

“Is this problem even real or is this just a marketing ploy?”

By using the emotional argument, they are really challenging the audience in an uncomfortable way. The interaction quickly morphs into an internal discussion about justifying not giving and preserving one’s own ego. Congrats, you have now long forgotten the at-risk community in need.

2. The pity party prevents innovation.

Innovation is bred from adversity, not pity. The pity party prevents innovation because it is a crutch. A crutch that enables stagnation, insulating non-profits and impact providers from the adversity needed to innovate.

Giving money at the pity party enables impact providers to sit in a comfort zone that is fueled by guilt. We should instead be working to understand what are the problems, and how we can get these non-profits the data and resources they need to monetize their good deeds. How do we equip good projects with technology that can help them construct more appealing, logical and technical arguments that can be used to structure long-lasting impact solutions?

The Impact industry is plagued with problems that prevent transparency, impact measurement, and tracking. But if we work to solve these problems, we are unlocking the value of impact that can support a new-age of impact investment vehicles.

If we continue to attend the Impact pity party, then we are relying on weak arguments and status quo bandaids instead of working to innovate towards technological, transparent and measurable paths to success.

So, do you still want to go to the Pity Party?

Pity Party Recap

- The world is a dark place

- We rely on uncomfortable emotional arguments

- Can’t differentiate between good & bad actors

- Fuel guilt over empowerment

- No transparency into what your contribution achieves

- No measurement of progress or success

We are planning a better party, and you are invited!

Let’s have a progress party.

Progress Party

• The world is a place where you can make a difference
• Technology forward
• Relies on transparent and granular impact data
• Offers reliable success metrics and measurements
• Allows good projects to monetize their impact achievements
• Empowers funders to make smarter allocation decisions
• Fund results, not promises

At the Progress Party, the goal isn’t to throw money at a problem and hope it goes away. Let’s think bigger. The goal is to eradicate the problem in a measurable and transparent way that is now possible through technology.

I will be working tirelessly to host these progress parties. We can bring together cutting edge technologies to track impact work at a granular level and enable the passionate non-profits the data they need to make more powerful and empowering arguments. Proof that funders and donators like yourself can rely on so you can invest in impact directly.

I will be detailing specifically how we are going to make these progress parties a norm in the impact industry going forward. I hope you join me.

Party on,

KDP