The Math Problem

You are not wealthy enough. Even you, Mr. Musk, in case you’re reading this, aren’t wealthy enough. No one in the world is or has been. The size of the collective problems most of us want to fix is simply too much for a single person or war chest.?

Have you considered what it will cost to stop and reverse climate change? What about eliminating extreme poverty? These challenges alone are in the order of trillions of dollars. Once you include other elements like: achieving gender & minority equity, access to water and sanitation, preventing catastrophes (man-made or not) and safety from war and violence, the cost of solutions to our greatest challenges is in the order of trillions of dollars every year for the foreseeable future.?

I meant it when I said it earlier. You are not wealthy enough. Any effort you make, even if you’re a billionaire, will be but a drop in a massive sprawling bucket.?

The fact is that, as things stand right now, we have a serious math problem. The cost of the challenges we wish to solve is incomparably larger than the resources we have dedicated to solving them. The math does not add up.?

This problem is compounded by the fact that most people simply ignore it, which only makes the problem harder to solve. Let me invite you to be a part of the solution, because there is good news.?

The trillions of dollars to solve our challenges exist. Just in the world’s wealthiest families (those with over $30 million), there are over $42 trillion that we know of, plus another several trillion that are hidden in tax havens. Pension funds and banks have many more trillions that they invest constantly. All of this money then has the power to unlock even more trillions in governmental coffers. The money exists. It’s just that it is not currently being allocated to solve our greatest challenges.?

What can you do? Some will argue that you should just “do your part.” Help the charity that does the best work in the sector you care the most about and it’s enough. Some others will encourage including investments that have an impact angle, and possibly transforming businesses to make them more morally aligned. These are all great, and I would encourage these actions too. However, they’re not enough. I suggest that these only become a part of your strategy, but not the totality. We need to unlock significantly more resources and we need them fast. We need more action of the sort that solves the math problem.

We need to unlock significantly more resources and we need them fast.

After spending years in the impact sector, and in a charity that works to solve the math problem, I’ve come to realize that almost no-one wants to help this cause area. The cause area is simple: unlocking more resources to solve our greatest challenges. There are different ways in which people refer to this cause area: meta, broad-based and infrastructure. So long as it’s referring to actions being taken to solve the math problem, I see it as a part of the same cause area. For the purposes of this piece, I’ll refer to it as infrastructure.?

Infrastructure organizations are the organizations actively working to unlock those trillions of dollars currently not used in impactful ways. Whether it is working with wealthy families, improving the efficacy of governmental spending, or changing the incentive structures for big investors, these are organizations helping unlock billions for impact.?

The problem is that almost every infrastructure initiative is underfunded, scrambling for resources and using their top talent to fundraise. Even though this causes serious operational inefficiencies, these are still some of the most impactful organizations in the world, because they unlock hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for every dollar spent. As a reference point, in Generation Pledge , the total funding we’ve had of ~$1.5 million has unlocked ~$1.5billion. That is a 100,000% return. I don’t know of any impact investments that come remotely close. Yet, even organizations with such returns on donations have a very hard time covering operating budgets, ourselves included.?

Most people in the world have never funded an infrastructure organization. Some haven’t even considered it as an option in their philanthropic portfolio. Others feel that it is too removed from the work on the ground to feel personally satisfying. If this is changed, we would have a real chance to solve the math problem.?

If you are not currently supporting infrastructure organizations, this is my plea for you to start. If you are willing to be bold enough, I would even suggest that you make this cause area your priority. Given how few supporters there are for this work, there is a unique and timely opportunity to have a world-changing impact by focusing on infrastructure work.?

There are many infrastructure organizations that could use more support. Some of them more than others. Here are some of my favorites that can most likely use additional resourcing: Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth , Founders Pledge , NEXUS Global , One for the World , Forward Global , Total Portfolio Project , High Impact Athletes , and Generation Pledge .?

It would be pretentious to suggest that fully resourcing these organizations alone would solve the math problem. Even when fully resourced, these organizations are unlocking billions, and not yet trillions. However, the combination of additional resources, with the focus on deployment effectiveness that many of these organizations have, means that they are the best chance I know of for us to change the direction we are traveling. They are propelling a culture shift in how we choose to engage with the world’s problems. At their most granular, they are shifting the opinions and actions of the world’s most powerful individuals. At their most ambitious, they are laying the groundwork to unlock resources from governments, pension funds, banks, and other repositories of the world’s wealth, sufficient to solve the math problem.?

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the infrastructure cause area. As I see it, it is the most important cause area in the world, bar none. If we don’t solve the math problem, we are condemning ourselves to fail almost every important challenge. If we solve the math problem, and unlock the resources necessary, then solving every challenge becomes a possibility.

If we solve the math problem, then solving every challenge becomes a possibility.

There is a version of the future where we actually solve all the issues we are facing. In this beautiful future we would have to go to museums to learn about climate change, pandemics and poverty. However, unless we change the way we are doing things, we’re building a version of the future where we remain in our status quo, perpetuating humanity’s constant state of mass loss and suffering.?

You are not wealthy enough to solve the world’s challenges by yourself. However, you can be a part of the story that solves all of them by resourcing infrastructure organizations and helping solve the math problem.?