Explore the transformative power of social entrepreneurship as we dive into stories of individuals and businesses that are reshaping society. With our guests, discover the significance of legacy, philanthropy, and the impact of your choices. Let's redefine society together.
Guests:
Allison A. Sakara, Executive Director, High Alert Institute [@High-Alert-Inst]
On ITSPmagazine | http://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/allison-a-sakara
Dr. Maurice A Ramirez, Founder and President, High Alert Institute [@High-Alert-Inst]
On ITSPmagazine | http://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/dr-maurice-a-ramirez
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
Welcome to another riveting episode of the Redefining Society Podcast with your host, Marco Ciappelli. Today's conversation will take us on an exploration of social and entrepreneurial philanthropy, offering fascinating insights into how individuals and corporations alike are contributing significantly to the betterment of our society. We're thrilled to have Maurice Ramirez and Allison Sakara from the High Alert Institute as our esteemed guests, who bring their unique perspectives on this crucial topic.
Our guests guide us through their first-hand experiences working in the non-profit sector, particularly the High Alert Institute's noble work in human health care, veterinary health care, environmental stewardship, and more. In an increasingly post-pandemic society, they underline an interesting trend: the growing consciousness of individuals about their impact on the world and their eagerness to invest their time, talent, and treasure to improve it.
Marco's conversation with Maurice and Allison raises compelling questions about the shifting paradigm of consumer behavior. Are people increasingly favoring companies that are socially conscious and ethically driven? Is there a growing trend of consumers willing to pay more to support companies that actively contribute to worthy causes? As the discussion evolves, our guests emphasize the importance of authenticity in such pursuits, cautioning against false claims of social responsibility that can be damaging to a company's reputation.
Taking the discussion a notch higher, they bring the conversation to the role of personal legacy, citing the inspiring example of former President Jimmy Carter, whose dedicated humanitarian work long after his presidency became a testament to the power of altruistic commitment.
As we navigate this enlightening discussion, we invite you to reflect on the role we can all play in contributing to the well-being of our societies. Whether it's by supporting ethical and philanthropic businesses or actively participating in social causes, every effort counts. And if we all strive to leave the world a little better than we found it, imagine the impact we could create.
So, buckle up and prepare for a thought-provoking journey. If this episode resonates with you, we urge you to share it with others and subscribe to our podcast for more enlightening conversations. After all, the power to redefine society rests not just in our hands, but also in our minds and hearts. As we collectively strive to create a better world, let's remember that each one of us holds a piece of the puzzle. Let's make it count.
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Resources
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To see and hear more Redefining Society stories on ITSPmagazine, visit:
https://www.itspmagazine.com/redefining-society-podcast
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording as errors may exist. At this time we provide it “as it is” and we hope it can be useful for our audience.
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Marco Ciappelli01:53
Well, hello, everybody. This is redefining society and other episode here on ITSPmagazine. And another episode with at this point, my co host, I don't want to call them guests anymore. Maurice Ramirez and Alison Saqqara. Hello. How are you today?
Allison Sakara02:16
Very well. Thank you, Marco. I hope you are too. We're
Maurice Ramirez02:19
doing great Marco.
Marco Ciappelli02:20
Yes, always so nice to talk to you. I feel like even if we're far away, we're doing this remotely. It's kind of like having a good cup of coffee in a coffee shop and having a conversation that is relevant. And I think that this idea it's it's more recent knowledge and ideas to talk about this topic today, which is absolutely relevant for conversation around the redefinition of modern society. And we're not going to go into technology, although we could I guess, for certain things. But we're going to talk about social and entrepreneurship, philanthropic, enterpreneurship. And, and actually, we're going to touch on a few example of people that are certainly contributed, and companies and people that have contributed to make maybe these way to do business and participate to our society in in a very, very relevant way. So without further ado, I will love a quick presentation to our audience from both of you. Allison Marie's just in case they haven't heard the high alert Institute episodes we had so far.
Maurice Ramirez03:40
Yeah, thank you, Marco. Well, you know, the high alert Institute is one of millions of charities worldwide, doing what we hope is good work for underserved individuals and communities. In a number of areas. Our area, of course, is an all hazards One Health one nature, area of operation we work with organizations in human health care, veterinary health care, animal wellness, environmental stewardship, and technology innovations in those areas as well. But today, we really wanted to talk about about legacy and Sir Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts, in his final message to the Boy Scouts admonished us all to try to leave the world a little better than we founded. And as society is emerging from the pandemic, and we're really redefining society, in this new reality. We in the in the charitable world, are seeing an interesting change and interesting shift. We're seeing more and more individuals thinking about their impact in the world, as they as they emerge from their COVID cocoon. as and as they, as they think about how they're going to invest their time, talent and treasure for the betterment of the world.
Marco Ciappelli05:15
Isn't that nice? Right? If we all think like that, but I am happy to know that even from your perspective, both of you, as the founder of this nonprofit and been in the healthcare, industry environment for a long time, you, you're feeling that something is changing. So are there some specific signs that make you feel like is it? Is it a matter of more donation? Is it a matter of more participation? Is it a matter of cultural changes that maybe you're seeing in the news, and what is the make you feel positive about this? Well, for
Maurice Ramirez06:00
for us, it's really about the research. The anticipation was that as the pandemic cleared, with the changes in the economy, supply chain problems, inflation, that donations would be down overall, that people would be more frugal when it came to good works, and giving money away, because the cost of daily living was going up. And what's interesting for 20, if when we look at the statistics for 2022, individual donors, those folks who donate 510 $15, when they can, the folks who pass the leave a penny jar or leave a penny dish, and actually leave more than a penny, that those donations have stayed stable, compared to the five years before the pandemic, given that the economy is not as strong now as it was then given that people have more debt, as well as cost of living the cost of food, the cost of gasoline are all much higher. That says a lot about the importance, the mindset for for supporting good causes, and just helping out. And, and then you look at some of the market research, the way people make decisions about what they'll buy. And in the years before the pandemic, price and convenience, personal convenience, were the driving factors through the pandemic, again, price and, and convenience, particularly delivery services and, and things that allowed you to stay sequestered. During the shutdowns were a big deciding factors. And as but as we're emerging, we're seeing a trend that began before the pandemic really accelerate, where people care about the social consciousness, the ethics, the values of the companies that are providing their services, even if those values don't change the product or service themselves. And in many cases, if the company is philanthropic, if the company is donating real cash, or or real product to good causes, in places where otherwise those things can't be afforded. Consumers are even willing to pay more than they then the lowest price in order to support those good works. And they view it as their personal donation. When you when these folks are placed in, in focus groups, when they're asked Why did you spend 1550 or 90% More for for that T shirt? They say? Well, the extra money is my donation to the homeless, to people who need clothing to people who need preparedness services to people who need a house built. And and it's not about being rich or famous, although many rich, famous people are now showing that they set a good example. And I think probably the greatest example that is former is former President Carter. Wouldn't you agree Allison?
Allison Sakara09:22
Absolutely. Marie's I think that's a wonderful example that everyone in this country can can appreciate.
Maurice Ramirez09:32
I mean, think about it. This is a man who was in one of the most elite clubs in the world. They living former presidents still a living former president today. He was in an even more elite club, living recipients of the Nobel Prize, and probably the most elite club living former US presidents who have received a Nobel Prize during or Following their presidency, in fact, right now we only have two of those himself and President Obama. And in that most elite club, Jimmy Carter isn't out there saying, I'm the Nobel Prize winner. I'm former president, I was president, the United States. And I'm setting an example. Now he's out there. And for him, his his, his charities, his his donations, were teaching Sunday school, in the same church that he attended for decades, even before he was President. And his other was to work with Habitat for Humanity to build homes for people less fortunate than himself. And he wasn't out there with news crews, and and fanfare and photographs. He was out there with a hammer, and a saw, even in his 90s. building homes over 4000 homes that he contributed real day long work hard work, I grew up in, in, in the trades, building a house is hard work when you're young. Imagine doing that in your 70s 80s and into your 90s. And he wasn't out there alone. His wife was right there by his side, driving nails, carrying boards, hanging sheetrock lifting frames of homes into place? Yeah. And,
Marco Ciappelli11:29
you know, Can I Can I add something? Because there's something I come in from marketing and branding. You know, part of my experience is, you look at the companies nowadays and even personal brand, like, you know, celebrity, you sometimes you wonder, are they doing something good? Because they get so much more back? Like, is that marketing? Is that an advertising move? And I like to be positive that that is not but you know, I wasn't born yesterday. So I think sometimes you can read through the line and see that, you know, maybe that sentence coming from the CEO, it's not necessarily something that is going too far from just the message to the investors. But but you're bringing this example of somebody that certainly like, Carter, former President Carter didn't really need that advertisement. He was really doing it because you want it to and I think that nowadays, you can't hide it anymore. You know, the company that do good, because they're true to their vision and mission. Patagonia, I can say that's, that's one of that. So would you would you guys agree that he can lie your way out of out of this?
Maurice Ramirez12:55
I absolutely agree with you, Marco. Reputation. Marketing is obviously very important, particularly for small businesses, and who are trying to compete with the big boys, for companies that just to survive have to charge a little more. Because they're small, because they're local, because they have a limited reach and a limited budget. So those reputation marketing issues are important. But like you said, You can't lie. You know, Abraham Lincoln said, You can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool. You can't. And you can fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time. And if you're they're lying, if you're saying, Oh, we do this, if you're Patagonia and saying, We give 1% of our of our gross receipts to good causes. Well, you have to do that. And if you say that you do it because it is your ethics, your ethos, and in reality, you're just doing it because it's it's part of your marketing budget, you're going to get caught, it's going to ring hollow, the your partners, those those companies, those organizations that are doing the good work with your dollars are going to catch you. And even though they like the dollars, they're all about the ethics, they're going to step away from you. And you're going to be left the proverbial Emperor without without clothing, you're going to get caught. But I think that there's been a sea change it for the majority of companies, I can't say all of them I wish I could, but I can't. Where they see that. They're that that their clientele, their customers care about these things. They care about the ethics. They care that the money that they spend on unnecessary items and leisure items and luxuries. doesn't just give them a nice warm fuzzy feeling. or feet or feet. fill their bellies, or fill their gas tanks, they want to see that these companies are doing good with the money that they that that they're being paid. When I spend money, I want to know that it's with a company that at the very least, is not harming the environment. It's not harming children. It's not supporting disparities of any type, that it promotes inclusion, that they are being as responsible as the company can be. Ideally, I want to spend my money with a company that is also spending their money to do good outside of the profit motivation. Yeah, were there Yeah. I grew up believing in heaven and and believing that it's a good work is a brick in your house in heaven, and that they're building a house like Jimmy Carter, not just for themselves, these companies, they're building a house for me to my money that I spend with them.
Marco Ciappelli16:02
So I was wondering if this is something that is due to some cultural shift in the new generation, maybe also due to the communication and technology that was with mass media being on the internet and the news being already old and two minutes ago, and we have more access to information. So on one side, we know what the problem around the world or we don't depend from one newspaper. So I know that you wrote an article about about this particular topic. And I'm wondering if my perception have been a things about the new generation? Is it just my idea, I mean, is it touching older generation two, that are more motivated to to do good,
Allison Sakara16:54
something new is always possible Marco, but the way I see it is it's everything old is new. Again. It's a resurfacing of things that have been around for a very long time. And I'll go back even further, a lot of people are attributed this kind of a movement, dare I say, to the baby boomer age, but I see it as even older having grown up in a multi generational family, where everybody was either a survivor of, of significant war, or from World War One World War Two immigrants coming to the United States. And or had lived through the Great Depression, where everything was was was valued. And it was an of course situation where if you had one apple, you gave half to someone else, so that every, as many people could survive as possible. Through the baby boomer age, those of us in the 50s to 70s group. There are actual statistics for choosing products that have that, that have a that are identified as socially or environmentally responsible. And purchasing those from a social entrepreneur, so to speak, is something that people actually look for, these are the informed buyers. And if companies actually donate, you can track that they donate this is their, their brings in your technology, you can actually go online and look up and see what are what are companies doing with their money? Where is it going? You can look at charities and see where is their money going for real, not just by something that they have in a pamphlet, or have, you know, said on a podium, the statistic that I wanted to share with you Marco is that in this baby boomer era, more than three quarters will have persons will choose products that have this responsibility component to it. And that that actually increases to 84% I believe if companies choose to donate portions of revenue or profits to related charities so there's some real numbers here not just him impressions that we can share with each other.
Marco Ciappelli19:39
This is great. This is great. I mean if you have more numbers please keep sharing but I'm actually find these have been very, very good news from from a sociological perspective in terms of it's not just a new generation, but it's actually a movement that goes all the way back and I love how you refer to it. The generation that goes back to the Great Depression, the World War, and more, as you mentioned, the pandemic and the expectation of things to go. I mean, I think there is always one reason to see and to share the feeling that we're all in this together, right? You can just be selfish about things. And despite that, sometimes we do perceive society to be quite, quite selfish.
Maurice Ramirez20:28
And Marco, you brought up earlier, the fact that we might talk a little bit about how technology has changed this. And I think to Allison's point, is when my grandfather came to the United States before World War Two, he landed in New York, as, as an immigrant didn't speak any English. And the community took him in, they gave him a place to live, they helped teach him English, they helped him find jobs where he didn't need English until he could speak it well enough, then find a job where he could learn a trade and ultimately became a mason and ended up owning his own home and his and his, his own business. And you learned about that through word of
Marco Ciappelli21:14
I think there is always right, there's always that that spirit of collaboration amongst people,
Maurice Ramirez21:24
there's a pay it forward attitude, and you hear like, back then 1920s 30s, you heard about that through word of mouth. Today, we have social media, we have podcasts like yours, where the these, these grass level movements, these these efforts, by individuals, small efforts can add up and be replicated, be examples, and it kind of goes again, back to back to President Carter, a life well lived. This isn't about him having been president, it's about him. Having set an example, one job site, one family at a time, for 4000 Plus homes, over well over 40 years, that he Yeah, it's an example. And now in the social media, and with the press, you know, many all of us can reach out to hundreds or 1000s of people and show them our example, show them that, hey, I donate it, you know, if you donate, you get the immediate opportunity to share the fact that you donated. Yeah, I donated $5. Well, if I donate $5, and, you know, 3040 50 of my friends have over the next few months, donate $5. Between us, we donated 250, that's more than I can pull out of my wallet in any one chunk, and just give it away. But yeah, the fact that I donated, and I know that when I see others donate to a cause that I don't even know about, it spurs me to at least explore that cause and sometimes to donate. So it spreads, it spreads the good works around. And I think that's one of the advantages today. I think it's one of the reasons that we see Gen Z, getting all the credit, if you will. But this isn't new, Allison and I grew up in the days of the hippies. Yeah, 60s and 70s. And this, this, this concept of, of doing good for society, because by fixing society by improving society as a whole, it improves my life in some way. I refer to it as enlightened self interest, but it's not selfishness. It's the fact that a rising tide raises all ships, another cliche, but in this world, it's very true. If you do good, if you protect the environment, it's good for me, it's good for my children, it's good for my grandchildren, it's good for all of us. And if you don't, well, it's not so good for us. Even something, you
Marco Ciappelli24:00
know, there is no excuses anymore. Now, I mean, you mentioned technology, right? I mean, you can there are crowdsourcing website, there are plenty of association and business because maybe they make a percentage out of that, but they facilitate something that ultimately is good. And that's the difference between, you know, a social responsible company versus philanthropy and maybe we want to make you know, maybe you can help me to draw the difference in the definition of the two but my point is, we always think that or at least we thought that we can do anything if arts quake happen in in Turkey or or Syria or so far away, because we can only just help the people that are close to us, but this has been a paradigm shift with with technology, we can all contribute even though $1 That became a million dollar So you don't the idea that a philanthropist need to be a Bill Gates or a billionaire or a millionaire in order to be a philanthropist. It's kind of like it doesn't hold anymore. I love your your opinion on this and maybe help our audience to understand the difference between a company that does good and and actually the definition of being a financial philanthropist.
Maurice Ramirez25:23
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so let's talk about entrepreneurism. First. Yeah. And a social entrepreneur is a company or an individual who has a product or service that serves a social good, and they're charging for it and they should, you know, so you go to the doctor, that's a social good you take your child to the doctor, a social good, a hospital exists for a social good, it also exists to make money. Okay? That's social entrepreneurism. A company invents a new medical device, a new biological, a new a new drug, that's a social good, but it's also an economic good for that company. Philanthropic entrepreneurism is different. This, these are companies and individuals who take a portion of the money that they make doing social entrepreneurism, inventing a new drug, providing a new service, running adult daycares doing a school for for the neurodivergent. They take the money from that, and then they take that and donate it to something that's important to them. And they don't do it because it's good advertising. They do it because it's a value to them. That is, that is it's part of their ethics. So the philanthropic entrepreneur doesn't just do good through their products, their services, their business, they then take the money that that they make in that business, and through the business, donate it to others who are doing good. And it's not always Admittedly, it's not always dollars. Sometimes it's their products and services. Google is a philanthropic entrepreneur, they donate billions of dollars worth of IT services to charities worldwide, in addition to millions, hundreds of millions of dollars as cash, they provide IT services, including those to the to the high alert Institute. We work with other companies that are in the environmental remediation business, their job is to clean up toxic waste, and they make money doing so on government contracts. They make money from from municipalities, they make money from other not for profit organizations to do come in and clean the environment. But they also then donate some of those services to communities that can't afford them and come in at their cost and do a cleanup. And in other cases, they donate money to things like ocean plastic cleanup, which is something they're not involved in at all. But it's important work. And so they take a portion of their money. And they donate it. Those folks are our philanthropic entrepreneurism. And and that's a rising trend in businesses, businesses that are taking the example of Patagonia Patagonia, was one of the first to actually put a percentage to it, because the big question is always, well as a business, how much can I how much should I donate? How much can I afford to donate and paddock and Patagonia and others said 1% of your gross revenue, as long as it doesn't put you in the negative as long as you're not having to borrow to do it. And that sounds like a really small amount 1%. And what they proved in a very effective very, very profitable business model is that if you do that, even without promoting it, even without making it the center of all of your of your advertising, customers notice and they're willing to buy more product from you, which means that your profits go up, your cost per unit goes down, you're able to buy in larger bulk, and therefore your materials cost end up going down. Because you get a better wholesale price, your profit margin percent profit goes up, even though you're giving 1% of your gross because it's always 1% of the gross. And it ends up being therefore a smaller percentage of your profit margin, because the extra money that you make is all profit. And it was it was an interesting business model that when 1% was first proposed by Patagonia two decades ago, everyone thought that he was crazy. How can you give away 1% of your gross revenue and And it turns out now that not only was it a brilliant, brilliant business model, but it's become its own, it's become its own, not for profit, well known as 1% for the planet. And there are major corporations who take the 1% pledge, and they don't donate the money to 1% for the planet, they donate the money to a charity of their choosing. And they just, you know, let 1% for the planet know that they met their their promised obligation. And sometimes those are very local charities look at look at Toyota and Subaru. They donate to national organizations, but they also encourage their dealerships to donate locally, by the way, so do the big automakers out of Detroit. And many of those autumn are many of those local dealerships, donate to local charities, some of them very small, not for profits that are that are just in that one little city. But imagine getting 1% from a from your local auto dealership, as a small local, not for profit, or a food bank, it could be your budget for a quarter of the year. And you'll have the tools to do that. In do that, if you're not, if you're not living off your credit cards, if you're able to put a little bit of money away towards retirement, then yeah, it's the old one for you, one for me, one for you, two for me, one for you, three for me, at as you as you earn your money in the year, and you can give it to your church, you can give it to your favorite charity, you can give it to your kids Boy Scouts, and it serves a double purpose. Yeah, it serves your child, and it serves the it serves the greater community. There are so many ways to get multiple impacts, if we just think about it a little differently. If we look at it from through a slightly different lens.
Marco Ciappelli32:06
So can a company I'm not feel like I know the answer. But can a company be both philanthropic and also be driven by social good, I mean, because that's, that's when I think Patagonia or other company, I'm thinking they're already doing both. So they're, they're contributing twice. To this. It's not just a company that does evil, but then he takes that 1% and donate it just gonna like, you know, bind this to the ticket to to a better position in society. Because I feel like that's the company that is really sticking with the vision, their mission and really giving a big, big contribution.
Maurice Ramirez32:53
No, you're absolutely right, Marco, it is very much possible for a company to do good through their products through their operations through their own choices. Yeah, to Yeah, they can choose to be greener, they can choose to be more socially responsible, they can choose to be more equitable, more aware. And we saw a lot of that leading into the pandemic, and even through the pandemic, companies that that made certain that that their websites, the people on their websites, mirrored society, where they, you know, that everybody wasn't, was that all the models on the websites, all the images weren't of Caucasian men. When there were people of color, there were children, there were people of diversity, that that companies showed multiple types of families, on their web on their websites. So that there was that that clear statement of inclusion, that's a social good, those are social entrepreneurs. And then as you said, there are the companies that do what Patagonia has set a fine example of their giving of their time, their talent and their treasure. And companies have a huge depth of talent that are already paid, they're already on the clock. There's a there are several companies out there that build websites for a living for money, do digital marketing for money, the Institute was just is has had the benefit of a digital marketer at no cost to our to our organization donated by a small business that does digital marketing. You know, we've had the same with our website. And those companies they choose to do it because they're they're giving of their time, energy and talent.
Marco Ciappelli34:50
Let's talk about that as we start wrapping here because the connection between the globe reality and the community Yeah, so actually, in the redefining society, podcast mission, I talk about the global village, you know, the Marshall McLuhan Global Village for mass media and communication. But I said, you know, that become even more real today with all this technology and in how we are interconnected or with another. But we cannot always just think about global reality. It's just some body or some company that can that is so big, that can make a change at the global level. The point is, you can, you can still, you need to retain your connection with the community. And I love when you said that, because we can't just think about the big company to do this. But the coffee shop around the corner there, maybe donate to the library maybe donates to the local shelter, maybe they just keep the extra food at the end of the day. I think that this is something that it doesn't probably make the news as much as it should. But it again, it should, because it could motivate people that leaving the community to go and support those kinds of businesses. So I guess my my point here is, what can we do to make this cultural change that is already happening, but speed it up even more so that the consumers, the everyday people are more sensitive and inspired to, to get into the circle?
Maurice Ramirez36:32
Well, Michael, I think there are three things that any business can do. And then there are three that any individual can do. So let me do the businesses first. And I'm going to use a great example that we saw during Hurricane Ian and, and I and our organization has no connection to these folks. But this was a a competition barbecue team, who happens to have a food trailer, they don't even have a food truck. They have a food trailer. So they they like to do barbecue. And so they go out. And they they go to these insert these national competitions, with 100 pounds of beef and pork. And they do competition barbecue. And if they win, they make a few $1,000. And if they if they don't win, they had a great weekend as a bunch of guys. And to support their hobby. They have because these are these are all firefighters on their off duty hours. They take their same trailer that they take the competitions, and they go to two food truck rallies, and they sell barbecue to raise money to go on barbecue competition trip competition trips. Well, Ian happens. And yeah, in in, in the south southwest Florida. A lot of communities lost restaurants, people had no food, there were a lot of folks who were displaced, who were who were trying to find someplace to eat because they cooked at home. And now they didn't have a home. And shelters are great for a place to live and bathing and, and be protected from the environment. But you're always relying on somebody to bring in food, the Red Cross. FEMA, somebody's has to bring food. So these guys just pulled up with Yeah, and they went on their way down collecting donations from grocery smaller stores and butcher shops. And any place that might have meat and wood because they had to fire their barbecue truck, their barbecue trailer, they showed up and they had their necessary badges and all the things you have to do to show up at a disaster site. They're part of, of the appropriate volunteer organizations. And they started feeding people. And in the first week, they fed over 10,000 meals out of pocket. Yeah, now they got a lot of it by by volunteer. But they took the time off work. And they stayed for as long as they could afford to and they went home. And that was their contribution. And it's just a group of guys and their spouses. And they just showed up. So you can do a lot and they did it the right way. They didn't just show up and become part of the problem. They donated something of value and very little dollars involved. Others that they also as they were going people were putting money in a jar, they didn't even plan on a jar. We're putting money in a jar that they ended up when they got there with a whole lot of cash. You know, some of that cash got used to buy food and supplies to feed people with and the rest of it got handed to one of the local charities there who was taking over for them as they were leaving. And so you know, at a at an individual level. You can look at what time do I have to donate I might have no money and no resources, but I have an hour or two that I can donate I can be like Jimmy Carter and show up at Habitat for Humanity. Swing a borrowed hammer against donated nails into donated wood And the only thing that I really have contributed is my time and sweat. And that counts, it's important.
Marco Ciappelli40:07
And then the other side, if you don't have time, and you don't have money, but you still like need to buy the thing that support your life, I think you can still probably trying to invest that I mean, invest in the time maybe to research that at the same price. Maybe I can give it to a company that I know is doing good and is not just making money. So be selective, maybe right. So right to exactly. educated and educated consumer. And nowadays, again, I go back to, to the internet and the fact that if we can access that we can do a little bit of research. And I think that's that's a good thing, knowledge and education goes a very, very, very long
Maurice Ramirez40:56
way. Yeah. And Marco I'm going to Allison's our is our great writer and editor. Here at the institute, I want to suggest to her that she write an article that kind of inspired us philanthropic consumerism, concept that hasn't been out there before as a model. But really, social consumerism was something that was that that was being explored before the pandemic, but philanthropic consumerism, where you had not not just make a smart choice based on responsible products at the same price as you describe social consumerism, but philanthropic, do what you see Gen Z, doing Gen Z will spend 19% more for a product that does good, because they view that extra 19% as their donation, go to that same good cause. And it's another way to donate it's part of your budget, it makes it it makes it easier. And I think that's what this is about is,
Marco Ciappelli41:53
I think is a great idea. I think it's a great idea. I think our listeners should write about that. And then we then we can talk about the defined in our research, because I think is an excellent, an excellent concept and goes back to when we say, well, if I can do a lot, then I'm not going to do anything or somebody else will do it. I mean, we've we've run million of sociological experiment where people wouldn't do something because they expected the neighbor will do it, the guy next door would do it helping somebody because somebody else is gonna do it, somebody else is gonna call 911. There's plenty of example. But the truth is, we can all do something even very, very little. I like to finish this. Maurice with the analysis, where the idea that started at all, so I'd like to give you a couple of minutes to, to talk about, you know, the legacy of Jimmy President Jimmy Carter, and how this actually did inspire the idea for for this conversation. And then we we say goodbye.
Allison Sakara43:04
Well, Marco Mari has mentioned a lot about Habitat for Humanity as being a really big cause for the Carters and launching so many projects, and helping so many people in the US and globally through that through their efforts through raising awareness through getting more people involved, bringing more volunteers on board. I think fewer people are aware of his environmentalism legacy, which goes back to, at least as far as I know, goes back to the 60s as where he was a founding member of the Georgia Conservancy. He was also he also most people don't realize, maybe did you know Mario said he actually had solar panels installed at the White House during his presidency.
Maurice Ramirez43:57
I did actually it was one of the things that inspired me Believe it or not, to do a solar to do a solar panel project with my younger brother for my younger brother science fair.
Marco Ciappelli44:09
And that's that's a while back. People don't even think there was solar panel back then.
Allison Sakara44:15
Exactly. Exactly. It was done for solar hot water at the White House. Yep.
Marco Ciappelli44:19
I didn't know know that. So here's another important element like you know, be be ahead of the game if you can. And I think, again, somebody that has the visibility to be able to do it with such an humble way. It's it's really inspiring. I think it's it comes down to that do it because your heart tells you to do it and maybe no much of there is no interest behind that. You're either doing it or you're not. Well, I think we should end up this conversation with with that quote, So that, that you started with the one from Sir Robert Baden Powell, you know, try to leave this world a little better than when you find it. I think there is a, there is entire books that can be written around this sentence. So I say we we close this conversation here, I hope you get to write this article that we talked about, you know, philanthropic consumers, I think is a brilliant idea that can, that can go a long way and, and I hope to hear about that, and I know that we will have many other conversation with you and in the high alert Institute, and I invite everyone to listen to the past episodes, because they're all very motivational and inspiring and find out more on the notes on this podcast, there will be links to the organization and to their profile for more use analysis on it ITSPmagazine and learn more about what they do. And in the good. I'm very honored to have this conversation with you because I know how you're actually doing all of this from your heart. So thank you. Thank you very, very much.
Maurice Ramirez46:12
And thank you, Marco for spreading the word and for helping us redefine society.
Marco Ciappelli 46:18
We can only do it together right, Allison?
Allison Sakara46:21
Precisely, we are stronger together.
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Marco Ciappelli48:06
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