Charity Is a Business

Today I’m not bringing along any charitable foundations, and I’m not praising or criticizing anyone’s operations. I’m only talking about an underlying logic and an objective fact: anything—once it has accumulated massive resources; and anyone—once they have the power to allocate those massive resources, even if that person is completely not corrupt, and even if the operation is fully transparent, legal, and well-grounded, the people running it can still obtain massive benefits.

A charitable foundation is a very typical “using the chicken to lay the eggs” kind of business. Its funding sources come from fundraising and from people’s goodwill. Its only “cost” is that the fundraiser needs to keep fundraising nonstop. You can think of it like the fundraiser exchanges these funds using resources, reputation, and labor. This money doesn’t belong to the fundraiser, but the right to use it is basically under their control.

There are so many places that need donations. They can decide who to give to and who not to—and it can be completely reasonable and justified. After all, they’re all doing good deeds. There’s no standard saying that a’s good deed is more urgent than b’s, or that a must get more and b must get less. All of that is ultimately a matter of the manager’s own discretion.

So I ask: where does that large amount of money sit? Is it up to them? Do all banks operate almost the same? What to buy with this money—does that also depend on their say? Using this money to support research at some hospital on some disease, or to fund impoverished rural mountain areas, or relief for some natural disaster—how much to spend—does that also depend on their say? You can’t say that giving $10 million is wrong and should instead give $50 million, right? There’s no standard.

Even if, in the usage process, the manager doesn’t take a single cent into their own pocket, with so much money sitting right there, what will the recipients do in order to get their hands on that money? It may not be done directly in the form of bribery, but resource exchange is 100% real. I promote something you want, you get something convenient from me. There’s some business that involves you, some collaboration where I only work with you and not others. These don’t necessarily have to involve related parties. The business process can be very normal. Even if you查到死, you still won’t be able to find any connection between these things—this is what I mean.

When you have control over where large funds go, you are certain to gain massive benefits from it. You even don’t need to skim a single cent from the money. You don’t even need to ask for any kickbacks. None of that is required. So in essence, it’s a business. No matter what your intentions are, you can’t avoid getting these benefits—because it’s normal.

You, as a node where people’s donations of love translate into emotional value, should get something. The only “abnormal” thing is receiving no benefits. But it’s often packaged as selfless devotion—and that’s wrong. As long as you become the node that uses large funds, objectively speaking, it’s impossible for it to be selfless. Even if you don’t want any benefit at all, benefits will still compensate you in invisible ways.

So you say, are these foundations just out to make money? And yes, they do help many people too. But that’s supposed to be the case, because the money originally belongs to other people. The allocator already siphons off part of society’s wealth just by performing the act of “redistributing social wealth”—can you understand that?

It could be reputation, it could be cooperation opportunities, it could be business—any way you look at it, there is always a siphon from social wealth, because these things may originally have belonged to someone else, and that someone else may even, after losing them, remain completely unaware.

Business is business. It’s still business even if the transactions are a little less hidden. It’s normal. The key is: don’t use “selfless devotion” to confuse this point.

Anyone who tells you they are selfless should be careful—because we aren’t afraid of any open business. Whatever compensation should be paid, just pay it. What we fear is the information black box: letting us lower our guard and make emotional trades that go against rational decisions—that is the truly lucrative kind of advantage. #GT二季度销毁257万枚