If you ruled the world

I love to illustrate the innate presence of Citizen Generosity in people groups by conducting my “if you ruled the world” surveys. One of the best places to do this is in a pub (public hotel bar) early in the evening before the full impact of alcohol has kicked in.

This is how it works.

Preferably using a microphone and public address system, I ask everyone in the room to give me their attention for a few minutes.

“I’m conducting some research, and I need you to answer only two questions, please. Using the pen and paper that is being handed around by my assistant, firstly, please write down the top three social and wellbeing issues in the world that you would fix immediately if you suddenly had the power of the President of the United States and the wealth of Bill Gates. Just list the first three that are topmost in your mind if money and power were no object.”

“Then, underneath that, again if power and money were no object, please write down the top three social and well-being issues you would fix in your local community. Go for it. Thanks.”

Most in the room are interested in knowing the most prominent concerns on everyone else’s minds once the pieces of paper are collated.

When possible, I share those results about 30 minutes later. Often all participants are silent as I report what issues were the most selected amongst that crowd. It is rare that such a list does not become the centre of discussion among the group soon after.

Of course, you will always have to expect a smart Alec or two to appear in the group who might write down a list such as “1. Free toilet paper for everyone, 2. Free beer for everyone, 3. Freedom from do-gooders”, as happened on one occasion. But more often than not, I have found that most people in the room get behind the idea.

In undertaking such a survey, what I am actually measuring is not the list of the specific social concerns that were on the minds of any particular group. Although, that makes good reading as well, of course.

What I am much more interested in measuring are these results:

1. Almost always, more than 80% of participants can list their top three social concerns for each question without delay. That is because those social concerns exist in their minds and have touched their hearts due to something that has already occurred in their life journeys to that point.

2. Many struggle to reduce their top issues to just three.

3. The resulting spectrum of issues that are top of mind is diverse. A rule of thumb is that a room of 100 people will typically produce a list of up to 30 different global social issue categories and about the same number of different local issue categories they would address if they had the power of the US president and the wealth of Bill Gates.

These impromptu tests of groups of people reveal this: given the capacity to do so (i.e. the money and power), most adults in the Western world would give money to causes addressing their top three global and local issues of most concern.

Any nonprofit representative of a good cause undertaking such an exercise will have identified a subset of the group who probably have further interest in what their nonprofit is achieving in the world. Such a subset within that group would be open to further conversations about that charity’s mission and the option of financially supporting it.

I encourage you to give it a go and not just once. Do it as many times as you can find opportunities to do so and with diverse audiences. If nothing else, it will raise your awareness of the degree to which people are fundamentally more generous than you might have previously believed them to be. It will also confirm for you that people predisposed in favour of your cause in the community do exist. That might inform you of ways to better connect with such people and begin forming relationships that will enable them to give money to your cause when the time and circumstances are right for them.

By undertaking such surveys, I hope it will illustrate that even if they have never given a dollar to any cause in their lives before, the latent desire to support causes that matter to them is resident in most people's hearts to some degree. Such people are yet-to-be donors, and when they discover a cause that matches what they want to see done in the world, new doors open to asking them to support that cause financially.

Then, to develop this revealed latent Citizen Generosity, you need a Donor-centric Fundraising Enterprise like the one I describe in my book Cracking Generosity. Below is a free appetizer of the beginning of Cracking Generosity. If you like what you read then you can order a first edition of Cracking Generosity when it is published early in 2024.