How You Can Change the World

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman

According to Net Impact’s Talent Report: What Workers Want in 2012 employees are saying that if they have the opportunity to make a direct social and environmental impact through their job, they achieve higher satisfaction levels than those who don’t. In fact, employees who say they can make an impact while on the job report greater satisfaction than those who can’t by a 2:1 ratio. This data is backed up by the two-thirds of graduating university students interviewed who indicated that making a difference through their next job is a priority, and by the 45% of students who say they would even take a pay cut to do so. Here are some additional facts that support this notion of employees today looking integrate social impact efforts into their career:

• According to a recent Harris Poll, a whopping 97% of Generation Y are looking for work that allows them “to have an impact on the world.”
• In recent years, courses or centers in social entrepreneurship have been created in over 250 universities and colleges such as Harvard Business School, Yale School of Management, Duke, NYU’s Stern & Wagner, Wharton, Oxford, and Stanford.
• Teach for America received 25,000 applications for 3,700 slots in 2008, an increase of more than a third over 2007. In Ivy League schools such as Yale, Cornell, and Dartmouth, close to 10% of all graduates applied to the program.
• In the past two years, the Acumen Fund, an organization that supports social entrepreneurs who solve major problems through business solutions (e.g. malaria nets, water purification, loans for housing), received more than 1,000 applications from top ranked business students for just 15 fellowship positions.
• The list of top business entrepreneurs who are focusing either full time or a considerable amount of time on social entrepreneurship is highly impressive:

1. Pierre Omidyar, founder of ebay, created Omidyar Network to “enable individual self-empowerment on a global scale.”
2. Jeff Skoll, cofounder of ebay, also runs Participant Productions, which makes socially conscious films including An Inconvenient Truth and Goodnight and Good Luck.
3. Bill Gates has left Microsoft to pursue a full-time career in philanthropy.
4. Warren Buffett recently donated $30 billion to the Gates Foundation.
5. William Draper, one of the biggest venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, created the Draper Richards Foundation to support social entrepreneurs.
6. Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum (Davos), founded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
7. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google, created Google.org, which supports social entrepreneurs and has raised over $1 billion.
8. Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr is leading an effort to raise $100 million for microcredit loans.

• The Grameen Bank, the leading example for social entrepreneurs worldwide, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
• The Bridgespan Group, a consulting group that advises social entrepreneurs, received 1,800 applications for 18 job openings in 2006.

Now here’s the key – having an impact doesn’t require you to quit your day job and live off in poverty committed to your philanthropic efforts. It’s actually quite the contrary – your day job is the tool to help you achieve that impact you want to have and achieve major satisfaction in life. It does, however, require you to break out of the normal career box and weave in philanthropy into your “regular job description”. How you can change the world today is through understanding that you can have a social and environmental impact through your job and work with your employer to carry out your commitment. It’s as simple as that.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you’ve been able to integrate your need to have an impact on this planet into your everyday living and career. What motivated you to move forward? Please comment below. Also, if you like what you read, please share it with others by clicking one of the buttons above.

Also, I would be so excited to have you join in on my new virtual training program called Make Your Mark on the World! It’ll help you identify your special qualities to help you breed success and create impact in the corporate arena and philanthropic world. It starts on October 22. You can easily register at: https://marionchamberlain.com/mark-world/. In case you have any questions about the program, please just send a shout-out to me at marion@mariochamberlain.com. We can easily set up a 15-minute chat to discuss any questions you might have.