I have a problem yes a problem most
people don’t have but yes a problem I
want more people to have I care I care
for people everywhere people well
outside my social circle people
everywhere where did it come from I
actually don’t know was it watching the
famine in Ethiopia in the 80s on the BBC
maybe but I think that was it just
manifesting why am I so different well
actually I’m not people have a filter a
mechanism to repress those powerful
images my filter muslin be as good as
most a filter that on rare occasions
like when we all saw the image of the
boy washed up on the coast in Greece
that suddenly falls away so in response
to this at the age of 24 unlike most my
peers who were going off to Australia I
set off for a country that I’d never
heard of before called Tanzania to
volunteer for two years and it was the
happiest two years of my life
I’ll save you watching a lot of TED
talks about what is happiness happiness
is when your thoughts words and actions
are in harmony and for the first time in
my life they were all in harmony and I
loved it of course the two years went
quick and I came back to Ireland and got
a job in the commercial world and after
a few years I realized I’m back out of
alignment and I was afforded the
opportunity to run a wonderful charity
called chimera education for the last
eight years where I got that that
harmony well untruly back and then two
years ago for the first time ever I
witness somebody died right in front of
my eyes the tragedy was that it was my
wife of 10 years who had a long battle
with cancer
and I’d witness her say goodbye to not
just me but to our two two children who
were aged four on six of the time so if
I wasn’t motivated by caring for people
everywhere before then I certainly was
now so let me tell you a little bit
about the business of caring for people
in 2015 the world got together and
agreed 17 goals these goals are things
like to eradicate poverty quality health
care quality education housing etc and
we have to achieve them by 2030 now I I
love these goals and I love them because
they’re global and they apply to people
here in Ireland as much as they do
somebody in Zambia and as you all know
we still have quite a bit to go in
Ireland to achieving these goals the
other reason why I love these global
goals is because once upon a time
Africa’s problems where’d you start
they were Africa’s they were out there
however as we’ve seen with the migration
crisis and security issues in Europe
they’re no longer their problems there
are problems interconnected world we
live in and these are global solutions
for global challenges now the easy part
of course is coming together and
agreeing these 17 goals the hard part is
actually making them making them real
making them happen and there are three
players in that that do actually the
work to make these happen the first is
government the second is charity and the
third is a relative new comer its
business so today our government on our
behalf gives 30 cent in every hundred
euro that we have in this country to
achieve in these goals internationally
pretty pretty meager part of our budget
and it’s especially disappointing given
several years ago we committed to 70
cents in every hundred euro our nearest
neighbors in the UK have actually
legislators for 70 cent so no politician
can come along at a whim and dropped
commitment so I need you to talk to your
politicians and to tell them that this
actually matters
it matters more than ever before the
second is charity and charity today
charities everywhere are doing amazing
work I had the experience of it
firsthand as I say in Kamara where we
were working towards goal number four
quality education now in recent years
there have been a number of charity
scandals in Ireland and the UK and I
really implore you not to believe that
these are representative of all
charities because they’re not these are
some isolated examples so I need you to
give to charity and give more than ever
before the third audience is business
now businesses typically today they
write a check every year maybe for the
local charity they might let their staff
volunteer for a day every year great I
hear you say well actually no it’s not
great given the resources that are out
there disposal it’s actually pretty
woeful and I think I understand why that
is the case and that is because there
are two myths that are present today
that I want to burst
now the first myth is that social good
and profit are incompatible so if you
look at this simplistically and you
think yeah the bigger the check I write
to charity yes the lower the profits
that is true in the short term but in
the medium and long term the companies
that have social good at their core will
have the best employees and will see
customers migrate to them over time let
me give you an example so the company
called Unilever that I think we all know
because we have their products in our
houses so ten years ago Unilever put in
place a new CEO called Paul Polman
and he said if the company did not put
social good at their core they were dead
so today under still on their journey
everything they do in Unilever they look
through the lens of social good and the
results are staggering
over 90% of Unilever staff are not just
happy to work in the organization
they’re proud to work for Unilever
the value of the company has exploded
from 40 billion to 160 billion so it’s
very clear from this example that
actually business doing good is good for
business the second myth is that
philanthropy the art of giving is the
same as altruism the art of caring for
people unconnected to us now of course
philanthropy is part of altruism however
it’s not the same and it’s not the total
part of altruism because every day as
individuals and businesses we have
decisions that we make pretty simple
decisions in a lot of cases which can
actually go towards achieving these
goals decisions in business like if
we’re looking at multiple suppliers
which to pick who are we looking at who
is the most ethical provider out there
should we choose a renewable energy’s
provider or a traditional energy
provider for our manufacturing plants
these decisions are are pretty simple
decisions and but yet we overlook the
responsible decision a lot of the time
even though the cost is negligible let
me give you an example again of this so
Airbnb the accommodation provider
recently announced that they’re opening
up their portal around humanitarian
crises for free so people in those
communities can give accommodation to
both the humanitarian workers and the
survivors so here is a decision they
made it cost them pretty much nothing
and yet it had a huge contribution
towards humanity humanity in crises so
not all decisions cost money so there
are the two myths that I wanna I want to
explode now if you don’t believe me so
far I’ll bring in the data side and the
data is pretty conclusive too because
the Boston Consulting Group a couple of
years ago looked at us looked at this in
depth and what they found is companies
which
good outer core can achieve profits that
are four percent greater than their
peers and valuations that are 11 percent
greater than their peers so it’s it’s
pretty clear that this stuff is works
and here’s the best part
we all think of business as they’re out
there somewhere right but actually
businesses are set up the wrong they’re
managed and they serve people people
like us and people when they strip away
that filter actually care to so we
actually have a lot more control and we
have a lot more influence than we think
on businesses now you’re probably at the
point where you’re thinking yeah but
we’ve given money to Africa for decades
and it’s gone down the swanee and
there’s been scandals and it’s wasted
and we should stop doing that stuff
again we need to look beyond the media
headlines so the World Bank said between
the years of 1999 2010 the number of
people in the world in extreme poverty
halfed so in a short 20 year 20 years
650 million men women and children were
lifted out of poverty and this trend has
only continued since 2010 so this stuff
works so go back to Gandhi if my
thoughts are similar to your thoughts
now if my words have resonated then it’s
time for you to join me in action I want
you to help me Lobby the government I
want you to give what you can to charity
and most importantly I want you to
effect change in business because when
we hit these goals and we will hit these
goals and hopefully long before 2030 for
the first time in our existence we won’t
need to deny ourselves the truth and we won’t need a filter thank you
people don’t have but yes a problem I
want more people to have I care I care
for people everywhere people well
outside my social circle people
everywhere where did it come from I
actually don’t know was it watching the
famine in Ethiopia in the 80s on the BBC
maybe but I think that was it just
manifesting why am I so different well
actually I’m not people have a filter a
mechanism to repress those powerful
images my filter muslin be as good as
most a filter that on rare occasions
like when we all saw the image of the
boy washed up on the coast in Greece
that suddenly falls away so in response
to this at the age of 24 unlike most my
peers who were going off to Australia I
set off for a country that I’d never
heard of before called Tanzania to
volunteer for two years and it was the
happiest two years of my life
I’ll save you watching a lot of TED
talks about what is happiness happiness
is when your thoughts words and actions
are in harmony and for the first time in
my life they were all in harmony and I
loved it of course the two years went
quick and I came back to Ireland and got
a job in the commercial world and after
a few years I realized I’m back out of
alignment and I was afforded the
opportunity to run a wonderful charity
called chimera education for the last
eight years where I got that that
harmony well untruly back and then two
years ago for the first time ever I
witness somebody died right in front of
my eyes the tragedy was that it was my
wife of 10 years who had a long battle
with cancer
and I’d witness her say goodbye to not
just me but to our two two children who
were aged four on six of the time so if
I wasn’t motivated by caring for people
everywhere before then I certainly was
now so let me tell you a little bit
about the business of caring for people
in 2015 the world got together and
agreed 17 goals these goals are things
like to eradicate poverty quality health
care quality education housing etc and
we have to achieve them by 2030 now I I
love these goals and I love them because
they’re global and they apply to people
here in Ireland as much as they do
somebody in Zambia and as you all know
we still have quite a bit to go in
Ireland to achieving these goals the
other reason why I love these global
goals is because once upon a time
Africa’s problems where’d you start
they were Africa’s they were out there
however as we’ve seen with the migration
crisis and security issues in Europe
they’re no longer their problems there
are problems interconnected world we
live in and these are global solutions
for global challenges now the easy part
of course is coming together and
agreeing these 17 goals the hard part is
actually making them making them real
making them happen and there are three
players in that that do actually the
work to make these happen the first is
government the second is charity and the
third is a relative new comer its
business so today our government on our
behalf gives 30 cent in every hundred
euro that we have in this country to
achieve in these goals internationally
pretty pretty meager part of our budget
and it’s especially disappointing given
several years ago we committed to 70
cents in every hundred euro our nearest
neighbors in the UK have actually
legislators for 70 cent so no politician
can come along at a whim and dropped
commitment so I need you to talk to your
politicians and to tell them that this
actually matters
it matters more than ever before the
second is charity and charity today
charities everywhere are doing amazing
work I had the experience of it
firsthand as I say in Kamara where we
were working towards goal number four
quality education now in recent years
there have been a number of charity
scandals in Ireland and the UK and I
really implore you not to believe that
these are representative of all
charities because they’re not these are
some isolated examples so I need you to
give to charity and give more than ever
before the third audience is business
now businesses typically today they
write a check every year maybe for the
local charity they might let their staff
volunteer for a day every year great I
hear you say well actually no it’s not
great given the resources that are out
there disposal it’s actually pretty
woeful and I think I understand why that
is the case and that is because there
are two myths that are present today
that I want to burst
now the first myth is that social good
and profit are incompatible so if you
look at this simplistically and you
think yeah the bigger the check I write
to charity yes the lower the profits
that is true in the short term but in
the medium and long term the companies
that have social good at their core will
have the best employees and will see
customers migrate to them over time let
me give you an example so the company
called Unilever that I think we all know
because we have their products in our
houses so ten years ago Unilever put in
place a new CEO called Paul Polman
and he said if the company did not put
social good at their core they were dead
so today under still on their journey
everything they do in Unilever they look
through the lens of social good and the
results are staggering
over 90% of Unilever staff are not just
happy to work in the organization
they’re proud to work for Unilever
the value of the company has exploded
from 40 billion to 160 billion so it’s
very clear from this example that
actually business doing good is good for
business the second myth is that
philanthropy the art of giving is the
same as altruism the art of caring for
people unconnected to us now of course
philanthropy is part of altruism however
it’s not the same and it’s not the total
part of altruism because every day as
individuals and businesses we have
decisions that we make pretty simple
decisions in a lot of cases which can
actually go towards achieving these
goals decisions in business like if
we’re looking at multiple suppliers
which to pick who are we looking at who
is the most ethical provider out there
should we choose a renewable energy’s
provider or a traditional energy
provider for our manufacturing plants
these decisions are are pretty simple
decisions and but yet we overlook the
responsible decision a lot of the time
even though the cost is negligible let
me give you an example again of this so
Airbnb the accommodation provider
recently announced that they’re opening
up their portal around humanitarian
crises for free so people in those
communities can give accommodation to
both the humanitarian workers and the
survivors so here is a decision they
made it cost them pretty much nothing
and yet it had a huge contribution
towards humanity humanity in crises so
not all decisions cost money so there
are the two myths that I wanna I want to
explode now if you don’t believe me so
far I’ll bring in the data side and the
data is pretty conclusive too because
the Boston Consulting Group a couple of
years ago looked at us looked at this in
depth and what they found is companies
which
good outer core can achieve profits that
are four percent greater than their
peers and valuations that are 11 percent
greater than their peers so it’s it’s
pretty clear that this stuff is works
and here’s the best part
we all think of business as they’re out
there somewhere right but actually
businesses are set up the wrong they’re
managed and they serve people people
like us and people when they strip away
that filter actually care to so we
actually have a lot more control and we
have a lot more influence than we think
on businesses now you’re probably at the
point where you’re thinking yeah but
we’ve given money to Africa for decades
and it’s gone down the swanee and
there’s been scandals and it’s wasted
and we should stop doing that stuff
again we need to look beyond the media
headlines so the World Bank said between
the years of 1999 2010 the number of
people in the world in extreme poverty
halfed so in a short 20 year 20 years
650 million men women and children were
lifted out of poverty and this trend has
only continued since 2010 so this stuff
works so go back to Gandhi if my
thoughts are similar to your thoughts
now if my words have resonated then it’s
time for you to join me in action I want
you to help me Lobby the government I
want you to give what you can to charity
and most importantly I want you to
effect change in business because when
we hit these goals and we will hit these
goals and hopefully long before 2030 for
the first time in our existence we won’t
need to deny ourselves the truth and we won’t need a filter thank you
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