Success is a never ending journey

Owning your dream house, your dream car and lots of money has never been the measurement of success. I believe a person becomes successful if he can change somebody’s life for the better. It’s not about donating money or food or clothing. It’s about connecting and making sure that your recipient learns how to get better by himself.

Social Business – a company with a heart

Muhammad Yunus is probably the most famous person in the Social Business industry. I learned about him from a feature in BBC. He developed the concepts of microcredit and microfinance which aims to finance entrepreneurial dreams of the poor. Through microfinancing, the poor can have a chance to be granted a business loan and eventually grow and get themselves out of poverty. Yunus received a Nobel Peace Prize for his microfinance concept and microfinance bank, Grameen.

Ever since I saw Yunus on TV, I became interested on how Social Businesses work. Locally, there’s Hapinoy. A company that helps people in poor communities to operate their own sari-sari stores and eventually grow them into becoming a distributor in their area.

Solving Poverty vs. Helping the Poor

Charity organizations should stop fund raising for clothing or food. In my opinion, what they should focus on is solving poverty. There’s a saying that goes – “Give a man a fish and he will be fed for the day. Teach a man how to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime”.

Most of these organizations are run by successful businessmen. So I think they have enough creative people who can think of solutions to turn their recipients into fishermen.

Pay It Forward

Years ago, I saw this movie about a boy who thought of a way on how to change the world. His concept is simple – He will help someone and this someone will have to help someone else and so on.. Its a very simple concept that will make our world a better place.

Think of it this way – Social Business + Pay It Forward. The result should be a world of peace and full of gratitude.

My Slice of the Pie

RafflesForACause.com is a website that aims to raise funds for projects that support the concept of “Teaching a man how to fish”. The online raffle idea for charity was suggested to me by a good friend and I just grew the concept and took on a partner to help me bring this into reality.

We are currently looking for projects to support. Please go to our website www.rafflesforacause.com for more information.