Venture Philanthropy

Take on a social issue like it's a venture capital backed startup. Raise money to cure homelessness, or poverty, or a disease (or 10), or ignorance, or opportunity for smart, motivated kids whose only "crime" is that they are poor and/or their parent(s) have no clue how the system works.

That's venture philanthropy. Cool idea. Fun-ish fact: Bill Gates did this. Yes, he took his own money and said, "Um, hey. I'm done ripping off intellectual property and other ideas from Silicon Valley startups for MSFT. I'm now going to use my wealth to cure malaria by buying like 9 gadjillion yards of netting." And, more or less, he did. Malaria rates are down some 80% from where they were 25 years ago.

So yes, Bill, many of us will always think of you as a villain...but you saved like a billion lives, so it's all good now.