
Ask HN: How can we improve the world via creative, compassionate new ventures? - fogzen
How can we...<p>• improve Fair Trade on the consumer or producer side?<p>• strengthen and expand non-profits or charities?<p>• educate or help the working conditions of labor (people who work for wages)?<p>• improve the ecological sustainability and environmental impact of supply chains?<p>• Expand access and convenience of healthy foods and diets?<p>• Improve democracy at the organization or government level?<p>If you&#x27;re already part of an organization focusing on these things, tell us about it!
======
DoreenMichele
_educate or help the working conditions of labor (people who work for wages)?_

I have worked for a few years for a writing service that does this well. I
have been trying for some time to encourage people to try to "clone" or borrow
wisdom from the model for other types of work:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-
textbrok...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-textbroker-
model.html)

I got myself off the street in part by using the internet to develop a
flexible earned income. I am trying to figure out how to spread that model for
people like me who have barriers to regular employment:

[http://worldwidewebworks.blogspot.com](http://worldwidewebworks.blogspot.com)

 _Improve democracy at the organization or government level?_

Improving independence and self reliance of individual workers should improve
democracy. The founders of the US believed many independent small time
operators were essential to the ability of the people to speak their mind and
vote their conscience. Having played a few different roles, I think they are
correct. Working for BigCo had a chilling effect on my ability to express
myself freely and honestly for fear of losing my income.

Government is not wholly separate from the people and culture. We need
independent earners to have independent minds to have real democracy.

------
themarkn
I'm a manager at a nonprofit serving adults with developmental disabilities.
We do a really good job, we work in supported employment, residential, getting
out the community, helping with diet, groceries, supervising medications, etc.
BUT what we pay our employees is hilariously low relative to the high quality
of service we provide, and the standards we hold each other to. They could
make the same money at any other entry level job, and often they come to us
with 4-year degrees in psychology or something, work with diligence and care,
and start at $10/hour. It makes no sense. They end up taking second jobs and
putting stuff together to make everything work. Talented, smart, energetic
people don't last in the nonprofit world unless they somehow have another
source of wealth. They get pulled out into something more lucrative. It's
really tough to generate innovation unless you can get the right people to
spend years developing domain expertise and then pay them enough to keep
pushing in that area. Many nonprofits are already doing the impossible just by
existing. I don't know what the most practical way to help this is: everybody
always needs more money. How can we pay our employees enough that working
full-time for us is a reasonable life choice without them needing to find
20hrs a week elsewhere on top of it and have a shitty life? It's not just a
little extra that’s needed. It’s a lot.

~~~
Noos
Caring work like this is vastly underpaid and very critical to people's well
being. Maybe if someone could lobby for a specific tax credit for people
formally working in caregiving for the elderly and disabled to make up for the
lower income. Too often these jobs become jobs of last resort and unlike you,
not everyone has high standards.

~~~
davidryal
As long as dollars are created at interest, the only jobs that will be paid
well are those that make more money. Any kind of social work will always be
living off those scraps in terms of ability to pay a living wage.

One way to make life easier for underpaid people doing work that helps
individuals but doesn't 'make' more money would be to let nonprofits issue a
complementary currency and do the legwork to get it accepted for lifestyle-
enhancing services that might not otherwise be available to those
volunteers/employees. Wouldn't pay rent, but would let them save money on yoga
classes or house cleaning or the like. Barter networks exist, as do non-profit
service-based time-denominated currencies. Nobody's doing it in a clean,
unified way, but that might be more likely to happen than a tax credit, given
the current political environment. :-/

~~~
themarkn
Wow, if the receiving businesses could write off those services provided as
donations to that nonprofit, there could be some incentive on their side too
to make some kind of credit/voucher system for social-good professions work
out. I wonder if anything like that already exists (teacher/military discounts
are close, maybe). But yeah there could really be something there if done
right.

------
Robotbeat
Start a cooperative enterprise, owned by the workers at all levels, not just
the techno-elite founders. With all given an equal vote. Establish small
limits on pay disparities (say, never more than 2:1 to compensate for
different schooling/certification requirements for doctors or the like).

I second the open source suggestion.

~~~
SethRich
There is never a situation in which it's a good idea to give every employee an
equal vote. Employees of various seniority and talent provide varying levels
of value to the enterprise.

1\. Why should the newly hired janitor have equal voting rights to the CTO
that envisioned and built the product or the Machine Learning PHD whose
education cost him 10 years and half a million dollars?

2\. Personnel counts grow at an exponential rate. If you double your personnel
count over a year as plenty of startups do, what's stopping all the new
employees from mutinying and kicking out the early employees that have been
been working on the business for 5 years?

3\. Where's the incentive for founders who face disproportionate risk in the
startup stage to build an enterprise that they may eventually own 0.1% of?

If you have ever even thought of starting a business on your own, you would
not think this is a good idea.

~~~
kiliantics
1\. No co-op works this way. New hires almost never have the same privileges
and voting rights as original members. There is usually a kind of "vesting"
period for voting rights since members need to be sure everyone is committed
to the mission of the co-op.

2\. See my point on 1. In the long term however, the kind of mutiny you
suggest could be a good and necessary thing. In a co-op, you are not starting
"your" company, but a cooperative. The whole point is that it is owned and run
by everyone, it's not the founder's special baby. If the founder can't see
what's best for the company and its workers while everyone else can, then they
should definitely be overruled.

3\. The incentive is to be founding something that can change the exploitative
nature of the economy we live in. You're not starting a co-op to get rich off
the work of others in implementing your amazing idea for an ice-cream delivery
app. You're making a product that a community is invested in, both in the
production and consumption, where everyone truly benefits because they all
have a share of power over the project. A co-op couldn't buy up entire city
blocks because one small board decided on it, or pollute a water supply
because one small group of investors didn't give a fuck. That is why we need
co-ops.

I've been involved with starting businesses and I think co-ops are great.

~~~
fogzen
Great points, thank you for sharing. I think a lot of people dismiss co-ops
because they aren't aware of models to emulate.

Maybe there's opportunity there. An open question to all: What are some
challenges with starting and managing co-op businesses?

------
j-collier
An issue not mentioned: Animal Welfare. According to the ASPCA
([https://www.aspca.org/animal-homelessness/shelter-intake-
and...](https://www.aspca.org/animal-homelessness/shelter-intake-and-
surrender/pet-statistics)) over 6.5 millions companion animals enter shelters
in the US alone every year.

Family Pet Project is making it easier and safer to find resources as a
struggling pet owner who may need to find an appropriate place to live,
assistance with a pet's medical care, and even rehome a pet if there is no
other option.

[https://familypetproject.com](https://familypetproject.com)

It's an issue that affects people more than they realize given that the
average euthanasia for animals is around $300 and over 4 million animals are
put down in shelters in the US every year. The US government could probably do
better than spending ~$1.2B taxpayer dollars on euthanasia annually.

------
ilovetux
I've been working on a project I'm calling "Business in a Box" which is based
on the idea that the consumer oriented interface to our economy has been
radically optimized while the comercial interface has been obfuscated thereby
artificially limiting participants.

Basically, we would offer packages designed to get someone up and running with
a profitable business in a short time. This would include training, equipment
and supplies. The goal would be profitability not complete financial
independence.

Some examples would be carpet and upholstery cleaning, micro-farming, retail,
micro-manufacturing and more.

Each business would be an open source franchise where anyone could utilize our
training and business plans, but for a small annual fee they could use our
name and supply chain.

If people are able to provide for themselves in some way they are much less
likely to remain in a dead-end job living paycheck to paycheck.

------
pshapiro99
Open source is the route to a more inclusive, compassionate world.
[https://opensource.com/life/14/8/does-open-source-boost-
ment...](https://opensource.com/life/14/8/does-open-source-boost-mental-
health)

------
Razengan
Some of the problems that I, personally, see/face in the world:

(They may just be problems with me and not necessarily the World™️, but I wish
there were [better] services and tools to help with them.)

• It's too hard for [self-employed] people in "third-world" countries to
relocate to and contribute to better countries if they don't have all the
paperwork (employment and sponsorship from companies, college degrees), often
not even if they do have the paperwork, even if they're willing to pay
exorbitant money for long-term residency and can prove they can support
themselves.

• It's too hard for introverted people, with no social life, to find partners.

• For quite some time, the amount of "content" – art, fiction, other media –
available in the world has long since exceeded what one person can discover
and peruse in the average human lifespan.

• The success and failure of everything is determined on how much money it
makes. Too many good things get aborted because they can't make enough money
fast enough, and the definition of "enough" keeps increasing at an unrealistic
rate.

• Not enough people are asking "What are we doing to ensure that we expand
beyond our home planet?" and "What are we doing to ensure we don't destroy
ourselves?" – Questions I believe every intelligent civilization must keep
asking itself if it is to be "successful."

------
dvasdekis
I'm the founder and of Holdgreen (holdgreen.com), a not-for-profit that allows
investors to offset the carbon produced from their equity portfolios. We're
based in Australia, and there are 3 of us now.

The technology works and is scalable, but getting the opt-in tickbox on the
websites of pension funds has been very difficult, mostly due to industry
lethargy. We've been trying for 18 months to find a pilot fund who would be
willing to put us on their site.

Holdgreen is my effort at the OP - preventing people from harming the earth in
a way they're not presently conscious of, by giving them new information and
an easy way to respond. It hasn't been easy in the slightest.

------
GreeniFi
I run a company which provides a credit scoring system for banks which helps
them include environmental and climate criteria in credit decisions. Our
underlying motivation is that if we want to create sustainable supply chains,
the incentives which shape them need to line up with our objectives for them.
Credit scoring which compels businesses to behave more sustainably is a
massive incentive towards this.

We have had recent success with big banks starting pilots with the system. But
it's been a big struggle.

How would I encourage new ventures in this space. Very simple: make money
available in the same way YC does. A veritable spigot of seed, early stage and
growth capital that isn't always looking for immediate returns, but for new
ventures to demonstrate their assumptions hold true.

When I sell my business, which is my aim, this is what my profits will fund.

------
kgiddens1
TL:DR

TLDR - new investment models / Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation originally
was designed as a vehicle for pure charity and changed their investment model
such as offering loan guarantees versus one time donations.
[https://hbr.org/2012/01/a-new-approach-to-funding-social-
ent...](https://hbr.org/2012/01/a-new-approach-to-funding-social-enterprises)

There is a need for social ventures to seek these types of investments to fuel
their revenue / impact growth such as through social impact bonds and more.

Having an "alternative market" or marketplace in this sector for SMB's would
go a long way to improving the world in my opinion. What are your thoughts?
Does anyone know of such a marketplace?

------
cuchoi
Donate to (trully) effective charities:
[https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-
charities](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities)

"High impact giving opportunities that are supported by in-depth charity
research."

------
MrsPeaches
We're working on building tools and knowledge for people without access to
electricity, so that they can make their own electricity supplies using
recycled motors.

Key idea here is giving people tools rather than solutions.

[https://localelectricity.org/](https://localelectricity.org/)

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SuGv44f69vg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SuGv44f69vg)

------
retreatguru
To answer your first question, we can improve the world by helping with the
evolution of consciousness. This unfolding of wisdom is what underpins all
other good endeavours.

------
davidjnelson
These are also a good start:

> On September 25th 2015, countries adopted a set of goals to end poverty,
> protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new
> sustainable development agenda. Each goal has specific targets to be
> achieved over the next 15 years.

> For the goals to be reached, everyone needs to do their part: governments,
> the private sector, civil society and people like you.

>Do you want to get involved? You can start by telling everyone about them.
We’ve also put together a list of actions that you can take in your everyday
life to contribute to a sustainable future.

[http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-
develop...](http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-
goals/)

------
purplezooey
One word. Housing. Do something. It's getting bad.

~~~
Noos
its only bad for knowledge workers in boutique cities. It's actually dirt
cheap to own housing in many areas otherwise. It costs 500k just to get a
condo in flushing, ny, where a 3 bedroom house in many CT areas is 100k. The
issue is wealth should not concentrate as near as it does geographically, and
we need to get over the idea of packing everyone into cities and spread out
into towns more.

~~~
laurentoget
People do like their house to be close to the place they work and dense cities
attract knowledge workers but also need maintenance workers, teachers,
firefighters, janitors, cooks, and police. Housing for those people is the
problem which the real estate market does not seem to be able to solve, and
local governments have not found efficient regulation for except for social
democrat systems like sweden and norway.

~~~
olalonde
There's a simple solution... build dense cities. San Francisco feels like
country side if you've lived in an actual dense city.

~~~
laurentoget
I used to live in Paris which is definitely a dense city, and even though
there is much more subsidized housing there than in San Francisco, it is still
a tough place for working class people to live.

------
gt_
I hope others will share if they find this totally silly. It’s more of a
response to observations.

I am from Portland, OR writing from eastern kentucky, where I have family.
This region is feeling the hurt. I put a lot into a hobby of media and culture
studies, and am unconvinced of many platitudes from libertarian or liberal
academics, but am open to all perspectives. In so many words, impacts of
_culture in a broad sense_ continues to undermine nearly any efforts like
these listed. Whether the measurements are misled, or new problem is
exacerbated, or the effort just completely falls flat, I am going on what
continues to stand in the way: problems in _broad cultural_ discrepancies that
amount to fear. I can’t overlook the cultural fabrics of religious communities
(I am far from religious myself) and the lack of any counterpart in
contemporary American life. How can this help us now?

I think it’s no secret rural communities are being ‘left behind’ but the last
thing they (seem to) want is your charity. They don’t want urban education and
they don’t want urban food, but they are all addicted iPhones. So what do we
change if we can’t change them?

Urban/Coastal America can change itself. Our efforts to boost lives we look
down on are well-intentioned but continue to fail.

I don’t have a quote on hand but Tyler Cowen suggests we ‘mix it up’ closer to
home. Defend weirdos and affect your own culture for the better, in sometimes
uncomfortable ways.

Off the top of my head:

MBAs, start investing in young artists, like in the Renaissance.
Unapologetically enforce your opinions and even politics on them. Have fun
with it. Anything could happen.

Wanna teach programming? Rent out a rural community center for your class and
make the drive (or flight) each week. The impact will justify the investment.
Maybe _don’t_ make it fun for everybody.

Campaign in rural communities against social media use. Use billboards and
flyers, like the locals. Use scare tactics (honest ones) that override
cultural discrepancies.

Actually hire people outside your “cultural fit” and people from rural areas.
If you can’t believe in anyone outside a given character mold, why expect
others to?

~~~
Noos
Well, it would help if assistance isn't conditional on nor about spreading the
holy gospel of Portlandia to the savages in the lower provinces. A little less
cheekily, how much of what you want to do is actually helping their real needs
as opposed to what your idea of their needs and behavior are or should be, and
is about transmitting your culture onto theirs to replace it.

Cultural imperialism is an issue in the USA, for all of the lack of focus on
it. The portlandian thinks the solution to rural problems is programming, bike
lanes, and electric vehicles.

~~~
gt_
I hope it’s clear I couldn’t agree more on the gospel of Portlandia. As for
how much of what I want to do is actually helping “their” real needs, I think
I would just have to repeat myself:

Economic disparities are undeniable and charity isn’t helping. Hire different
people, and accept cultural differences, beyond mere sightly identification.

Don’t ignore the impact of culture comforts which undermine relationships
necessary for sustainable societies. Be honest, put business second.

In short, do the stuff churches did, if that’s even possible.

------
dietervds
One rather general suggestion I have is to pick a company to work for that
does some of the requested points. It doesn’t have to be non-profit or
volunteer work only.

A few years ago I joined a company called Sunfunder [1]. They (we) provide
financing to solar energy companies in Africa and SE Asia. Lack of financing
is a major blocking factor there to get clean energy out.

I can honestly say I’ve never been more happy in my life than now, knowing
that my entire workweek is contributing to something good.

[1] [http://www.sunfunder.com](http://www.sunfunder.com)

------
ww520
Build local high speed internet. Some wireless version would be good. WiMax?

------
boysabr3
This might sound overly simplistic but I believe we need to do more to
incentivise the best talent in the world to work on socially conscious
projects. I found Wendy Kopp's episode on the How I Built This podcast
particularly insightful on this topic:
[http://pca.st/episode/68275e4c-8d1d-4a86-be7c-e45b1eb7c738](http://pca.st/episode/68275e4c-8d1d-4a86-be7c-e45b1eb7c738)

------
cirrus-clouds
> _improve Fair Trade on the consumer or producer side?_

If you live in the UK, a simple no-effort thing you can do is buy fairtrade
food and drink at the supermarket. These goods have the Fairtrade foundation
logo ([http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/](http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/)).

Some of the cheaper supermarkets (e.g. Lidl, Aldi) tend to have the least
number of fairtrade goods. But other supermarkets have a much wider range of
fairtrade items and source fairtrade goods for their own label brands.

Sometimes, the fairtrade price of a good is only a little more expensive than
items without the fairtrade logo (e.g. bananas).

The fairtrade scheme has faced criticism but I still think it's worthwhile
supporting the scheme by choosing fairtrade goods when you can.

------
jrumbut
One thing that I would love to see is more effective development practices at
non profits. Obviously some are doing very well, but others that I've worked
with have been heavily encumbered by beauraucracy and a lack of knowledge
about how to best build software.

It's tricky, because justice can be a more complicated goal than profit, and
being careful and intentional and working with limited resources can all make
software development more challenging, but I still think it's possible to do
better.

I'm trying in my own small way, having entered the field, but I would love to
see some of the experts out there take some time to spread their knowledge in
the non profit community. That way existing ventures can be more efficient and
effective, and new ones are more likely to succeed.

------
cpach
Have a look at Tech Solidarity:
[https://twitter.com/techsolidarity](https://twitter.com/techsolidarity) and
[https://techsolidarity.org](https://techsolidarity.org)

------
andersthue
I strongly believe that we all need to crawl out of out boxes [1] and get a
heart at peace [2] so that we have the strength to be vulnerable and
innovative [3].

1 [https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-
Out...](https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-Out-
Box/dp/1576759776)

2
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1626564310/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_i...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1626564310/ref=pd_aw_fbt_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=WNBD63CB1FMQ3NCE9YN9)

3
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IIBAE5E/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IIBAE5E/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1514878575&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=daring+greatly&dpPl=1&dpID=51qtYWwV82L&ref=plSrch)

------
kiliantics
Check out platfotm.coop for a movement that is trying to remake the tech
economy for social good through cooperative ownership of companies,
infrastructure, and data.

------
known
Start a Bank

~~~
kiliantics
A credit union

------
mitchellst
I've been thinking about the ecological sustainability thing thanks to today's
news, but it's actually _not_ about supply chains, per se. The news is that
China has tightened restrictions on importing foreign waste. (We recycle very
little of our own "recycling" in North America; we ship it to Asia where they
do it, at least in theory.) Anyway, we have tons of cardboard and plastics on
ships already headed for China that will probably be shipped back.

This is a many-sided problem. A few stray thoughts: it's not just a matter of
buying recycled materials, it's whether you can recycle stuff _after_ using
it. A "demand chain" more than a supply chain, if you will. There's a pendulum
aspect to this, where China has tolerated environmental atrocities in the name
of growth for decades, and now rather than embarking on a measured reform
plan, they're essentially rejecting all foreign waste. Maybe we should have
seen it coming. There's also the domestic and international differences in the
way we deal with trash. I have lived all over the US and spent time in most
states. When I walk down the street in Austin, most of the recycling bins on
the street are larger than the trash bins. That's standard in places like
Austin and the Bay, but still exceptional in America at large. In much of
Europe, you essentially buy permits for recycling, and costlier ones for
trash. American consumption has been unbridled by the waste issue throughout
the 20th century, but that's likely to change as we run out of places to put
it, whether those places be landfills or other countries.

So, how to build a venture out of this mess? There are a few ideas. Recycling
technologies are big. I read recently about a startup (funded by
MassChallenge, I think?) that was trying to turn waste plastic into diesel
fuel. The biggest process problem with recycling is contamination— how do you
get it below, e.g., 0.5%? (China's new threshold amount.) Better AI, more
dextrous robots? Maybe. Microbes or insects that just eat the food off plastic
or cardboard pulp?

Thinking outside little processes and at larger scale, we should probably
start recycling our own waste on our own shores. It would seem more efficient
than shipping all our opened Amazon boxes to China, it would create some jobs,
and based on both culture and governance, the environmental side-effects would
probably be much lighter than shipping the same waste to Vietnam or Thailand.
But the scale necessary to do this is massive. China's waste importers are
worried that their businesses will become insolvent, because they have built
economies of scale for recycling that require more waste than their billion-
man domestic economy currently produces. Do we have either the capital or
political will to build that?

If you're not a garbage person, fine. Materials, then: get it before it
becomes trash. The world is shopping online more, which means more
individually boxed items and more cardboard. How do you use less of it per
package, or make it break down more easily? The rules of the game are that it
can't increase the cost of shipping and it needs to be hygienic enough that
you don't give any infants botulism or something. Do you think Amazon's
already optimized that problem, or is there a step change to be had?

------
quantumofmalice
Organizations like this often simply end up as graft and PR.

I'm with Peterson: clean up your own room first.

~~~
fogzen
My room is clean. You’re right that non-profit or charitable organizations
sometimes waste money or aren’t effective. If you have ideas on how to improve
that, or improve transparency and efficiency then please share.

~~~
andreygrehov
One of my favorite quotes: "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime".

~~~
fogzen
I agree education can have a huge impact. If you have ideas on how to improve
education, please share!

~~~
o2l
The importance of education is unparalleled in the current state of world.

Looking at the unrest in recent college pass outs, I would prefer if we could
bring Apprenticeship back. In current times we have a variation of it called
internship, but for most people they still have to go through a full fledged
college education to become eligible for that internship.

Of course, Apprenticeship is not the answer for all fields but it would be
good if companies also got into the business of educating people ( for money )
but treating them not just as a student but more like an apprentice.

An alternative would be to have collaboration between businesses and
educational institutions to reduce the gap between learning and applying what
you learned.

This can be relatively easily applied in developed nations and a bit hard to
apply in developing / underdeveloped countries.

I graduated 3 years ago from a college in India. Luckily, I was interested in
my field enough to start researching about how things we learned in college,
worked in real life. But for most of my fellow classmates, it was just for the
sake of getting a degree and supposedly becoming employable right after
passing out. So when they actually passed out, the world was quite different
than what they had expected.

Those are my 2 cents.

YCombinator too believes in the power of education. This was posted in
September 2016 -
[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#education](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#education)

~~~
ipince
Thanks for sharing!

BTW, I think your terminology of "passing out" for graduating college is
confusing (at least for Americans?). I've never heard the term used in that
way. Passing out is more commonly used to mean fainting or falling asleep.

