Make Your Own Poverty History

Make your own poverty history is about helping people to help themselves become richer. Everyone can do with a little more money. Poor people exist in every country on every continent. Katrina showed us that there are poor people even in the US. The Asian earthquake showed us the poor in the east. Make Financial Donations History Financial donations help in the very short term but don't do much good in the longer term. Your time is more valuable than anything else. If you are a consultant you could charge a large corporate 100's of dollars for your time.

If you give to a charity without receiving something in return it is similar to giving to a beggar on the tube - you encourage more people to start doing it. How annoying is it to be stopped on the street for 'a minute of your time' all these charities will now line the streets of London asking for a minute of your time and just £2 a month.

I am not saying that you should not give - what I am saying is that you could give more effectively. For instance by visiting a developing country you do more for the local economy than your £10 could ever do. Make Inequality History Not everyone is given the same opportunities in life. The fact that you are reading this blog means that you have access to a computer and electricity. What I love about the internet is that it gives everyone the same opportunity to make money. With the internet you don't really need a visa and it doesn't matter what colour your skin is. It doesn't matter if you are paralysed or have any other 'disadvantage' in the real world. On the internet people just care that you improve their lives in some way. Perhaps by writing something entertaining or by coming up with software which improves their lives in some way.

The internet has technlogies like skype which means that whereas before you were at a disadvantage being based out of Kenya you can now compete with someone in Europe. High communications charges stop people from communicating as much as they can. Through email, SMS and VOIP(voice over IP - e.g. skype.com, voipbuster.com) communication is getting cheaper. This means that a Pakistani or a Nigerian doesn't have the disadvantage they used to have when phone calls to the UK cost £1 a minute. They can start a business on the internet and if people like it they will purchase.

Make Corporations History

The bigger the company the slower they move. I have been consulting for 5 years at Accenture and am now selling to the largest corporations. Everything takes a long time with a corporation. People who sell to me get an instant decision. I just gave a free trial to a huge corporations (because it is just as much hard work to get £1 from someone than it is to get £10,000). They came back to me with a 14 page contract mentioning my free service. Now to sign this takes up a day of my time. My time has a value so I should be charging them.

In the small business world it all works on trust. I use suppliers and if I get screwed over I just won't use them again. If they do well I'll tell other people about them and they can get more business.

The internet allows you to compete on a level playing field. It's about innovation and branding - not about how many employees you have or how many lawyers you can afford.
In my experience a business is a business.

So my donation to the world is this blog. It costs me nothing to set this up. You can set one up just like this for free (www.blogger.com). But what it does cost me is my time. My time is worth money. As a manager at Accenture companies used to pay £3,000 for a single day of my time to help them cut costs or improve revenue. I was worth it as I usually got them more than they spent on me. Since Accenture I have spent 3 years setting up a simple business(www.txtfo.com). It has proved a lot harder to make money than I thought it would be. If I knew 2 years ago what I know now I would have been a very rich man. But this is part of the learning experience.

I hope that you will find this blog useful if you are wishing to get yourself out of your own poverty. Whether you are on £100 a year or £100,0o0 a year you could always do with more money.