Change Of Mind: The Blue Sweater

Every day, we hear about a bunch of charity organizations and people working to collect money and help around the world. There's no doubt that all of this is done with good intentions, and it can help. What I learned with The Blue Sweater, though, is that good intentions just aren't enough.

Take, for example, an organization like UNICEF. They get millions of dollars every year from donors across the globe, but as Jacqueline Novogratz addresses, some big foundations like this don't really get the job done. Sometimes, money can end up in the wrong hands, or people simply don't know what to do with it.

Novogratz created the Acumen Fund, a group which fixes these problems. What she's really stressing is that you need to educate people on money: they need to know what business means. So, by getting social entrepreneurs rather than just blind donors, we can fix a lot of these problems. She focuses on young people out of some sort of business school, with a lot of determination to change the world. The ideal candidate would know about the world's problems, have an idea about how businesses work and how to sustain them, and be able to listen to others.

So, my big change in thought was that we need to change our charities- or get rid of them altogether. There isn't any sustainability in just giving money away; we need to educate and train people to use it, so they can make it on their own. While the intentions of most people are already pretty good, we need to change their actions.

This is a pretty important change in thinking because of the position we're in at our age. We have to decide relatively soon what to do with the rest of our lives, and knowing that helping people can go along with a good education and smart thinking is pretty important. As we go into college, it's certainly something to think about. With social entrepreneurship, I'd say saving the world is a little bit bigger of a possibility.