How to Be Great at Doing Good : Why Results Are What Count and How Smart Charity Can Change the World Hardcover - 2015 - 1st Edition

Get ready to question everything you've been told about charity, and to find out how you can truly succeed at making the world a better place.

Many of us donate to charitable causes, and millions more work or volunteer for non-profit organizations. Yet virtually none of us have been taught what it means to succeed at doing good, let alone how to do so. In short, we've never been encouraged to treat charity with the seriousness and rigor it deserves.

How to Be Great at Doing Good is a complacency-shattering guidebook for any-one who wants to actually change the world, whether as a donor, a volunteer, or a non-profit staffer. Drawing on eye-opening studies in psychology and human behavior, surprising interviews with philanthropy professionals, and the author's fifteen years of experience founding and managing top-rated non-profits, this book is an essential read for anyone who wants to do more good with their time and money.

• Find out how Bill Gates and a team of MIT grads are saving thousands of lives by applying business principles to charity work--and how we can too
• Peer inside our brains as we donate, and discover how the same chemical forces that make us crave junk food and sex can steer us toward bad charity decisions
• See why standard charity advice--like the encouragement to follow our passion or to do what we're good at--can actually doom our efforts to make the world a better place
• Learn how two seemingly identical charities can have jaw-dropping differences in impact, and find out how to pick the best one when donating

Although it may feel counterintuitive or even cold-hearted to take a numbers-based approach to charity, Cooney reveals that making calculated decisions isn't just possible, it's absolutely necessary if we want to succeed at helping others. Sure to generate controversy among non-profits and philanthropists who prefer business as usual, How to Be Great at Doing Good is a must-have guide for those who want to be aware of their own blind spots and overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of creating a better world.