“I know that government doesn’t have all the solutions. I know that real solutions do not come from top down. Instead, the ways to end poverty come from all of us. We are part of the solution.” -Kathleen Blanco

Reducing poverty has always been about giving money. Television commercials persuade American audiences that, for just a couple cents a day, poverty could be lifted off one person’s weary shoulders. The most common commercials film a helpless child, urging us to support and donate money to save him. What people failed to realize is that the commercials are asking for their audience to give the bare minimum so that someone may survive that single moment. The problem with these charities and commercials is that it isn’t solving the root of the problem. Charities should not be about supporting one child, but about supporting the global community. Thus, the people who are able to make a difference must redefine charity to include a far more holistic and sustainable use from the concept of charity and move towards an approach that utilizes the power of celebrities, global leaders, and corporations to deal with the systemic issues that lead to global challenges. Most importantly, in doing so, we must assure that we do not replicate the check-writing charity that absolves a person from giving their heart, mind, and money to important causes.

In response to the famine that struck Ethiopia in the mid-'80s, charities attempted to attack this problem through the traditional method of encouraging people to write small checks to save starving people. However, musician and artist, Bob Geldof, redefined “raising money” by uniting famous and renowned musicians to act for a good cause. Band-Aid, a charity “supergroup” that mainly includes British and Irish musical artists, formed to support the poverty-stricken Ethiopia during the 1980s. In 1984, Band-Aid released their single Do They Know It’s Christmas? , which soon became the biggest selling single in UK Single Charts history, selling “approximately 200,000 copies in two days” (Pakinakis, Music Week). The project became revolutionary by galvanizing celebrities in almost all western countries to come together to attack a global problem. The wild success of Band-Aid, with their single making £8m in a year, led to the appearance of several other movements to make a change in the world (BBC News, 2000). In fact, Live Aid, the “huge concert to raise further funds,” rose about “£40m for famine relief” (BBC News, 2000). Almost half of the money was “spent on food aid and the rest went into long-term development” in hopes to establish a stable community (BBC News, 2000). It activated people.

The concerts and singles drew attention to a very real problem that affected human bodies on earth and further raised awareness about global community issues. The success rates of the aid projects discouraged the current stigmatization of individual countries as the poster children for charity and created an image of charity that reflected the effect of poverty on the entire world. However, there was still one problem with this model. It was, again, attempting to throw money at a situation that required not only money but also support. It was much like the check-writing charity of the past: write a check for donation and forget about the problem. Therefore, despite its global success as a project, these aid projects were only doing old charity on a larger scale.

How is it, then, that the world can harness the power of global celebrities and leaders in the attempt to attack these problems?

In order to answer this question, we can look at the South African term, ubuntu, which literally translates to “I am, because you are.” In 2006, Nelson Mandela clarified that “ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves.” But rather, Mandela asks, whether we are “going to do so in order to enable the community around [us] to improve?” Our mindset is that we are superior and economically powerful in this world and helping others isn’t an integral part of our survival. After completely coding the human genome sequence, scientists made an interesting observation that “over 99.9% of the human genome is identical” (Genome Network News). However, most people spend their entire life channeling that one-tenth of 1% that separates them from others. We focus too much on the differences rather than the similarities in the human race to actually consider that even our biology instructs us to help one another. Bill Clinton, at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting, claimed that, for the privileged, “ubuntu means that the world is too small, our wisdom too limited, and our time here too short to waste any more of it in winning fleeting victories at other people’s expense.” He continues that, in order to achieve anything on a global scale, “we have to now find a way to triumph together” (CGI Annual Meeting, 2006). The first step in bringing together public leaders to make a difference in the world is to accept that without a communal effort, nothing will change.

Next, we must recognize the importance of crossing international borders because in the interconnected global community, any problem that affects one country will affect all other countries. For example, the meltdown of the Fukushima power plant in Japan was not just a Japanese problem; it affected the countries around it and the toxic clouds traveled around the globe (Nature World News). Therefore, there is a call to action to the entire world. In 2004, Bono, the lead singer of U2, co-founded the ONE Campaign, in which “more than 6 million people are taking action to end extreme poverty and preventable diseases” (ONE Campaign). Bono’s participation in the ONE Campaign played a crucial role in its success. Due to U2’s worldwide, unprecedented success, Bono spread the word about the fight to end poverty and making a change in the world. The difference with Bono’s ONE Campaign and previous charities is illustrated in the ONE Campaign’s slogan: “We’re not asking for your money. We’re asking for your voice” (ONE Campaign). Suddenly, the whole meaning of “charity” was redefined.

No longer was “charity” about giving money; it became about uniting as one and joining together to end a global problem that affects us all. Whether it is a pop artist in Cambodia or president of Ethiopia, the power that global figures have can bring together the global community. In fact, Pat Robertson, a Christian evangelist whose views have often clashed with Hollywood’s, and Brad Pitt, a Hollywood celebrity, have joined together through movements such as the ONE Campaign to bring about awareness to systemic problems. Similar to how the ONE Campaign raised awareness about the new charity, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) was created to “convey global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges” (Clinton Foundation). Established in 2005, CGI works towards uniting leaders and public figures all over the world to discuss global problems and their possible solutions. According to the official website for CGI, their annual meetings have “brought together more than 180 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media” (Clinton Foundation). Today’s innovative and interconnected global community demands that more organizations such as CGI be formed. Through these groups of globally thinking people working together, change can happen in today’s world. CGI is a prime example of the new model for charity. By breaching international barriers and uniting across the globe, active community members are able to band together to fight for a cause, especially one as big as the fight to end extreme poverty. With this newfound understanding, global figures have established a premise that defines charity not only as altruistic but also as an essential part of the global community.

The difference in success rates between the old and new models of charity only highlight the importance of acting together to fight a cause. Charities, such as UNICEF, that do not clearly address root-problems, find it hard to make global renovations. In fact, according to UNICEF’s page for extreme poverty eradication, while there are some countries that are reaching their goals of minimizing poverty in that region, “success had been mixed” (UNICEF). UNICEF’s goal was to encourage the mass reduction of poverty-stricken people by 2015, but “some 221 million people in India and 142 million in China are still chronically or acutely malnourished” (UNICEF). The main problem with charities resembling UNICEF is that they attempt to throw money at an extreme problem. Compared to the low success rates of these charities, root-problem-solving organizations evoke a better response. According to the ONE Campaign’s 2013 Annual Report, by December of that year, “...top donor countries pledged more than $12 billion for the next three years—a 31% increase over the previous cycle” (ONE: Annual Report, 2013). Further, the Clinton Global Initiative reported that “to date, members of the CGI community have made more than 3,100 Commitments to Action, improving the lives of over 430 million people in more than 180 countries” (Clinton Foundation).

Thus, the solution is simple: we must bind together as a global community, utilizing the power of public figures, to stem a more efficient approach to eradicate extreme poverty.

When comedian, Ellen Degeneres, posted an “Oscar selfie” with multiple famous and renowned celebrities, the picture instantly broke Twitter’s record for the most retweets (Guardian, 2014). What would happen if these celebrities came together to make charity a viral act? To redefine charity as a global and grounding solution? It is almost always a good deed to give financial assistance to the less fortunate so that they can buy food and medication for that very moment. However, we are looking for the approach that not only solves for extreme poverty now, but helps underdeveloped countries to sustain themselves for a stable future. This new model is encouraging us to move away from the concept of a “check writing” charity and move towards a holistic approach that utilizes the power of celebrities, corporations, entrepreneurs, and ordinary global citizens to deal with the systemic issues that lead to global challenges. These types of larger campaigns and global initiatives do not stigmatize individual groups as poverty-stricken, nor do they encourage the idea that global problems can be fixed by tossing money at them. By redefining and establishing charity as a systemic problem, the united globe can do wonders for striking problems such as the fight to end extreme poverty.