IN Los Angeles columnist Dana Miller talks to Dan Pallotta about his new book, Uncharitable.

by Dana Miller

Full disclosure: I have known Dan Pallotta for 15 years. Dan is one of the good ones. Unlike idiots who claim to have “created” the AIDS Walk (fundraising via walks was a creation by the March of Dimes in 1938), Dan is truly the inventor of the AIDS Rides and the Breast Cancer 3-Days. He has written an important book that takes on the premise of the way we view charitable giving today. It is titled, Uncharitable.

His take is simple and salient. It’s high time we ramp up our charity world and get it out of the “Mickey and Judy, let’s put on a show” phase to one that deals with reality and employs strong business tools like advertising, risk-taking, competitive salaries and profits to capture capital. From when I was first involved in events until now, I have seen a sea change. Vendors always used to donate everything. Venues were most often free. Not so much today. Charity is big business. That is, for everyone but the people who deliver on the promise.

“We allow people to make huge profits doing any number of things that will hurt the poor, but we want to crucify anyone who wants to make money helping them,” Dan says. “Want to make a million selling violent video games to kids? Go for it. Want to make a million helping cure kids of cancer? You’re labeled a parasite.”

Dan closed Pallotta TeamWorks in 2002. His campus in the Valley had more than 200 employees, and his events netted more than $305 million over nine years for charity. That’s almost $34 million net a year. His top salary was $394,500. Compare that to AIDS Project Los Angeles’ CEO who, according to Charity Navigator, is paid $221,250 off a gross of $15 million a year. Amazing. I asked Dan why he closed Pallotta TeamWorks.

“I didn't close PTW by choice. We were negotiating a contract for a new partner for the Breast Cancer 3-Day program in August 2002—the lion’s share of our business—when the Avon Products Foundation announced it was staging its own 2-day walks for breast cancer. The new partner backed out, and there was not enough time to find the capital required to keep the business in operation without the 3-Days,” he explains. “We subsequently sued Avon for breach of contract. In July 2005, three years after the suit was filed, an independent arbitrator ruled in Pallotta TeamWorks’ favor on the breach of contract claim.”

Without Dan and his team, the breast cancer events went from raising $71 million annually to $11 million. This was just simply myopic. In Dan’s book, he points out we have been trained to ask the wrong question, “What percentage of my donation goes to the charity?” What about the quality of the service?

Dan writes: “It is time to give charity the big-league freedoms we really give to business—the freedom to get the best people and pay them whatever it costs for the value they can produce, freedom to buy ads on the Superbowl—yes, at a cost of $2.6 million a pop—to start building market demand, freedom to take big risks, and to fail big if that’s what it takes to learn, and the freedom to start attracting capital in a stock market by paying investors a financial return. It’s time to stop obsessing about overhead and start focusing on progress. Change charity, and charity can change the world. Find a cure for cancer? Yes it can. End homelessness in our cities? Yes it can. Eradicate AIDS and malaria? Yes it can. And what about us who have held it back? Can we change our thinking? Can we give charity the permission to let loose its full potential? Yes, we can.”

This tome is big-time out-of-the-box thinking that will cause ripples. Yet if you care about charity, it is a must read. While I don’t want to lose the volunteer passion and compassion in charitable work, it’s high time we confront the fact that, for the most part, this is no longer a bake sale. I asked Dan to look to the future.

“I have not let go of any of my dreams of a better world,” he said. “I am working as hard as I ever have to create change in the world, and who knows, one day I may still run for office. David Mixner said something powerful to me once: ‘Someone’s going to be the first gay president of the United States. It might as well be you.’ Who knows. I want to do whatever work the good Lord seems most to want me to do. I want to make a difference and provide a good life for Jimmy and our three kids. For too long, those two things—that is, doing well and doing good—have been mutually exclusive choices in the world. Right now I’m on a crusade to change that, because I don’t believe there is any ethic more counterproductive, or that scares more talented people away from social change work, than that one. People have to be allowed to pursue their dreams of a better world and their dreams of a better life for themselves and their families at the same time. Those two things cannot be seen as being at odds with one another any longer.”

More info uncharitable.net