Recently, I’ve been having discussions with a business associate regarding one of their projects, which is an innovative look at investing and charity.  It kind of got me thinking along the lines of charity and how to help others out in that fashion.

One of the previous visits back home to the wife’s family in Uzbekistan, my father in law prepared a big plov (the national dish of Uzbekistan, made primarily with meat, rice, and carrots) that must have weighed 40 lbs.  We took it and headed off to an orphanage.  Between 30-40 kids and the orphanage workers, I have to say that plov disappeared surprisingly fast.  And of course, this is just one meal on one day.  That could add up quickly over time, however, it wouldn’t cost near what it would to feed an equivalent number here in the USA.  So I’ve been having some early “what if” type thoughts on how we might be able to help out there.  The idea occurred to me that fundraising for charity isn’t entirely dissimilar to gathering investors for a project, so it wouldn’t need to be constrained by the limits of our personal ability to give charitably, either.  As we’ve traveled the world and seen many other different forms of poverty, I’d always had the sad thought that you couldn’t save them all.  Now I see that there’s probably a lot more we could do, however.  It’s another project to add to the list but I feel pretty good about the general idea.  More as it happens!