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By Root 401 0

all. So I had to choose. First I thought I would donate it all in one big lump sum in my father’s name to an organization he abhorred when he was alive, like the National Endowment for the Arts. Hey, Daddy, you funded that sculpture made from Hustler magazines and semen! Then I thought I could go global by using it to fund AIDS research. Or for micro-financing small businesses in undeveloped countries. Then I reconsidered and thought I should go local and donate it to a bunch of underfunded New York City public schools, or set up a series of scholarships for minorities at all the private schools that had the good sense to kick me out.” She laughed here, and I did, too. “The point is, there are so many causes out there, and I felt helpless because I couldn’t help everyone, as helpless and powerless as many of us feel when we see our government making decisions that we find morally repugnant, whether it’s waging an amoral war or giving tax cuts to the megarich—like me!—who need it the least.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Something more personal, yet more ambitious, and more likely to fail.”

I was listening carefully, waiting for her big plan.

“I am committed to funding a cross-cultural coalition of dedicated high school and college students, a philanthropic collective through which tomorrow’s change-makers can work together to have a positive impact on real people’s lives today.”

She paused here, obviously waiting for some sign of approval.

“So you decided to go with a scholarship program?” I asked, not really following her.

“More than that. A movement.” Cinthia slapped the table again for emphasis. “Do-Better scholarship recipients will promote a system of positive change, not only through their charity work, but by having a hand in selecting the next wave of Do-Better scholarship winners, who will one day do the same. In that way, Do-Better is self-sustaining. Our philosophy, our philanthropy, will grow and grow and grow….”

I must admit, I envied the young idealists who would get a chance to be part of Cinthia’s altruistic gamble.

“I would Do-Better if I were still in college,” I said.

“I know you would,” Cinthia said. “Because you get it. You totally get it….”

“So what exactly will you—”

“We!” she said, gripping my wrist.

“We?”

“Yes!”

Cinthia’s enthusiastic approval made me blush. “Okay,” I agreed. “What will we do?”

“Again, this is why I like you. You don’t just drink the Kool-Aid, swallow the rhetoric. You want real answers. And the real answer is: I don’t know.” She thumped the table once more with her palm as she laughed. “I have no fucking clue what we’ll do exactly. I can only tell you what I want to do….”

THE DO-BETTER MISSION STATEMENT

• INVEST funds in the next generation of philanthropists in the form of scholarships and employment oportunities

• INITITATE a system of economic sustainability through ongoing education and infrastructural rebuilding

• INAUGURATE a new guard of change-makers who support the collectivist ethos and sublate individualism

• INCLUDE other conscientious charitable institutions and nonprofit organizations in an open exchange of resources and ideas

• INCREASE awareness of socioeconomic crises here and abroad, and provide specific methods for effecting positive change

• INSPIRE tomorrow’s leaders to volunteer their assets—be it money, time, talents, or wisdom—today

Okay, I didn’t actually remember all this. I was, after all, a few drinks in at this point. And all the poorly sung pop-rock noise pollution was starting to addle my brain. I got this information directly from the Do-Better website, which hasn’t officially launched but is already tricked out with some pretty impressive interactive flash technology. I’m pretty sure that in the effort to distance herself from the superficial high-twattage of the Social Activists, Cinthia had erred on the side of pretension and lifted some of the more academic dialect of this mission statement directly from her Harvard senior thesis. (I had to look up the definition of sublate, which has the opposite meanings “to take