The Greater Good.

I have two confessions to make:

1. I recently finished Sir Richard Branson's latest tome: 'Screw Business As Usual'. In it, Sir Rich outlines his vision - a world where capitalism and philanthropy sing harmoniously together; where profit and 'doing good' go hand in hand; where anecdote and quip replace structure, argument or detail (that's a joke, FYI).

He's called this new vision Capitalism 24902, because that's the circumference of the earth (duh).

2. I'm sceptical about the whole thing. Putting aside the infectious enthusiasm of Britain's most successful entrepreneur for a second, I felt let down by the lack of real information. How does it work in practice? How does it work if you don't have Obama, Mandela, the Dali Lama and an all star cast of industry titans on speed dial?

But then I realised something. What we do at TBCH for our charity clients is the perfect example of Capitalism 24902. 

We work with a number of fundraising departments in a number of areas: one-off campaigns, data and targeting strategies, developing new propositions and so on.

And they pay us. They pay us to do the work and in return we help them generate income that's invested into whatever cause they represent: in this equation, 'the greater good'.

We approach the work in the same way as any commercial client - focusing on a measurable response. It's important that the creative works. 

And if it doesn't, we know why.

One of Richie's points (that I do agree with) is that you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it. Financial injections should act as the fuel for a business 'machine' that works to solve problems - whether that be funding for education, housing for the homeless or a vital suicide helpline.

And this is how our agency/client relationship works. They pay us to do what we do best - smarter insight, smarter targeting and smarter creative. 

And in turn we provide their charity with the injection of income they need to keep running, and to keep achieving some 'greater good'

Capitalism 24902 at it's best I think.

And not an anecdote in sight.

Ali Morgan