Hi Susanna,

Thanks so much for helping me organize and tell the story of poverty, its inner workings, and our path to its transformation.

You’re welcome, Paul. Where would you like to start?

Let’s start with our conviction and the mission of our company which is that together we can End Poverty in One Generation.

Ok – the first question that comes to mind is - Is this achievable?

Good first question.

Yes – it’s achievable – in fact it’s inevitable because of many factors that have recently come together.

What are the factors that make it inevitable?

I’ll list several – though there are others.

• There’s the COVID era’s very visible escalation of poverty and the problems associated with poverty.

• Second there’s a growing upswelling of awareness of poverty and the increasing downward economic pressures on the middle-class.

• There’s the shifting worldwide demographics to more people who have direct experience of the struggle to survive and care deeply about social repair.

• There’s willingness and commitment across the full spectrum of business to shift course and adopt socially responsible practices.

And there’s our civil rights history.

Yes, of course.

• Our generation benefits from hundreds of years of sacrifice by literally thousands of activist leaders and their communities across the world, from Harriet Tubman to MLK, from Susan B. Anthony to Cesar Chavez.

• Every day, more of us are realizing that doing nothing about the growing number of people trapped in poverty is unsustainable for all of us.

So, have we reached the tipping point for poverty?

We think so.

As we have become a more enlightened society, the center of power has shifted towards social readiness to change for the better – and with the right tools, readiness to change can become change.

What are these tools?

Before we talk about tools let me mention another emergent factor that we think is essential to successfully ending poverty. This factor falls in the category of motivation.

We call it a “Driving Force that Doesn’t Quit” – and once we harness that, it’s game over for poverty.

That sounds exciting – almost like a superpower.

It is a superpower.

There’s a 2018 book called Radical Markets by Eric Posner and Eric Weyl from Princeton, and it has this description of their posit -

“Revolutionary ideas on how to use markets to bring about fairness and prosperity for all.”

People get involved in markets based on self-interest, so we rewrote their statement like this -

“Revolutionary ideas on how to use self-interest to bring about fairness and prosperity for all.”

…which also describes our work at iPeerion.

Self-interest is the original motivation. We believe it’s the most reliable “driving force” because it’s built into how we think, it’s self-sustaining, and over the long term it can prove indomitable.

Isn’t self-interest often associated with greed or narcissism?

Yes – it is.

But in the socially responsible companies of today, we are talking about “enlightened self-interest” – which is a completely different mindset than that of old-school “profit-first” companies.

How does this tie into ending poverty?

That’s a good redirect.

Let’s look at self-interest’s role in the evolution of the workplace, which itself, meaning the modern workplace, is intimately tied to eliminating poverty

The fact that better working conditions lead to more productivity, higher profitability and overall sustainability for the companies that nurture such working environments has been supported in study after study. So much so, that many employers today understand that creating the most supportive environment and best conditions for their employees leads to robustly positive long-term outcomes for everyone – including their stakeholders and the surrounding communities.

So, these employers are guided by enlightened self-interest?

Yes – now in 2023, companies, driven by enlightened self-interest, engage in more transparent and inclusive platforms. They willingly give more - more say, better opportunities, access to ownership and better conditions to their workers and the communities that support their success.

Conversely, they quickly disengage from platforms that diminish their workplace culture, including any privacy intrusions (for example selling personal data), unfriendly interfaces and unfair or discriminatory practices.

These 2 factors I just mentioned, what enlightened companies want and what they want to avoid, tie directly into our business model and our strategy to end poverty.

So far, we’ve covered 2 factors: Social Readiness and a Driving Force that Doesn’t Quit. What’s left?

The 3rd factor. A workable sustainable plan, a roadmap, and the tools to reach the goal, which is an end to poverty.

And that’s what Level UP has to contribute?

Yes.

Over the past 7 years, we’ve built tools, strategy, and tech infrastructure to help people trapped in poverty climb up and out.

Is there more?

Yes, good insight, there’s one critical prerequisite.

This is the glue – which is the subconscious understanding “we are all in this together”.

For this reason, our team built and works to communicate a “we’re-all-in-this-together” ethos. Our view on the story points no fingers and has no villain.

“We’re all on the same side” makes taking the next step easier. It allows anyone and everyone to come on board.

And with our tools, everyday people can move from not knowing what they can do to help, to having an effective and rewarding way to participate.

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