The 91% Challenge: Widening the Lens of Global Generosity

I have spent a decade of my life inside philanthropy. A decade watching extraordinary generosity flow toward extraordinary causes. And yet one number has never stopped unsettling me: roughly 91% of all charitable donations concentrate in organizations based in North America and Europe.

Let me sit with what that means. The overwhelming majority of the world's generosity circles back to the wealthiest corners of the planet, while entire regions, full of brilliant changemakers and urgent need, remain almost invisible to the global giving system. Not because donors don't care. But because the infrastructure of giving was never built to see them.

This is the question that pulls me out of bed. After years of helping raise funds for children fighting cancer, I came to believe that the problem in modern philanthropy is not a shortage of compassion. It is a shortage of connection — between the donor who wants to do good and the full, global universe of places where good can be done.

We have built a giving system that is efficient at moving money toward the familiar, and almost blind to everything beyond it. A grassroots health worker in Nairobi, a climate cooperative in the Andes, an education startup in rural India — these are not lesser causes. They are simply harder for the current system to reach. And so the money does not flow.

I did not become an entrepreneur to build another donation button. I became one because I believe technology can finally widen the lens — helping generosity find its way to breakthrough impact models in every region, not just the ones closest to the wealth.

The 91% challenge is not a statistic to me. It is the reason this work matters. Because a world where generosity only reaches the familiar is a world giving far below its potential. And I intend to spend my career helping close that gap.