Tagvillage and their Cause

By Al Tagvillager

I have been working at tagvillage almost since the very first launch of the website. To the members of tagvillage, I am the unknown staff writer who keeps things up to date in the News Room. I am also the lucky person who is the voice behind “Al Tagvillager”, the official spokesperson of tagvillage. Yeah, that’s right. I also have the lucky job of breathing life to that little yellow guy with the tie.

 Sometimes I feel the guilt that fills my gut when I think of spin stories I used to write about amazing $1 million contributions “XYZ Corporation” made this year to charity so people would think they were socially responsible, when I should have been comparing their “giving to the poor” against the $20 billion they made in profit and the $15 million their president or CEO was paid in salary. Once in a while, I realize that before I joined tagvillage, I used to revel in joy with the quarterly earnings reports on CNBC while a thirteen year old girl in Bangladesh reveled in joy over the left-over rice she found in a trash dump.

Did you know that in the USA alone, corporations generate most of the money in our economy? Yet, they pay the least in taxes and give the least to charity as a percentage of their income. In 2010, General Electric made over $14 Billion in PROFITS, yet they paid $0.00 in Taxes and donated less than 1% of it to charity. In 2009 Walmart earned over $22.1 Billion in PROFITS, yet they donated less than 1% of that to charity. The list goes on and on and on.

Here at tagvillage, we have a mission. We will lead by example. We will prove that a business can operate profitably and give at least 10% of their revenue to charity. We will show by example that business can truly be socially responsible, not just say they are. We will stand as a shining light when the big corporations of the world say “it is not possible to give that much and operate.” Isn’t it time the Google’s and Facebook’s and Walmart’s and GE’s of the world were asked to stop hoarding the revenue that could be changing the world? Isn’t it time for us to say “No, we won’t use your product if it means you get richer and fatter while children starve in Somalia!”

Every single day, I get to wake up and go to work at a place where some of the most creative and talented people in the world work. Every day I get to listen to engineers and innovators as they dream and scheme and architect the future of the Internet as we know it. Every day, I talk to our CEO and I am reminded that the only reason he is here is because he is completely, passionately working to prove business can exist for the purpose of helping people. Every day I remember why I work at tagvillage.

As I reflect on the amazing company I work for and the incredible mission we have set out to achieve, I am troubled by only one thing. The only way a business like tagvillage will reach its goal, the only way it will ever be that “shining light” in a sea of greed, is if our members take up the challenge too. We must become the example. We must help people see a better way. There are companies out there that give more than a paltry 0.90% of their PROFITS to charity. The fat cats on Wall Street will take notice if we begin to change our habits. What if people simply decided to seek out businesses that truly give?

tagvillage is on a mission. We dream of a day when corporations give large percentages of their revenues to charity. Sometimes I see how physically ill our CEO is when he realizes the overwhelming task ahead of us and asks “Are we crazy to think we even have a chance?”

Then, he rallies. He pulls the troops in and reminds them of our purpose. He reads us a story of a child in Dallas who needs a major surgery and his unemployed parents just lost their insurance. He tells us a story of a little girl in Africa who begs for food and water for her younger siblings and her dying mother in the shade of the management office of one of the most profitable diamond mines in the world. A diamond mine that is owned by one of the most profitable diamond retailers in the world. A diamond retailer that donated less than 0.003% of its PROFITS to charity in 2010.

Right after he tells us these stories, he puts his nose down and starts typing on his computer. The developers start developing. The idea people start dreaming. The marketing people start marketing. And, I lean back and think, “Yep, this is why I work at tagvillage”.


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