From the historical business shoguns John D. Rockefeller to Carnegie Mellon, the upper aristocratic spread carry an infamous reputation for seeking personal gains and rapacity. The bourgeoisie sometimes unfairly associate a person’s net wealth with the degree of disregard they have for societal groups with lower tier status  Yet, to a large extent this perception can be skewed. The quintessential investing guru Warren Buffett, the most generous man in the world, is a living evidence of a man who grew up with a sliver of what most of us have but refused to let that barricade him from becoming one of the most recognized faces in both business and non-profit spaces. From a childhood defined by the economic austerity of the Great Depression, especially acute in the Midwestern state of Nebraska, Buffett arguably understands more than most about making ends meet.

Growing up during such a resource barren time, Warren Buffett has acquired a connoisseur’s sense for finding an inherent value in almost any opportunity that comes his way. To avoid becoming economically disenfranchised, Buffet made it his mission as a schoolboy to begin accumulating a personal savings pool. He remarkably unraveled an innate talent or this as he successfully spearheaded his proprietary low end goods venture in grade school, which later evolved in secondary school as Buffet expanded his conglomerate to detailing automobiles for customers, entering the newspaper vending business, and selling more trinkets like golf balls. After turning 11, Buffet injected funds in his first stock and became a corporate shareholder while most adolescents have only had experience in managing their lunch money. After two decades, Buffet afforded himself a personal net asset collection of USD of $7 million as he executed a series of partnerships. These experiences act as a harrow to the type of man the esteemed Oracle of Omaha would become, not only as a financial practitioner but as a man who sees the value in societal advancements.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg

Warren Buffett underpins how critical a capital investment in society is for the greater social well being when he observes:

If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing.

Despite media channels lambasting the affluent for being inactive in public welfare causes, Buffet remained true to his covenant when the troika of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg formally agreed to a pact in 2010 to funnel over 50% of their net wealth as endowments to charitable ventures and activities. However, Buffet already afforded himself a head start when he committed to backing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with 83% of his personal fortune. Averaging $2 billion per annum, his inflow provides the foundation with the capability to foster global development and comradery by tackling inordinate public health, education, and human rights crises across geographical and cultural boundaries. A venerable example of the foundation’s work includes a $5 million grant to the International Justice Mission eight years ago to absolve gender abuse cases in the Philippines stemming from an increasing flux in human tracking. This operation involved fortifying enforcement and legal forces to fighting human traffickers both on the streets and in court. Without sizeable investments from Warren Buffett, thousands of world citizens would not be entitled to the benefits that they fortunately can receive due to intervention from organizations as the Gates Foundation.

Not only does the money master practice global philanthropy through the traditional endowment providing process, but it also resolves to his gusto for the financial market to raise funds for charitable causes. One of the signature characteristics of Buffet is to regard virtually everything, including himself, as an asset. That is why on several occasions starting in 2007, Buffett auctioned off certificates to have dinner with Buffett himself that have almost all generated several million worth of funding for the nonprofit humanitarian organization Glide Foundation. This is the type of humorous yet effective tactic that continue to remind us of the ingenious mind of Warren Buffet as well as his ability to materially shape the world. While the top 1% might continue to be liable to dissent and allegations of inaction to socially beneficial causes, there is no doubt that those magnates with a keen eye for finding value in both material objects and in people like Warren Buffet are making the deliberate stance to mobilize their time and resources to shaping a more habitable world for future generations of society.

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Everybody do that, whether it’s politics or some minor sociological issue such as the problem of stray dogs on the streets. However, we usually end up these debates realizing that we either don’t have enough time to deal with such matters, or that no one truly cares. Somebody else must have thought of solving such problems before, but it’s impossible to do anything about it in this country, we often conclude. Things like pessimism, mocking the system and the people, come next.

I have to say, you are all wrong

Only four months ago, one of my friends and I came to the very situation I’ve mentioned above. We were strolling through the city center. We saw street beggars there, asking for some money, sitting in the cold. There were also street musicians playing some sad love songs, although it was freezing outside, and homeless people rummaging through trash cans looking for food and clothing. At the same time, we were warmly dressed, not feeling hungry, holding hot coffees in our hands. Sounds familiar? At that moment you probably think of nothing else but how lucky you are to have so little, and yet, comparing to others, so much.

An explosion of feelings happens inside. First of all, there’s this feeling of guilt, for instance, because you had complained about something the day before, but nothing was really wrong with you. Then there’s compassion for the pain and sorrow of these street people who are obviously in much more trouble than you. Finally, we come to the crucial point, a certain crossroad, with two different ways. The one is to share your feelings with a friend. After a short conversation about the issue, you make up your mind to take your old clothes to the Red Cross or some drop-in-center (to get rid of guilt) and continue your life as nothing has happened. The other way is to do something that will really make a difference!

It didn’t take us long to come up with the idea.

We had a vision to partially solve the problem. How about sharing our mixed-up feelings and emotions with all the people from Serbia and the rest of the world? Why don’t we start a chain reaction of generosity and thus inspire others to do the same? We decided to make a motivational video and show how little it takes to bring a smile to someone’s face. People in Serbia are known for their compassion and interest for tough moments others are going through. However, It’s no secret that the world is circulating the wrong image of Serbia and stereotypes attached to it. There is also so much pessimism around us. Therefore, we had enormous inspiration to make a big step towards stopping the abovementioned problems.

It was worth trying.

We set our idea in motion the very same day! We invited one of our friends with an excellent knowledge of video production. So, there were three of us, all students with less than a thousand Dinars (9 EUR) in each pocket. But, we had a vision how to make some changes in our society with the knowledge, time and experience we have. We filmed and edited the video in two days. Then we posted it on YouTube. Within two hours about 40,000 people saw it. The phone started to ring and our Facebook page was full of messages and comments. All web portals were writing about us and the media supported our idea.

We have bought some food to homeless people. They were so grateful. Quite a simple thing, but this meant a lot to them. In this video we also invited others to join us, do something good and thus inspire more people to act in the same way. You could hardly imagine how many people contacted us with a desire to help. There were those from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and from all parts of Serbia. People called and explained their ideas and visions to do something even bigger and better. Our hearts were full!

Honestly, we have never dreamed of the fact that so many people would react in such a positive way. We were prepared to face with failure. We did not have much faith, yet it turned out that we are still the nation full of compassion for others. We have awareness and it doesn’t take us long to do something good and to move forward. We’ll not stop here! We still have the vision and idea how to solve some issues and how to make the world a better place. We still want to inspire others, to help those in need, and those who have remained in streets for reasons and circumstances unknown to us. We want to give them a second chance and send to the world a better image of people from Serbia. Luckily, now we can achieve our cause with ease. As more and more people want to join us, there are less sad faces on the streets. Smiles are everywhere.

So far we have succeeded to encourage people to do something good and be generous on everyday basis. For example, in the bakery people now buy a loaf of bread over and give it to the homeless when they are passing by. In one of our campaigns we have invited people to bring old clothes. Thirty bags of warm clothing have been collected for children from Home for Infants, Children and Youth, drop-in-center, and for the Red Cross. Furthermore, we have invited people to organize a charity gig and raise money for the treatment of nine-year-old Biljana Stojković. There were more similar campaigns and appeals to help those in need.

We are not heroes of these stories!

The true heroes are all these people who gladly respond to such appeals. It doesn’t take much to react positively and do something good for others. Like we said before, we will not stop here. On March 20 we are planning to organize another campaign and collect plenty of clothes for children from shelters and drop-in-centers. We invite all of you who want to help others in any way to do so every time you have a chance! It does not have to be a homeless person. It can be your next-door neighbor or an old woman crossing the street. Or you can comfort someone who is sad by giving him/her a smile!

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