NOTE: All three of the following ideas require one major item to work: A large monetary donation by an incredibly wealthy and philanthropic person (i.e Bill Gates.) If you know Bill Gates, or someone like him, feel free to pass these along…
1) Start a non-profit public-works company. The company would take on projects such as road improvements, like repairing the street I use to get home that is still paved with 19th century cobblestones with embedded trolley tracks that damage the underside and tires of my car every time I drive on it. The company would hire civil engineers right out of school. They’d spend a few months observing the ongoing (never-ending) public works projects currently happening throughout the city, figure out what those people are doing wrong, and how to do it right. Once they had experience and a good plan, the company would hire laborers directly from the ranks of the unemployed, and train them to do a single, specific task very, very well. Then the non-profit company would volunteer it’s services to the city, free-of-charge, on the condition that the city would stay far, far away from the project. Goal: public roads and bridges repaired in days instead of life-times.
2) Start a non-profit drug company. The company would only employ people with advanced degrees in science, without a single salesperson or marketer. The researchers and scientists would devote their massive brain-power to solving the health problems that really matter to humanity. The projects would be chosen by an independent, objective, educated, empathetic individual, not a committee, without a consideration for cost or profit. Goal: free, useful medicines.
3) Start a non-profit gaming/application development company. The company would only hire young, high-school graduates, or GED recipients, unable to go to college due to low grades/test-scores and/or lack of money. They’d get paid a relatively low salary, no higher than 20k a year, but they’d get full benefits, and would be trained in all aspects of software design, development, testing and marketing, with the idea of being able to start their own company or get hired by another one. The one requirement for working at this company is that 20 hours of the 40-hour work week must be spent doing community service. Street-cleaning, volunteering at a hospital or nursing home, working with disabled kids, that sort of thing. Goal: skilled, empathetic human beings.
Mind of a Mouse 