How to Spend a Million Dollars Improving the World

What would you do with a million dollars? Would you spend or invest? Would you think of yourself first, or others? Would you quit your job and live in the lap of luxury, or would you want to use the money to start an exciting new business?

I can’t deny that if I hit the jackpot, my first instinct would be to buy a big house for my family and to invest money so there would always be more coming. But another thing I would personally want to do is to use my good fortune to correct the wrongs that I see in the world. Here are just three of the ways I could use part of that million dollars to make the world a better place for us all.

Invest Money in Food Security

Hunger and food insecurity are a growing problem in both developing countries and those which have long been thought of as privileged. As the gap widens between the rich and those who are not rich, more and more people experience food insecurity.

If I had a million dollars I would invest in programs that improve food security. Rather than taxing refined foods, I would find creative ways to subsidize healthy foods so all families can afford to buy them. I would invest in community gardens, especially school gardens that teach young people about growing wholesome foods.

I would launch an initiative that would pay for low income families to have farm-fresh food hampers each week through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. This would benefit both the families and the local organic food growers. And because the fresh produce from the CSA is packed with nutrients but low on calories, it would help address the problem of obesity in low income populations.

Invest Money in the Writing Community

The web writing community has been hard hit over the past few years. Google and other search engines have penalized content sites and social writing communities, advertisers have dropped their support, and even big sites like Yahoo can no longer afford to pay contributors for their writing.

If I had a million dollars I would create a web writing community with a difference. I would launch a site that offered not only a place to host content, but also specialists in writing and SEO to help improve content and teach ordinary people to write content that will score with the search engines.

My site would offer different levels of user experience, from a sandbox for newer writers who want to master basic skills, all the way up through veteran writers who could be given paid writing assignments in their fields of expertise.

Invest in the Future of Our Planet

One of the most frustrating things about politics today is knowing that most politicians are funded by big corporations and banks who call the shots. Big business has a history not only of polluting the environment and mistreating both consumers and employees, but also of introducing practices like monocropping that put the world’s food supply in jeopardy.

If I had a million dollars I would spend some of it to lobby for improved work conditions, environmental responsibility, and manufacturing laws that favour a quality product that can be upgraded and repaired instead of being thrown away.

I would find creative ways to help low income earners upgrade to the environmentally friendly housing, heating and transport that are currently accessible only to the well off. I would place particular emphasis on improving public transportation options, especially those intended for the aged and for people who have special needs. These services are currently unreliable, difficult to access, or won’t allow for an individual to bring along companions or to carry their shopping. Obviously we need to work on a more comprehensive service for those who need it.

This post is a response to a million-dollar writing challenge by LiteracyBase user @scheng1

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