Happy Year of the Dog! What do you expect to achieve this year? More importantly, what do you intend to contribute? This year we launch the Billion Dollar Challenge through a combination of the XL Charity Network, XL Social Enterprise Accreditation Programme and XL Results Centre. This year - the fourth in our journey towards our Vision 2020 - we are focused at establishing a platform for effective giving in Asia.

That's the subject of this month's newsletter:

Who has the power to change the world? Do you? If it takes resources to create change, do you have the resources? Your resources are not determined by your efforts, but by your network. This year our network is launching the Billion Dollar Challenge - to generate a billion dollars of new wealth each year with at least 10% of this - one hundred million dollars contributed to charity.

Each of us has the power to transform our own personal wealth, but only collectively do we have the power to transform World Wide Wealth. How do we do so effectively?

We are focused all our efforts in Asia Pacific for good reason. Most charity contributions in the West remain in the West. There is more media focus on social, health and poverty issues in Africa than Asia. Yet Asia houses more than half of the World's poor, more than double the number in Africa and is home to more :serious environmental issues than the rest of the World's countries put together. With its growing economies, Asia also happens to contain the energy and resources - if harnessed properly - to correct this.

Different Continent, Different Solutions

Effective giving is shaping the world. The Time Magazine Persons of the Year 2005 were Bill & Melinda Gates and Bono. While the richest couple in the World dedicate their own fortune to health care and education, Bono is driving change by mobilizing resources in the West to end poverty in Africa. His organization, DATA, stands for Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa. The entire 'Make Poverty History' and ONE Campaign is based on putting pressure on western governments to make poverty history in Africa in the three areas of canceling debt relief, medical support and lifting trade sanctions. Bono has rightly identified that the solutions to Africa's poverty lie largely in the West - and with the West's governments.

In contrast to Africa, making poverty history in Asia requires entirely different solutions. It is a bigger challenge, with simpler solutions. The resources needed to end poverty are not on the other side of the planet, but on our own doorstep. The actions necessary are not from our governments, but from ourselves.

Asian countries are not debilitated by the same debt, health and trade sanction issues as Africa. In 2004, over US$200 billion of investment dollars flowed into this region. This compares to an all-time-high outflow from the US of US$252 billion (compared to US$141 billion in 2003). The combined GDP of the Asia Pacific region now stands at over US$10 trillion, compared to just over US$11 trillion for the European Union. Within two years, Asia Pacific will overtake the EU as an economic group. Within five years, our combined GDP will overtake the US.

Unchecked, this phenomenal wealth transfer will lead to even greater environmental and social crises. Harnessed, this same flow can eliminate poverty entirely. How? By directing our growing resources into four 'E's: Education, Enterprise, Effective Giving and the Environment.

Education:

At the World Education Forum in 2000, the Dakar Framework for Action was adopted by 127 countries to give all primary-age children access to an education by 2015. This initiative, overseen by UNESCO, is now five years old. In 2003, the United Nations declared the next ten years the "Literacy Decade'. While there are 100 million of primary-age still out of school, there are 860 million adults who remain illiterate. (185 million in Asia Pacific).

While there is now a global initiative for schooling and literacy, there is not yet a concerted campaign towards financial literacy. In this year, our XL Charity Network has begun compiling a list of the organizations and charities in each Asia Pacific country focused at providing grass-roots entrepreneur education, providing the tools for individuals to build self-sustaining businesses. By pooling information on these initiatives and connecting them with established entrepreneurs and business educators, we aim to attract more resources in time, money and expertise to support the growth of grass-roots commerce.

Enterprise:

In the United Nations' Millennium Goals, set in 2002, 191 Nations committed to halving global extreme poverty by 2015 and ending poverty entirely by 2025. Within two years, one country had already achieved their 2015 target of halving poverty from their 1990 level. That country was China. In 1990 over 300 million of China's population lived on less than $1 a day. By 2002, that had dropped to under 150 million. Every month over one million Chinese have moved out of extreme poverty, month after month, year after year, for the last ten years.

It was not the government - or rock stars - that created this change. It was the entrepreneurs. The GDP of China has grown by 1,000% from its 1980 level. Enabling the rising tide of enterprise to circulate wealth is the most sustainable path to end poverty. Our XL Social Enterprise program draws a direct link between generating wealth and giving it back, recognizing and ranking the companies who are donating at least 10% of their profits back to their own nominated causes.

Every month over one million Chinese have moved out of extreme poverty, month after month, year after year, for the last ten years.

Environment:

The Planet's greatest environmental threats - including the most imminent extinctions, highest illegal wildlife trafficking, greatest reef destruction and ocean warming, greatest pollution and toxic emission increases and highest increases in energy consumption - can all be found in Asia.

The biggest culprits of excessive consumption and destruction are not individuals, but companies. As entrepreneurs, our businesses have an enormous capacity to create or destroy. At our Global Entrepreneur Summit this July, we are promoting sustainable development with our Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award recognizing the entrepreneurs whose businesses are positively impacting the environment.

Effective Giving:

According to the Giving USA Report - The Yearbook on America's philanthropy - US charitable giving hit a record $250 billion in 2004. There is no shortage of advice in the US on how to give effectively. Network For Good (an online venture between Time Warner and Yahoo!) is an example, listing over one million charities (mostly US) and advising Americans on the most effective way to contribute time and money to these causes. Since its launch in 2001, over 200,000 people have found volunteer opportunities through the site and over $76 million has been donated through their online system.

To date, Asia Pacific does not have any comparable resource. If you want to give, you have to find out how to do it most effectively yourself. This year XL will be supporting an Asia-centric online resource, run by non-profit organization, ONE Asia. By listing charities and organizations focused on the four 'E's, providing comparable information by charity and country, and connecting them with the individuals and social enterprises that support them, we want to raise the level of effective giving dramatically.

Two More 'E's:

Of all the vitamins, 'E' is the one that does the most to repair the damage we do to ourselves. As an anti-oxidant it works against the heart attacks and cancers that have become more common place in our modern lives. Our four 'E's serve the same function on a global scale. In the next 15 years, we will build Asia Pacific's largest entrepreneur and non-profit networks around these four 'E's. World Wide Wealth is not a goal, it is a process: A global plumbing system as vital as our own blood stream, protecting our planet against the heart attacks and cancers we have the power to inflict.

To these four 'E's, you can add two more: 'Expertise' and 'Energy'. This is where you come in. Lend us your expertise and energy. Join our XL Charity Network or XL Social Enterprise Accreditation program. Visit our website or contact our General Manager, Irene Millar. Whatever expertise or energy you can provide, we will return it with interest.

"You must be the change you want to see in this world." - Mahatma Gandhi

Congratulations to Penny, Peter and Andri for the new website, and to Lisa for getting the Wealth Dynamics profiling online. Do have a look at the new website, with the full 2006 schedule of over 300 events, at our webpage at the bottom. You can also take the Wealth Dynamics test at http://www.wealthdynamics.com

Belief, courage, action

-Roger Hamilton

XL Results Foundation Pte Ltd
30 Robinson Road
#11-01 Robinson Towers
Tel: 65-63723383
Fax: 65-63231131
Website: www.resultsfoundation.com