I stumbled on David’s Berman’s book Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World. I haven’t read it yet, but I like the premise of the book—no matter your profession, no matter your work, you can use your skills to help make a more just society. Berman’s book is primarily for professional designers, but his key question is relevant for any profession: Does your work make the world a better place?

His challenge is very simple. Take the Do Good Pledge, stating you will, 1) Be true to your profession (Ethics); 2) Be true to yourself (Principles); and my favorite, 3) Spend 10% of your professional time helping repair the world (Effort). Check out Berman’s blog and consider making the pledge (even if you’re not a designer).  So far 88,000+ hours have been pledged. It’s a simple idea, but I wonder how much better our world would be if we really took the pledge seriously—from food servers to CEO’s. So what do you think?

One Response to “The Do Good Pledge”

1. elisa says:

   December 28, 2009 at 4:27 am

   i like the pledge and recently read this post about using 10% of our time to improve people and there-by the world… it may be applicable to this concept:
   http://ignitionblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/transcending-talk-with-tithe/