Dan Pallotta
Activist, humanitarian, author, and builder of movements
Dan Pallotta is an activist, humanitarian, author, and builder of movements. He is a pioneer in the national effort to transform the way our culture evaluates the character and impact of nonprofit organizations. His iconic TED Talk on philanthropy has been viewed more than 4.9 million times. It is one of the 20 most-commented TED talks of all time. It has been translated into 27 languages and continues to be viewed over 1,000 times a day by people all over the world. His 2016 TED talk on being has been viewed more than 2 million times. He is one of the 100 most-viewed TED speakers of all time. He is a founding thought partner for TED’s Audacious Project, which has raised nearly $1 billion for disruptive entrepreneurial social initiatives across a variety of issues. He invented the multi- day charitable event industry. He created the Breast Cancer 3-Day walks and the multi-day AIDS Rides long-distance cycling journeys, which raised in excess of half a billion dollars in nine years and were the subject of a Harvard Business School case study. The model and methods he created are now employed by dozens of charities and have raised in excess of $1.5 billion more for important causes from pediatric leukemia to AIDS to suicide prevention and many others.
He is the author of “Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential,” the best-selling title in the history of Tufts University Press. The Stanford Social Innovation Review said that the book, “deserves to become the nonprofit sector ’s new manifesto.” His newest book is, “The Everyday Philanthropist: A Better Way to Make a Better World,” a field guide for the average person who wants their life to matter. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has described his approach as “An Apollo program for American philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.”
Dan has written over one hundred articles for the Harvard Business Review online. He is the founder and President of the Charity Defense Council, which is dedicated to transforming the way the public evaluates charities. He is the founder and President of Add Humanity, a message and movement-building consultancy that helps super innovative humanitarian organizations dream and grow.
Dan has given hundreds of talks on philanthropy and innovation in the United States and around the world. He is a William J. Clinton Distinguished
Lecturer, and has spoken at Stanford, Wharton, Harvard Business School, Harvard’s Hauser Center for Nonprofits, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Brown, the United Nations, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Council on Foundations, and the Gates Foundation, among others. He has been an elected member of the School Committees in both Topsfield and Melrose, Massachusetts. He is a recipient of the Liberty Hill Foundation Creative Vision award, the Triangle Humanitarian of the Year award, and the Albany State University International Citizen of the Year award.
Dan been written about in feature and cover stories in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and has appeared on The Today Show, the BBC, CNN, CNBC, American Public Media’s Marketplace, and numerous NPR stations, among others.