Making the Pitch

That which seems too good to be true, usually is.

We've all heard this old maxim, and most of us have adhered to it at one point or another in our lives. It echoes down from the same center of higher reasoning that narrows the gazes, furrows the brow, and flouts our most emphatic desire to believe that yes, one can in fact eat three square meals of ice cream a day and still obtain the figure of a Brazilian supermodel. "All you need is this little pill!"

Right.

We are hardwired to be skeptical, and as late-night infomercials prove, with good reason. A plethora of products and services attract business by attempting to offer something for nothing. Even sectors typically wrapped in the trappings of legitimacy are not immune (mortgage-backed securities anyone?).

In any case, the recent financial crisis, and a pervasive sentiment that the American public was more or less duped, has done little to increase the amount of goodwill and institutional trust in circulation lately (see Gallup).

With this in mind, imagine making the following pitch the executive director of national NGO...read the rest of this post