This was the mildly megalomaniacal dream that filled my mind in spring 2023. I was writing a book on the theme of moral ambition, about the drive to drastically improve the world. It was supposed to be something like a self-help book, but not to make your life easier – in fact, to make it more challenging. Moral ambition is the desire to be one of the best, but measured by different standards of success – not motivated by big paychecks or fancy honorifics, but pursuing a career dedicated to finding the best solutions to the biggest problems the world is facing now.

‍

I was initially planning to stick to my usual strategy: type away at a book, staple it together, and hope that others will use it for something. I had experienced that a few times, like in 2015, when a Canadian woman – Elizabeth Claire Williams – read my book about universal basic income, and then established a foundation to give ‘free money’ to the homeless in Vancouver. The results of that experiment were global news last year, and I'm more than a little proud that I was able to contribute to that in some small way.

‍

But beyond that, I had to admit, I didn’t have many tangible tales about the impact of my work. I was increasingly wondering whether ‘awareness’ had been dramatically overrated. How many debate evenings in Amsterdam had I attended by now? Dozens, possibly even hundreds of gatherings that usually culminated in the same conclusion: “Good that we talked about it again.”

‍

People today are aware of everything – animal suffering, climate change, human trafficking, and so on – but are we actually doing anything with that knowledge? Are we transforming our awareness into action?

‍

No, not usually.

‍

‍

The idealism of an activist, the ambition of a startup entrepreneur

I wanted to know more about the pioneers in our history that did take action, so I started reading about the British antislavery movement in the eighteenth century. That was the first major, successful movement in support of human rights. One simple fact in particular fascinated me about that movement: almost all the founders were businessmen in their own right. More precisely: ten of the 12 founders of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade owned their own company.

‍

They were people who knew how to build and scale up, who combined a healthy dose of idealism with an equally significant dose of ambition. That's when it dawned on me: isn’t that exactly what we need now in our fight against the big problems that the world faces today? What would happen if we combined the idealism of an activist with the ambition of a startup entrepreneur?

‍

Further reading: What is moral ambition?

‍

I decided to start looking for those people. I was seeking people who already had experience in building organisations, and would know how we could bring to fruition that mildly megalomaniacal dream of a ‘School for Moral Ambition’. And I found three: a designer, consultant, and a banker.

‍

Allow me to introduce them to you. Let’s start with the designer: I had known Harald Dunnink for 10 years, because he was not only the founding partner of design agency Momkai, but was also one of the founders of De Correspondent. From the very earliest forays into longform journalism, he was the mastermind behind our award-winning design. If we wanted to build something big, we had to make it look good from day one, with a clear strategy for communicating as effectively as possible – and when it comes to that, I couldn’t imagine anyone more ideally suited to make it happen than Harald.

‍

‍

Shortly after – in June 2023 – I met Jan-Willem van Putten, a consultant who had given up his day job to become a societally minded entrepreneur. As it turned out, he was also the only Dutch graduate of the London-based school of Charity Entrepreneurship, the ‘Hogwarts for do-gooders’, which I had just visited. Jan-Willem had established a foundation called Training for Good, which organised fellowships for talented professionals in the tech sector.

‍

Here’s the deal: several years before ChatGPT was even on the horizon, Jan-Willem realised that artificial intelligence could be a really big deal, but that the Dutch government didn’t have the knowledge it needed to understand how we can regulate this powerful technology. Most of the expertise in this field has been co-opted by powerful companies based in Silicon Valley. So Jan-Willem started trying to lure experts away from Big Tech with the aim of training them to make a difference at the EU in Brussels. His efforts paid off: the European AI Act recently passed, which included significant contributions from the fellows trained by Jan-Willem, based on their expertise.

When I heard that, I thought: couldn’t we scale up this model? Enticing talent away from Big Tech sounds like music to my ears, but couldn’t we also draw in the best of the best from Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Finance, and so on? Wouldn’t it be possible for us to arrange one prestigious fellowship after another to help smart people in places like Amsterdam’s Zuidas business district to find jobs that have far more positive impact? Just imagine: an elite team of twelve of the country’s best lawyers taking on the tobacco industry. How cool would that be?

‍

At the same time, we all agreed that ‘moral ambition’ should not become an elitist ideal. After all, everyone is talented at something. Essentially, moral ambition should become an easily recognisable lifestyle, like minimalism or mindfulness. As far as that goes, I had to think of a book published several years ago; Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, a guide for women who want to break through the glass ceiling. Sandberg had established a non-profit foundation that facilitated thousands of ‘Lean In Circles’: small groups of ambitious women encouraging each other to climb the career ladder.

‍

Further reading: The Moral Ambition Circles

‍

The parallel was obvious. Why not do the same, but focusing on moral ambition? How amazing would it be if there were hundreds, or even thousands or Moral Ambition Circle starting up across the country? Imagine a group of five to eight professionals in dialogue about the difference they can make through their work. People who learn together about the biggest problems that the world faces and support each other in taking the first step.

‍

‍

‍

The most hectic months of our lives

Sounds great, but how do you organise something like that? The answer is simple: you need a professional. Fortunately for us, we encountered something that entrepreneurs apparently have all the time: if you’re doing it right, the best people will find you. We were looking for a fourth co-founder when Julia van Boven suddenly knocked on our door. With a degree in moral philosophy, Julia had applied to a major bank at the start of her career, opening her application letter with the following words: “Dear sir/madam, you’ve probably never received a letter from an ethicist before, but I think you could probably use one in your workforce.”

‍

Julia was hired immediately and spent seven years doing all sorts of fantastic products at the bank. For example, she was co-lead on Impact Nation (helping companies sustainable innovation), co-founder of the Future Generations Board at the bank, and in the meantime was lecturing in applied philosophy at the university level. After a while, Julia started feeling uneasy. Could she make an even bigger difference outside the bank? Should she also go to that London-based school for do-gooders that she had read about in De Correspondent? Or should she open her own school for moral leadership?

‍

‍

And then she caught wind of the initiative that was being developed by Harald, Jan-Willem and me. In no time, she had persuaded us that she should be our Community Director, taking the lead in setting up the Moral Ambition Circles.

‍

The months that followed were the most hectic of our entire lives. Our team – now grown to fifteen people – worked day and night to have everything ready in time to launch the book and the movement. And this is only the beginning! We see our first year in the Netherlands as a pilot period, learning as much as we can about how we can go international later, once the book is published in English.

‍

More than enough ambition to make it happen, in other words. If we’ve learned anything in recent months, it’s how much energy you get from doing something you truly believe in!

‍

• • •

‍

Translation by Joy Phillips

‍

‍