If you have “free markets” blood running through your veins, I imagine it may have startled you a bit yesterday when I claimed that “low barriers to entry” to start a new PHC are not necessarily a good thing.
I understand.
But I want to make clear that I am not, at all, pushing back against the concept of free markets.
What I am claiming is that there is currently no mechanism in the Pro-Life Business Industry that directs philanthropic capital to its highest and best use.
The late Walter Wriston, former Chairman and CEO of Citicorp, once said, “Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated.”
I think the second part of that sentence, “…and stays where it is well treated…” is a key missing piece in the Pro-Life Business Industry.
“Well treated” implies that capital is earning the ROI (Return on Investment) that the investor seeks, and as I pointed out earlier this week, there exists no reliable source of information that pro-life philanthropic investors can use to direct their money into high performing PHCs, and take their money out of poorly performing PHCs.
Grow the Winners
This may sound a little harsh, but if there were such a mechanism, the poorly performing PHCs would eventually be forced to close down operations because they would be starved for lack of sufficient operating capital.
The upside of their demise would be that the high performing PHCs would then receive additional growth capital to expand their operations, and thereby in the aggregate, win more competitive battles against Planned Parenthood, which results in more lives saved from abortion – increasing the Pro-Life Business Industry’s market share.
So I am NOT for a top-down authority that tells pro-life investors what to do with their philanthropic capital.
However, what I am for is some kind of authoritative information mechanism that directs that capital to its highest and best use.
An “authority of results,” if you will.
My assumption is that pro-life investors will rationally decide to place their capital into PHCs that earn the greatest return – the most lives saved from abortion per dollar invested.
Next week, we will explore how the Pro-Life Business Industry might transform if such an “authoritative information mechanism” emerged.
Until then…
Regards,
Brett
