Readers reply: what would be the most socially useful way to spend a billion dollars?

I’ve always thought it would be good to acquire an old warehouse in every town throughout the land and convert it into low-rent community workspaces for artists, local charities and small businesses getting off the ground. A kind of people’s WeWork. What would others do with a humungous, but not unlimited, pile of dosh to benefit society? Roland Freeman, West Yorkshire

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Readers reply

A few years ago I wrote a book taking this idea and running with it. In How to Spend a Trillion Dollars I end up using most of the money on transitioning to a net zero society, and in restoring nature globally. With a billion dollars, I would set up a progressive thinktank funding climate-positive and nature-positive lobbyists to counter the malign, fossil-fuel funded influence of Tufton Street and the Heritage Foundation. Rowan Hooper, podcast editor, New Scientist

I would form a company to install solar panels and batteries. A typical three-bed house can generate enough electrical power for maybe 75% of domestic usage. This would reduce stress on the grid and allow for more capacity for industry and charging electric vehicles. A billion dollars would allow economies of scale in purchasing the panels and batteries and I could train my own set of installers, giving them valuable trade skills in roofing, electrics, etc. Tomgea

I would provide scholarships for children to learn to sing to a high level (cathedral chorister standard). This would offer them a rigorous and disciplined training that fosters exceptional musical skill, academic excellence and high-level soft skills. It significantly boosts confidence, teamwork and leadership while fostering emotional resilience and social responsibility. Choristers gain self-discipline, good time-management, and enhanced cognitive development, often leading to higher academic results. DaveMate

I would start a secret organisation with its purpose being the disruption and destruction from within of actors working against the public good. A kind of department of mischief and dirty tricks – but working for the goodies. BrwnSTHLM

I would open youth centres and build safe spaces for young people where they could meet, do sports, dance, swim and play games, all off screen and free for everyone.

These spaces would be kept clean, well equipped, well staffed and visible, meaning they would not be built only in poorer, away-from-view areas, but rather in the heart of cities, towns and villages, so that all kids and youths from all backgrounds are in contact with each other and everyone sees and accepts they are there. Cristina, Bern, by email

Start a school for construction apprenticeships … Photograph: Posed by models; Peter Muller/Getty Images/Image Source

Start a school for proper construction apprenticeships, minimum three-year courses in theory and practice, modules centred around mutual assistance, morality, ethics, and having fun while doing it included. bricklayersoption

Buy Man U off Ratcliffe, et al. Or put it on a rank outsider at the 2.15 at Doncaster. PeteTheBeat

You already have everything that you need right now to make meaningful change on this Earth. Don’t think about this fictional money, it’s just part of a system that wants you to believe that extreme material wealth is morally desirable. You are already wealthy, just by being alive.

You can already do good right now. Much more good than any money can do. And I think you know it. lukedeane

Buy a billion lottery tickets and see if I can win a trillion. Bakwaas

To get ecocide recognised as an international crime. Although Stop Ecocide International is trying desperately to make headway, a large injection of cash into the movement could get the cause over the line. With all of the metacrises facing life on Earth, a healthy planet is by far the most important. woodworm20

Research tends to point towards treating and preventing diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. But trying to evaluate impacts in a quantifiable manner lends itself towards clearly tractable outcomes around, for example, health and poverty. Rates of disease, amounts of money, amounts of food consumed are all things you can put numbers on, and are amenable to be improved. If you give some people malaria nets, you can expect fewer cases of malaria. But larger scale interventions might be missed. Sticking with malaria, it’s widely expected that cases will increase due to global heating. So spending the money on preventing or reversing global heating could be more effective, but much harder to measure. StingLikeABeer

I would buy medical patents and put them in the public domain. Or agricultural and technological patents. bitthebeat.

Guide dogs for the drunk. Nepthsolem

I’d buy influence with politicians and use it to shape society in a way that suits me and my other billionaire friends. Isn’t that what most people do? twopere

Financial food for thought experiment … Photograph: Chris Clor/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

I’m a long-term unemployed jobseeker actively looking for a new corporate job in my career field, so I’d spend it creating jobs with job security. I’m pro-capitalist and pro-markets, but publicly held companies are now trying to squeeze the bottom line and inflate their stock price by reducing their workforce through AI.

While labour costs have always been one of the profit-and-loss rationalising factors, AI’s generative capabilities are destructive to the maintenance of future labour market growth that are crucial for productive societies. This is evidenced by the current state of wealth distribution in the US and other developed economies. The world has an unhealthy ratio of multi-billionaires to the average person, and this type of distribution scale will further be exacerbated by C-suite executives trying to cut costs excessively with drastic measures like AI. Multi-billionaires’ charitable giving is often a tool used to promote their own agendas and interests, as well as PR for their wealth justification. The true measure for usefulness is to create well-paying jobs with job security to truly be socially useful. Jen Na, by email

I would choose some important charities that the government should be funding and give them a million pounds each until all spent! lyrasdaemon

Buy into various local small businesses, restaurants, cafes, pubs, art venues, then pump up the base level wage from minimum wage to something that would mean the employee has money to spend, which being working-class means they’ll probably spend local (even if into the coffers of corporations) thus hopefully creating a small town-based micro economy. As a side hustle, offer training to any staff that want to improve their job prospects or offer low cost loans if they want to start a business. theseligsussex

I’d buy a lot of children’s books and give them out for free. angstriddenhipster

I’d like girls to be given enough sanitary towels every month so that they don’t have to stay home when they have their period and miss school. nina1414

Boost urban cycling … Photograph: Uwe Krejci/Getty Images

There are loads of old civic buildings falling apart in my home town. So I’d buy and transform some of them into flats for affordable rent. It would be at least a third cheaper than the going rate and everyone would have security of tenure, with a charter drawn up to legally ensure that they could never be sold.

I feel passionate about doing something about homelessness and insecure and overpriced accommodation, but also see a real need to do more to protect our architectural past, which is being erased by a combination of factors including a lack of imagination and an unwillingness to tackle absentee owners who are allowing the skylines of our cities to crumble. fender64

There’s been a lot of thinking about this, and it tends to get a bit circular. The Effective Altruists do, in fact, have a bunch of good ideas (and a tendency to go off at the deep end).

If you want to fix climate change, Project Drawdown has done a lot of work.

Personally I’d probably donate to the bicycling lobby in a number of global cities. Or emergency food aid for the worst-affected areas. Or healthcare in countries where it is most patchy. It is clearly not effective to spend it in expensive countries where healthcare and food access are already pretty good. pavanne

Invest in education … Photograph: Posed by models; Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Invest directly in people through education, healthcare, mental health services, affordable housing and fair wages. Supporting community-based programmes and local economies could create lasting change and improve overall wellbeing for generations. orangecoastpsych

Invest in nature. Trees, plants, animals, ecology. Fresh air. Take us back in time for a piece of how it looked before humans ruined everything. Whatever it takes to feel closer to nature. Bakwaas

Donate to small scale needs that can make a huge difference, as seen by the appeals on acts435.org.uk ellenwilkinson

I’d probably set up meetings with Greenpeace, Médecins Sans Frontières, the UN security council and the WHO to ask them for their thoughts. (They’d probably ask me to donate!) I’d try to set up initiatives to help with poverty, global warming and diseases in conjunction with those organisations. moslegand

The benefits of housing for those in real need pay back many times over, year after year. So £1bn could be used to seed purchase sites on condition they went to established non-profit local community land trusts, co-housing groups, housing co-ops. If local authorities can purchase sites at existing land use value, then the funds will go even further. You wonder why the government doesn’t invest a few billion in this way and support some council housing in the meantime, too. Save some of the £30bn each year spent on housing benefits (in unsatisfactory housing) and the billions councils spend on emergency accommodation (usually temporary and unsatisfactory). Nothing to do with immigrants, treasury rules more like. OpenHeartMind

Spend half to buy MRI machines and staff them for free in poorer areas. Spend the other half on developing new model MRIs to be portable and cheap. 680199

ProduceGood.org [which recycles food from farmers’ markets and farms in San Diego county] recently lost the partial funding it had from the federal government. With a billion dollars, it could expand beyond San Diego county, feed millions more hungry people, and keep hundreds more tons of good food out of landfill. Beatrice Shushan, Carlsbad, California, by email

Buy a piece of woodland and build a wall around it so humans can’t get in? I’m joking, but this would probably be the last oasis of wildlife indispensable for survival of the Earth and ecosystem. Obviously I would invest in poverty relief and a greener and more sustainable economy. Backsideflip

Reforestation in progress … Photograph: Posed by models; Dougal Waters/Getty Images

Solutions need to be scalable and solve multiple global issues at once (climate change, health, biodiversity, equality). Current advice for effective giving seems to be to focus on the following areas:
1. Climate – aviation and shipping legislation; green building standards; plant-based eating.
2. Poverty and health – vaccines; vitamins; direct cash transfers to poor people.
3. Equality – women’s education, access to contraception and employment.
4. Animal welfare – plant-based eating; ending factory farming; developing lab-grown meat. TwelfthNight

I’ve thought about this, in the wake of various lottery winners receiving hundreds of millions. It led to daydreaming.

1. Donate to food banks, women’s and children’s shelters, and organisations that help people pay rent.
2: Donate to Scottish SPCA and reputable animal shelters – establish a special fund to pay for surgeries, medical care, meds, etc.
3. Help family, friends, neighbours, local businesses.
4. Donate to worthy causes and globally – from Greenpeace to Ocean Conservation Namibia. JaneMarple

I’d buy a large part of the rainforest and rewild it. fishingnet

Underwrite a credit union. adamcgf

Make sure everyone on Earth has access to clean water. We waste money on wars and space rockets and there are kids walking miles to get water and not getting an education.

Set up more workshops and help people in developing countries start their own businesses. You could also provide such opportunities in the UK. scouser58

Build more parks. Plant more trees. Sagarmatha1953

Make the Amazon rainforest a world reserve … Photograph: Priscila Zambotto/Getty Images

Buy the Amazon forest and give it back to the tribes. Make it a world reserve and ban any more logging and gold mining. 3granville

I was going to say share it out among the US population, but that would only give them $2.87 each, which wouldn’t go far towards paying their medical bills. Goldgreen

We’re told that money is the root of all evil. A billion dollars represents a lot of evil. The best thing to do would be to simply remove it from the world by giving it to me so I can have it destroyed. fantod

The greatest net benefit to cost ratio would be tackling poverty and disease in the developing world, with a focus on treatable diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. If £5 can provide a book or a meal to a British child living below the poverty line, or save the life of an Angolan child suffering from TB, that’s an easy choice. AllLifeIsEqual

Compulsory purchase every substandard property being let out by private landlords, do them up and give them to a community land trust to keep them at local housing allowance rates for ever. LorraineHart

Establish a seed bank and a network of training and resources to build more sustainable, climate-resilient farming. The scheme would primarily support smaller farms and promote local employment.

Establish a training network for “green” jobs (from heat pump installers to builders specialising in energy efficiency, to surveyors monitoring environmental health, etc.)

Build a small, integrated social village, with subsidised housing, shops, community spaces, and dedicated areas for produce growing, circular economy workshops, and skills training. OgNimaeb

I would fund 16,500 council houses and then use the rent from those houses to fund another 1,000 houses a year (ish). A small start but a necessary one to replace the public housing stock removed by Thatcher for purely political reasons. itsIanitisForSure

You could do everything suggested so far and still be making millions in interest on the principal. Gryphone

It might be enough to sway the financial markets if you invested it in socially useful companies and then used the return to support socially useful purposes.

Ideally this is exactly what pension funds should be doing, but instead they are using it to get the best return on the investment and the cycle continues.

Building lots of social housing in an environmentally respectful way incorporating environmental energy saving things so bills are low – would make such a difference to a lot of people’s lives. And/or build lots of domestic violence shelters so that women and men can leave unsafe relationships instead of staying in them. And/or upgrading care workers’ pay so that it’s a livable wage and it encourages more people to be care workers– so that the crisis in social care isn’t a crisis any more. And/or lots of community food gardens – bringing people together, providing free fresh food, a green space, and nurturing nature. EnglishMaple

I’d buy a small shop with flats above it and offer rent-free accommodation for those at risk of homelessness etc in exchange for working in the shop and developing employment or life skills. If it worked, one shop in each town, imagine if we could get a banking counter there too. Steve3059

I would use a billion dollars to fundamentally change human behaviour towards animals. It would be a multifaceted approach: eliminating factory farming, restructuring the countryside to support sustainable organic farming of vegetables as we boost veganism, education at schools, adult campaigns to change attitudes around meat, diet, wildlife protection, and keeping animals as pets, eliminating unnecessary animal testing, trap neutered and release campaigns at mass scale, reducing animals in kennels over time in a humane way through the above education measures. I’d invest in regeneration of wildlife and saving endangered species. I’d also invest in academic and governmental levels research and develop the concept of animal sentience, consciousness, the fact that each animal has a different personality and is unique (and shouldn’t be eaten).

Society and our landscapes will be fundamentally altered for the better. Plus, we will save millions of animals from torture, abuse, neglect, unspeakable suffering and eradication of species. TM, by email

Use your millions to help those who suffer being deported without cause, are suffering in wars and have lost loved ones, are homeless or in detention centers because they are assumed criminals without proof, or are considered demons because of their race and/or religion. RP Orlando, by email