Many of us use Google, Waze, and Wiki. We trust their information because “that many people can't be wrong". The more people searching, navigating, and contributing data, the stronger the results.

This is Wisdom of Crowds in action, described by James Surowiecki in his book by the same name, subtitled “Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations".

It works because the crowd provides 3 things:

1. Diversity of opinion – everyone knows something even if it’s just a small bit of information
2. Independence – what one person knows doesn’t depend on what other people know
3. Decentralization – what happens locally may be what you and only you know, or know best

Social movements are built on crowds that believe in the movement’s purpose. The crowd will tell you what they want and are willing to do to stay engaged and grow – but only if you ask them. Ask enough people and best answers will come out, so the smarter social movements know to cast a wide net.

At Karmalize, we chose to crowdsource our directory of socially responsible businesses because this approach leads to the most credible listings. We trust our crowd. We trust their diversity, their independence, and their reach across 450+ cities and counting. Our role is to bring it all together, what Surowiecki calls aggregation, which is the magic that makes it all work.

YOU are the key to our success. I welcome you to join our crowd, suggest a business, and feel the joy of spreading good karma!