1+1=3

That sounds like some pretty bad math.

And at one point in my life, I would have argued it was impossible. 1+1 can never equal 3. But the more time I spend working at the Illinois Policy Institute, the more I am convinced that this is not bad math. It’s an understatement.

And it’s because of the magic box principle.

Before Notre Dame revokes my accounting degree, let me explain how it works.

On Wednesday, I drove down to Edwardsville, Illinois, to have a conversation with one of our donors. In 1977, Bob Plummer built a lumber yard and the theory he could sell lumber at a lower cost and with better service than anyone in central Illinois. Today, that simple focus has turned into over 100 stores, and 2,000 employees throughout the Midwest.

But Bob has a problem no amount of Douglas fir can fix. He doesn’t like the direction our state and our country are heading.

Bob is concerned with our education system: Instead of teaching our children to read at grade level, we are passing legislation to force them to learn to protest. Bob understands our public pension system is corrupt and is bankrupting our state.

And as a result, Bob is seeing his friends and loved ones leave Illinois.

There are big problems, and they keep him up at night. But he is only one man. So, what can he do about it?

Well, this is exactly the reason Brad Warren and I drove down to Edwardsville. By donating to the Illinois Policy Institute, Bob can accomplish something he could never do by himself. He can invest in our work to fix our education system, to end corruption throughout our state.

And here is what makes this process really cool — Bob had some really great ideas on how we could get this done. He is not just a donor, he is also contributing to the knowledge base of what will make us successful.

And this is true of both the donors who can give us $1 million, as well as the ones who can give us $5.

All of their ideas, their donations, they all go into the magic box.

Earlier that day I was having a conversation with Chris Andriesen. Chris and Jon Josko are working on a project that will append our data to 500,000 Illinois residents who believe in free markets but are not registered to vote.

This information has the ability to not only change the state, but to change our country.

Think about that. When we are able to encourage 500,000 more people to vote on free market ideas in 2022, our entire state looks completely different. Overnight, taxpayers would have more power than public sector unions.

That’s when it hit me: Chris Andriesen and Jon Josko don’t just work at the Illinois Policy Institute, they are donors.

Both are superstars, and both could go out and get jobs at Fortune 500 companies tomorrow. They could make a lot more money than they make now. If Google, CME or Facebook makes an offer, financially, I can’t compete.

But they don’t work at Google. They work here. Why?

Because both Chris and Jon believe in our ideas and our vision for the future. They are willing to donate their time to help change the world.

I’m using them as an example, but I’m speaking about all of us. We are all donors to our mission.

We hired those elite in their fields. The best of the best. And every single one of them could make more money in the private sector (and a much better retirement in the public sector) and we all know it.

We are all donors.

That’s when it hit me. Jon Josko and Bob Plummer are exactly the same. They both believe in a future in which Illinois is free of corruption and where taxpayers have greater power than public unions. They believe in a state that forms a compact with resident: through work, you will receive prosperity and dignity.

Neither of them could accomplish this alone. That is why they both donate.

Put this all into the magic box.

The same is true for our volunteers. The people who knock on doors, run our activist Facebook pages, fill out witness slips and evangelize for our mission. There are hundreds of thousands of them, and they all do this work for free.

They are donors. Put that work in the magic box.

And now for the best part: what comes out of the magic box.

Because of all these donations, we were able to change the direction of our state by stopping a corrupt tax increase that would have devastated small businesses and taxed our elderly living on a fixed income.

Because of all of these donations, we are creating an alternative to the idea Illinois is broken, and the only option is to move. We are providing ways to stay and to fight.

Because of these donations, we will not only change the lives of millions of residents in our state but shift the direction of our country by rooting out corruption in its heartland.

The magic box principle shows us when we put in our time, our donations, our careers, the result is a shared story and an expression of value greater than any of us could have accomplished alone.

Creating a brighter future for every resident in our state: it’s pretty hard to accomplish out of a lumber yard in Edwardsville, Illinois. It would also be impossible to accomplish that alone in an office in downtown Chicago. But when we put all of us in the magic box together, the possibilities grow exponentially.

It makes me think 1+1 equals a lot more than 3.