Real Economics consists of five qualities of charity integrated into economics: Net Charity, Prioritized Charity, Transactional Charity, Quantified Charity, & Short-Term Charity. See below for definitions of each quality.

If one of these qualities are missing the operation is not considered to be a certified Real Economics operation.

Real Inc. - the central organization representing Real Economics as outlined on this page - is in the process of rolling out a board of certification for evaluating, determining, and offering "Real Economics Certified" certificates for businesses to display. Until then, any such certificates or statements related to being certified or abiding by Real Economics and its standards has not been approved by Real Inc..

Net Charity consists of donating 100% of net-profit. In other words, donating what you don't need to what the world needs, so that it can continue to make what you need. And as mentioned above, wealth contribution doesn't just produce continuity, but also greater quantity and quality as well. For a great organization to get associated with the concept of giving 100% of profit to charity, with examples of those already doing it, please see 100forpurpose.org.

Profit (specifically net profit) is generally revenues that gets paid out to shareholders as dividends (cash payments) after subtracting monies needed for running, maintaining, and growing the business such as expenses, investments, cash reserves, etc..

It is important to note that what is one person's necessity may be another person's want. It is up to each individual to be honest in determining what he or she needs and doesn't need. Some may suffice with bare essentials while some require certain luxuries.

Prioritized Charity consists of donating to recipients in a prioritized manner. Acceptable recipients include humanity and the environment. The environment includes all non-human life (i.e. animals and plants) and any inanimate matter (i.e. land, air, water) to which life relies upon.

Amongst the two basic recipients of humanity and the environment, the utmost priority is donating to humanity. A tree cannot wrap the bandage of a child, but a tree can be planted and cared for by a child, let alone by an adult.

There are many other reasons for such prioritization of humanity over the environment, but only one needs to be stated: human ingenuity. As we've seen and can see continually, it only takes the ingenuity of one human, let alone many, to solve global problems, the problems of the environment included.

Whether reasonable or not, it is generally a fixed standard to attend to a suffering person over a suffering animal, over a suffering plant, etc., when they are directly in front of most people. It is safe to say that even an environmentalist would quickly become a humanitarian if a person struggling for their life was directly in front of them.

Within humanity, there is a prioritization. Donating to life-saving medical treatments, eliminating hunger and thirst, etc., comes before donating to a toy fund.

Within the environment, there is not much of an across-the-board consensus as to what should be prioritized. Generally speaking, it is widely accepted that animals be given priority over plants and inanimate matter.

An operation may offer its customers the choice as to which charitable effort they want the profit to be donated to (as we do in the Real Store) but according to Real Economics standards, the owners of the operation must prioritize the charity they give when the choice as to where the profit is to be donated is theirs.

Transactional Charity consists of stating in an apparent manner, before or during every transaction, what is to be donated and to whom, from the proceeds of that transaction.

In other words, charity is to be calculated on a transaction to transaction basis, i.e., what each transaction will contribute to charity from the proceeds of that transaction, and that contribution must be stated in an apparent manner before or during each transaction.

The reason the term "proceeds" is used here and not "net-profit" is because some may deem it beneficial to contribute to charity regardless if there is a net-profit, due to the tendency of charitable contributions to incentivize purchases (revenue) as a whole.

Quantified Charity consists of actual amounts of charitable impacts per unit(s) of currency donated (e.g. $1 feeds 1 person 1 meal). It is the type of charity that can be seen throughout Real Inc. such as in the Charities page or in any product page in the Real Store.

Quantified Charity is the preferred method of depicting charitable impacts for charities themselves, as it provides charitable impact upfront before the donation is even given, which incentivizes giving the donation itself.

Many charities already know what amounts of charitable acts are being done per unit of currency donated, but donors should also know. Not only does it make donors want to donate more because they know with confidence what they're money is accomplishing, they can also visualize it, and therefore be more immersed in it.

As far as companies are concerned, instead of the usual and obscure “10% of profit is donated to charity” with no description of what’s actually being done, companies can tell their customers that “$1 per purchase is donated to x number of charitable acts.”

A stated contribution of Quantified Charity from sales can drive even more sales, by giving customers a visualization that their purchases are doing good for the world. As well, a company contributing to charity, let alone Quantified Charity, induces a desire in the customer to continue to associate with the company to begin with. In most cases, customers desire a company to be charitable rather than not.

Overall, Quantified Charity is more actionable, more measurable, more immersive, and overall more desirable, and because of this, Quantified Charity is a counter against not caring about charity to begin with.

Short-Term Charity consists of donating to the charity that is stated during a transaction, soon after the transaction is completed, and the sooner the better. Real Economics requires that the charity stated during a transaction be given at most within a year of completing the transaction.

The many benefits that come with giving to those in need as soon as possible is straightforward. The recipient aside however, there are strong benefits for the donor as well. One of them being that the sooner one fulfills their donation commitments, the sooner they eliminate any possibility of breaking one's commitments, and therefore their reputation as well.

Real Inc. is currently developing the capability for charity to be given immediately as soon as transactions are completed. When fully developed, integrating this capability should be available to all.