Choose three people and do something nice for each one of them that they can't do for themselves. Then they do it for three more people, and they do it for three more… And you ask for nothing in return, only that the recipient pay it forward to three other people…

Catherine Ryan Hyde published Pay It Forward several years ago, watched as her book was made into a movie by the same title in 2000, and has since established a charitable foundation that promotes the basic principles espoused in her novel.  But her own Pay It Forward experience occurred almost 24 years ago. Ryan Hyde was living in Los Angeles in a "tough" neighbourhood, and late one night her car stalled on a ramp leading off from a freeway. Before she knew it, her car was filled with smoke and the engine was on fire. She then observed two men running toward her with a blanket. They quickly popped the car's hood and did what they could to extinguish the flames. At the same time, a fire truck appeared on the scene.  It all happened so fast that Ryan Hyde was unable to thank the two men, who disappeared into the night. To this day she doesn't who they were. But at that same moment the Pay It Forward concept started to develop in her mind as Ryan Hyde realized she owed a huge debt of gratitude to someone.  "It seemed like too much to do for a total stranger," she told Rotarians. "I was later told that we could have been killed. These two gentlemen probably saved my life, and they risked their own lives. And I don't even know who they are." 

Ryan Hyde started writing Pay It Forward several years later. In the book, 12-year-old Trevor comes home from school with an assignment. He and his classmates are asked to develop an idea that can make the world a better place. Trevor's concept is simple: If three people do a good deed for someone, and then ask each of their benefactors to do a good deed for three other people, the global impact could be substantial. Ryan Hyde agrees that the concept is simple -- perhaps deceptively so -- but mathematically it could work. If the Pay If Forward movement went as deep as 14 people or levels, it would touch and impact a population equivalent to Australia's. "It's so simple, and maybe that's why it's not done," Ryan Hyde said. "It's like finding the key to the secrets of the universe. We think that the key must be complicated, but what if it was simple?” 

As Ryan Hyde was establishing her foundation, a Pay It Forward movement was spontaneously being developed across North America, as a larger audience was exposed to the Warner Brothers movie. "Pay It Forward is a book, but it's also an idea." she said. "It's an action plan within a work of fiction. But does it have to be fiction? We're hoping not. In fact, since the book was released in January of 2000, a real-life social movement has emerged, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. What began as a work of fiction has already become much more."