upward mobility

As American philanthropy continues to evolve, may it one day catch up with Bob Woodson.

Most sensible people of all ideological stripes can probably agree that feeling excessive shame (for whatever reason) probably inhibits the formation of fruitful social connections and that feeling an excessive sense of entitlement (also for whatever reason) probably inhibits fruitful individual effort. The conviction that one feeling is problematic to the exclusion of the other, however, leads not only to dueling studies and paper-writing efforts to prove the other side wrong, but also to mutually exclusive prescriptions for cultural change.

Donors should know that any “answer” to poverty that takes the form of a paper or policy summit—even with the occasional overcoming-poverty anecdote thrown in for inspiration—is at best several degrees removed from making life better for the poor.