Since I am someone who cares a lot about both education and charitable giving, it’s hard to imagine a moment that could possibly top yesterday’s breakfast – and it’s not because the food was especially delicious.

The breakfast was second billing to the main event: the students in my Nonprofit Giving class at Framingham State University held a ceremony in which they reflected on their experience in the course and honored the two organizations they chose to fund.  (See my previous post about the class.)

Students as philanthropists?  How can that be?  The class was one of a growing array of similar courses around the country.  The idea is simple yet revolutionary: a foundation puts up the money and the students figure out how and where to allocate it.  Along the way, they learn about pressing community needs as well as the nuts and bolts of grantmaking, such as how to read a funding proposal and conduct a site visit.

My course was funded by the Highland Street Foundation; we had $5000 to give away to nonprofits in Massachusetts.  Highland Street supports similar courses at other schools across the state too.  The Learning by Giving Foundation also funds many such courses at colleges and universities around the U.S.

Any teacher would have been incredibly impressed by the diligence with which the students engaged in a semester-long process in which they ultimately arrived at the decision to split the money evenly between two organizations, Families First, and Resiliency for Life.  The former provides parenting skills to low-income adults; the latter assists academically struggling high school students.

Yet the emotional power of yesterday’s entirely student-run ceremony brought me an even deeper sense of satisfaction at what this course meant to so many of its participants.  With poise and sincerity, many students spoke about how meaningful – and in several cases, life-changing – the experience was for them.  To learn about a subject that touches their passions while being able to do their small part in tackling economic inequality in American society was transformative for them.

Even more significant than knowing I played a role in enabling students to have this profound learning experience is another realization: many of them plan to work in the nonprofit sector after they graduate.  The future of philanthropy suddenly seems a bit brighter!

I grew up, like most people, believing that giving is a way of showing concern and compassion toward people in need.  The conference I attended yesterday at Northeastern University reminded me that in these lean times it is about much more than that.

Many of the top brass from Boston’s philanthropic community came together to discuss “Funding Social Impact in the New Economy.”  There were several key take-away messages.  Far and away the most important one for me was this: philanthropy nowadays can no longer be simply about charity; giving is absolutely vital to our economic prosperity.

Lots of details underlie this message.  Cutting to the chase, three points matter most:

1. The U.S. is experiencing unprecedented – and rising – economic inequality.
2. The stark financial and social costs of this inequality reverberate across our educational,
   criminal justice, and healthcare systems.
3. Government lacks the resources, and often the political will, to address this inequality.  Indeed, government policy has often been a key contributor to it.

The mandate for philanthropy in the foreseeable future, therefore, is how to fill in for government in addressing this problem of mounting importance.  It will be quite a challenge considering that total annual giving – at around $300 billion – is just a fraction of government expenditures.  But, this is a challenge we must take on; it is – plain and simple – a matter of economic necessity!

Fifty years ago this month, Michael Harrington’s The Other America shook the nation’s conscience. It shined a light on our society’s gross economic inequalities, fueling the Johnson administration’s war on poverty. Let’s not allow Harrington’s legacy to become a historical footnote. We are long overdue for a renewed wake-up call about the urgency of addressing the poverty in our midst.

Of course, a lot has changed in half a century.  Nowadays, the government is unlikely again to take up comprehensive poverty reform.  There are, after all, enormous budgetary pressures as well as incendiary political divisions. But, that doesn’t mean we should throw up our hands and begrudgingly accept that America’s opportunity divide must go unchecked. We can indeed make headway on this issue and each of us has an important role to play.

“Today we have more power as private citizens to do public good, both at home and around the world, than citizens in all of human history have ever had,” commented Bill Clinton back in 2006. Clinton is certainly one who knows; he has devoted his years since leaving the Oval Office to many charitable causes.

These words underscore the incredible potential charity has to support and sustain nonprofits that are successfully offering low-income people greater access to opportunity.  It’s hard to imagine a more powerful a way to honor Michael Harrington’s legacy than to tap this charitable potential.

 Despite how much has been said over the  past week about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, here is a take on breast cancer fundraising you probably haven’t considered:  Since there are only so many charitable dollars to go around, when one organization gets such a large piece of the pie the impact on other causes can be adverse.

It’s been a tough road of late for Komen, its having been the brunt of an onslaught of negative press for pulling back its funding for Planned Parenthood.  This comes in the wake of the release last Friday of the Canadian documentary Pink Ribbons Inc., which criticizes the branding of breast cancer fundraising.  The film exposes how much this good cause has been tarnished by its tie-in with corporate products.  Companies become associated with the warm feeling consumers get by knowing a percentage of sales revenue goes to fight a deadly disease.  This sentiment masks the fact that some of these products, namely cosmetics, may actually be contributors to the breast cancer epidemic.

Let’s set the record straight.  These critiques of Komen are not an indictment of the importance of fighting this disease.  Mine likewise aims to separate the cause from how it is being carried out.  And the facts certainly tell a story worth investigating.  Komen raises nearly half a billion dollars a year.  One of the reasons so many people support it is because breast cancer impacts nearly everyone in some way.  But, that’s hardly the only reason.  It’s no accident that people seek to attach themselves to a cause whose marketing and publicity is literally everywhere.  It is easy to give when a charity has the resources to inform ordinary people of the importance and urgency of its work.  And when the cause is in the media spotlight – as is so often the case with breast cancer – donors feel that their giving is doing something righteous.

And perhaps it is.  Or maybe not – how much good Komen is actually doing is a bone of contention, as Pink Ribbons Inc. makes clear.  But so much of the time, feelings tied to mass-mediated causes become the currency of philanthropy supposedly done well.  And since people have finite amounts to give, other causes that do not have a well-oiled marketing arm ultimately lose out.

The cause that particularly concerns me – and which is the focus of this blog – is the opportunity divide in the United States.  This is the gap between those who have the skills, contacts, and money to secure jobs that pay well with mobility prospects and those who don’t.  The urgency of this cause has become apparent in recent months for a host of reasons – the rising poverty rate, declining mobility in the U.S. relative to Canada and Europe, and growing economic inequality – all of which the Occupy protests last year made plainly visible.

There are so many nonprofits making inroads in countering this divide, yet very few have the power to get their good works into the public eye.  Whereas Komen’s marketing arsenal enables it to amass millions upon millions in contributions, organizations working to increase access to opportunity take whatever crumbs they can get.  This is why I profile some of these organizations elsewhere on this blog.

How much more evidence do we need that the American Dream is eroding?  The Census Bureau indicated in December that now nearly 1 in 2 people in the U.S. live in families with total household income less than twice the poverty line.  Last fall, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a report showing that whereas from 1979-2007 the after-tax, inflation-adjusted incomes of the top 1 percent of earners increased 275-fold, incomes of the poorest fifth of the population rose just 18 percent.  And in today’s New York Times there was an articlebased on research showing there is significantly less upward mobility in this country than in Canada or Western Europe.

The Occupy movement has put economic inequality on the national agenda, so now it’s just a matter of what we decide to do about it.  Millions of Americans need help, not just so they can weather a tough economy but also to get a foothold on future opportunity.  As the presidential campaign kicks into full swing with next week’s New Hampshire primary, their need for help deserves center stage.

All candidates in the Republican field are steadfast in their anti-government stances, while President Obama is bracing himself for renewed battles with a Congress similarly bent against new spending on those in need.  This means we will have to tackle these problems the old-fashioned way: by helping one another.

Last fall, in the Times Nicholas Confessore described the likes of Bill Gates, William E. Conway, Jr., and Howard Schultz as “policymaking billionaires.”  They head up foundations that are spending massive sums of money to redress social problems at a time when the government isn’t.  Of course, there are few who can afford to give in this way.  But, most of us can still give something, and that is what matters.  The bulk of all giving in this country comes not from the wealthy but from people like you and me.  Considering the many nonprofits around the U.S. that are doing terrific work to create opportunity for low-income people (featured elsewhere on this blog), revitalizing the American Dream is actually something well within our grasp.

 Like many others, my reaction to the Occupy Movement has been mixed.  While I am impressed by the creative ways it has publicized gross inequalities in our society, I am frustrated by the movement’s lack of an agenda for change. Complaining about problems without identifying solutions – that doesn’t sound very inspiring, or even novel!

Just when I was becoming resigned to seeing the Occupy protesters as just the latest evidence of hopeless idealism, last night I encountered an antidote for my disillusionment – not amidst the outdoor encampment that remains standing in Boston’s Dewey Square but away from the cold across the river in Cambridge.  I attended a reception held by Root Cause to celebrate two groups of local nonprofits.  The first group of five had just completed a year-long process in which Root Cause’s Social Innovation Forum helped them to better define their goals, strengthen their leadership, and improve their messaging.  They were now equipped to build strong relationships with funders and access wider sources of grant support.  The second group of six was just starting this exciting process.  Both groups had been selected from among over 100 applicants.

These 11 nonprofits are not only addressing some of the most challenging problems facing our society but they have the evidence to prove they are succeeding in their efforts.  For example:

• Future Chefs (discussed in detail elsewhere on this blog) provides youth with mentoring and support as they embark on careers in the culinary arts.
• MathPower is closing a critical piece of the educational achievement gap – inequality in quantitative reasoning.
• Innercity Weightlifting encourages urban youth to spend time developing bodybuilding skills for a career in personal training as an alternative to engaging in gang activity.
• Tempo Young Adult Resource Center provides crucial services to young adults who are aging out of the state foster care system.

As I ate the scrumptious food prepared by Future Chefs and met many of the others in attendance, what resonated with me most is that the “social innovation marketplace” all around me didn’t rest on idealism but pragmatism.  The predominant mood in the room wasn’t anger directed at myriad forms of injustice but determination to support ways of making lasting change.  Here were people coming together to promote feasible, high-impact solutions to complex social problems.  How could one possibly leave this event without a renewed sense of optimism that these problems can indeed be successfully mitigated!

 People struggling in today’s sagging economy need lots and lots of help.  This can essentially take two forms: short-term relief and long-term opportunity creation.  The key issue becomes where this help should come from.  If we momentarily look beyond the political gridlock that seems to envelop us everywhere we turn these days, we can see that the Left and the Right both have good ideas to offer.

Short-term relief – such as housing subsidies, food stamps, and reduced or free school lunches – enable families to get by from day to day as adults look for sufficient employment to make ends meet.  The fact that this much-needed help has traditionally come largely from the government is the reason Charles Blow argues in a recent New York Times column that things will get much worse for low-income people if a republican is elected in 2012.  Armed with anti-government rhetoric, this person would likely make substantial cuts to these relief programs, thereby adding to the burgeoning population of impoverished Americans.  Although federal spending must be reigned in, applying the scalpel to the safety net would be a grave mistake.

But there is still quite a bit of substance in conservatives’ thinking.  They see less government not as an end in itself but as a way to promote more efficient problem solving by the private sector.  Those who give to charity are, as George H.W. Bush famously echoed during his presidency, a “thousand points of light” that brightly radiate ways that private individuals go to great lengths to fix problems.  However, there is simply no way charity can replace, dollar for dollar, the massive amounts of much-needed relief provided by the government.  Still, giving is a terrific way to support long-term efforts to expand opportunity.  Here is where the philanthropists we often hear about – the ones who contribute millions of dollars to mitigate problems like disease or unemployment – serve as exemplars for us all to emulate.  Indeed, the rest of this blog chronicles some of the many successes that can be achieved when people invest in opportunity.

Those suffering from the economic downturn, therefore, need help that reflects some of the best thinking on both the Left and the Right – a blend of government-supported relief and privately funded opportunity creation.

With the nation mired in high unemployment and amidst the ongoing foreclosure crisis, there is escalating daily need all across the U.S. – for food, shelter, clothing, and fuel assistance.  Yet, how best to respond to this need is no simple matter.  A fascinating article in today’s New York Times identifies a conundrum: although charitable giving in 2010 rose slightly over 2009, donations to nonprofits that address basic needs fell 6.6 percent.

We would be mistaken to see these numbers as a sign that we have turned a cold shoulder at a time when growing numbers of people could use our help.  The Times article subsequently featured donors who have deliberately decided not to provide stopgap relief because they want instead to fund lasting change.

Shelters and soup kitchens do, of course, need our support more than ever during this time of rising need.  But, we must also not lose sight of the importance of thinking long-term and seeing charity as a way of investing in opportunity.  Let’s not forget our ultimate goal here; it’s not to give fish but to teach more people how to fish.

As if there were lingering doubts that Occupy Wall Street’s populism had firm grounding,  last week’s report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office settles the score.  Here’s one tidbit: For the top 1 percent of income earners, their after-tax, inflation-adjusted incomes increased 275-fold from 1979-2007; by comparison, incomes rose just 18 percent for the poorest fifth of the population.

So now what?  What can we do to address this rising inequality?  While Occupy Wall Street is deservedly drawing lots of attention, it’s not clear what specific changes it advocates, if any.  And it’s even less certain whether or how its efforts will impact the 2012 presidential election, providing no mandate for candidates to advocate on behalf of the interests of the “99 percent.”

Even under the best of circumstances an election year isn’t a ripe time for major policy change.  And these are hardly the best of circumstances.  Budgetary constraints and political gridlock ensure that for the foreseeable future we won’t see much discussion about how to redress economic inequality.  Moreover, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, also released last week, reveals declining public faith in the government’s capacity to solve problems; indeed, distrust has reached unprecedented proportions.  So not only is the timing for federal reform terrible, but that’s not something many of us seem to want.

The answer, instead, lies within.  What we need to be doing – and what public support for Occupy Wall Street suggests – is tackling this problem the old-fashioned way: through private initiative.  Fortunately, there is a rich infrastructure of nonprofit organizations that are successfully doing just that.  They just need our investment.  Some of the work that is making a significant impact includes:

• Permanent housing for the chronically homeless
• Job and life skills for kids in the foster-care system
• Restaurant apprenticeships for low-income youth

Check back here for more discussion of the exciting work nonprofits are doing all around the country to redress economic inequality.

Mid-September not only means fall is in the air but also the annual rediscovery of poverty in America.  The 2011 Census Bureau figures released yesterday paint a bleak picture.  There are now more poor people in this country than at any time during the 52 years this information has been tracked, and the poverty rate – at 15.1 percent – matches the highest it has been since before the war on poverty during the 1960s.

This rediscovery of poverty usually doesn’t last and is long gone by October.  The poor may reenter our consciousness toward the end of the year, as their struggles become a source of compassion for those inspired by the giving season.  Then, by mid-January the poor are largely forgotten again.

If knowledge is power, then we will see the latest Census Bureau numbers as cause for taking action – not just today because the poor occupy the headlines, but throughout the year.  We need to place greater priority on mitigating the poverty in our midst, despite the fact that most of the year we are led to believe this problem doesn’t exist.  Just because the poor are typically absent from the news and from political speeches doesn’t mean we should diminish the importance of helping them.

And there is much we can do to effect change.  Lots of nonprofits across the country are successfully creating opportunity for low-income Americans.  They just need your support – whether that means giving money or volunteering your time.  These are the sorts of organizations featured on this blog, so please return to learn more about them and how you can help.