Self-help gurus and billionaires and other blowhards think people are poor because they have a poverty mentality.
Tag: poverty
Using AI to Map Better Distribution of Social Goods
The effectiveness of social goods often comes down to distribution. Can you put social goods in the hand of the people who need and want them? This is a huge challenge in the informal settlements in the world’s urban areas. A team of university researchers, government agencies, and software companies are showing how AI improves...Continue reading
If Giving Money Directly To Poor People Works Best, Then What Are Non-Profits to Do?
People in poverty lack money. It seems obvious that the best way to end their poverty is to give them money. Increasingly, studies support this obvious approach to reducing poverty. Yet the vast majority of poverty-reduction organizations and agencies offer goods and services, not cash. What is the impact on nonprofits of giving cash to...Continue reading
Marketing Against Hunger and Poverty – Update
The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals were such a success, the world decided that we should do them again. Like the previous goals the new ones, called the Sustainable Development Goals, have a 15 year time line. By 2030, the aim is no poverty, zero hunger, and gender equality, among other goals.
The Power of Promotion: Poverty Simulations
Earlier this year, actress Gwyneth Paltrow tried living on food assistance for a week. She could some flack for her experiment, including in this Washington Post blog. It’s easy to chide the famous and wealthy for something like this. After all, Paltrow also caught flack for offering $90 basic white t-shirts on her lifestyle web...Continue reading
Fairness, empathy, poverty, and politics
According to a recent article in The Atlantic, for the first time in history a majority of U.S. members of Congress are millionaires. In addition, “only 13 out of 783 members of Congress from 1999 to 2008 came from a ‘blue-collar’ upbringing. None of them have experienced that poverty in decades; those who did did...
Fairness and poverty: having enough of the right stuff
A recent New York Times article asked a hard question on the topic of economic fairness: do people in poverty today have enough of the right stuff?
Distribution as a product to combat poverty: JITA
Distribution is most often considered something that a business does with its product. But distribution itself can be the product, as well. In remote, impoverished areas, distribution can also be a solution to poverty, illness, and other problems.
Missteps in marketing to the poor: assuming the poverty premium
Economists and non-profits have posited, and sometimes documented, that those living in poverty may pay higher prices than others for the same goods or services, including public services like power and water. For example, a 2007 report from Save the Children documented how poor families paid more for common items like appliances or electricity. This...Continue reading
Marketing Against Hunger and Poverty: UN Millenium Development Goals
In June 2013, the United Nations announced the 38 countries had already reached their 2015 Millennium Development goal of reducing hunger in their nation by 50 percent. I let out a whoop when I saw this news. This is great progress for millions of people around the world. I think the Millennium Development project gets...