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Increasing problems faced by working poor and impoverished communities necessitate massive efforts by charities and social service agencies in our nearby communities and abroad.
Meanwhile, the extraordinary success of individuals and companies, unprecedented in world history, has spurred aggressive market trends and liberal trade policies, which have widened the disparity of rich and poor.
The world is witnessing the dramatic simultaneous rise of wealth and poverty, leaving people sharply divided between market optimism and social crises.
People are divided over the ability of companies to deliver on promises of broad opportunity for prosperity and the social responsibility of governments and benevolent organizations within communities that are failing to meet needs. Many seem to be convinced that there is no balance, but rather one solution or the other.
The quality of life in all communities, even the most affluent, hangs in the balance.
The nation faces serious problems. The average debt of individual citizens is growing. Mounting government debt may prevent adequate response to growing crises of the present and even more so in the future. These issues threaten businesses, many of which appear to have proven stability, and force them to look to international communities to accumulate the wealth they desire.
Foreign investment, with its ability to generate large profits for US and other multinational companies, is not well received as the loss of capital through profit taking in developing nations leaves behind many social problems and even increased poverty. Infrastructural development enables successful businesses and outside investors greater access to the markets of foreign nations, bringing instability and strained international relations.
Highly efficient businesses are able to accumulate wealth with fewer people involved in the process than even before. There are cases where individuals are wealthier than nations, and the economies of many businesses are larger than most states in the US.
Issues such as health and security cross social lines, while issues of poverty and access to education are at the root of nearly all serious social problems.
The poor have little opportunity to consider or influence the problems they face.
As the widening gap is taking its toll on the middle class, average Americans struggle to get ahead as others fall behind in health, security, education and many other negative social impacts. They are not likely to extend much thought to social conditions and solutions for their nearby and surrounding communities, much less distant world economies, beyond their personal concerns for their own social standing and security.
Innovative organizations must bridge the divide and introduce solutions to the issues they identify as the greatest needs in the communities and regions they serve.
Social innovation means different things to different people, depending on which side of the divide they most closely identify. Foundations, often established by wealthy benefactors, are usually dependent on profits in the market to sustain their charitable giving, while also seeking to increase the benefit of their giving to address issues in communities that are falling behind.
This means the foundations are seeking demonstrative results from organizations through their problem-solving efforts. And to some foundations and academic processes that are influencing them (who often use the term social entrepreneurship), organizations should use market strategies to gain their resources to benefit disadvantaged communities. In other words, they should earn their charitable money by thinking and operating like a business. However, working this way may do more harm than good if it is simply a call to employ models of business that have made some successful while costing many in communities the opportunities they need to thrive.
Most service and relief organizations are operating in a crisis mode and have little luxury to consider the processes that leave vast numbers of people in need. As long as deplorable conditions persist in our local communities and around the world, there will be a need for the urgent actions and ongoing fundraising efforts of social service organizations. As long as wealth is concentrated in the hands of limited populations, there will be a debate about how to use resources to alleviate the problems that persist in disadvantaged communities.
It isn't the way social service organizations operate that must be addressed; it is the gap itself, including the processes that widen the gap. The economic and social divide is more than just rhetoric for idealistic debate. It is a condition that can be blamed on fanaticism for each side of the divide. Particularly the successes of limited numbers of businesses that provide goods and services, as well as information, while they are the beacon of hope for those who may join the narrow ranks of owners of the most successful companies or the upper echelon of the professional world, are also the reasons for loss of broad opportunity that all communities need to succeed.
It is the limited distribution of wealth and of ideas that organizations must urgently address in order to achieve a balance that can provide for human resourcefulness, productivity and creativity, while at the same time making a world that offers opportunity for broad populations and enables communities to help those who are left on the negative side of the balance.
As it develops important initiatives to empower communities and provide greater access for community voices, Houston Institute for Culture is focusing its core missions on these needs and will soon release models for the proactive steps it plans to take in the near future.
Please see our current initiatives.
Houston Institute for Culture is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting cultural education and awareness through cultural activities. Our goal is to provide free and low-cost events, services and classes for the community. The organization's sphere of interest is Houston, the regions that have affected Houston's cultural history and the international origins of Houston's diverse population.
HOUSTON INSTITUTE FOR CULTURE SEARCH info@houstonculture.org