“Charity is ensuring someone has a meal tonight or roof over their head … things I suspect we agree are good things to do,” says Richard C. Harwood, founder and president of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. The problem comes when we believe that charity is a substitute for change — in fact, that it IS change.
Today, we have countless ways to show our compassion and extend charity in response to people’s immediate needs, but to create change, Harwood says, “we must get at fundamental structures, policies, laws, norms, relationships.” Read his State of the Reunion guest blog at http://stateofthereunion.com/when-charity-counts-but-change-is-called-for