Clearing Obstacles to Work: A Wise Giver's Guide to Fostering Self-Reliance

Cracks are becoming visible in American work habits. Whole subpopulations now have weak attachments to self-supporting labor. This worsens poverty and economic mobility. It also damages well-being in subtler ways because work plays a vital role in building social connections, and boosting self-respect and happiness. Any sensible effort to improve American prosperity today must begin by bolstering work.

Alas, government agencies have a very checkered history when it comes to helping those who have struggled in the workforce develop the capacities to do better in the future. Statistically, most government job-training programs are quite unimpressive.

There are, however, many charitable programs that have demonstrated real success at leading unskilled persons, single mothers, inexperienced minorities, released prisoners, former addicts, and other at-risk populations into lasting, transformative employment.

This book was written to help donors find those successful models and strategies. Because when it comes to curing deprivation, softening inequality, improving life satisfaction, and strengthening society, work works.

Journalist David Bass previously served as a grants officer and communications director at the John William Pope Foundation in North Carolina, where he focused on nonprofits involved in workforce development. Prior to that he was an editor and reporter with the John Locke Foundation, where he covered state General Assembly sessions and other issues. He has a journalism degree from Thomas Edison State College, and lives in North Carolina with his wife.