Productivity Reimagined

10An Entrepreneurial Approach to Breaking the Poverty Cycle

Poverty is a complex and persistent problem calling for a range of solutions, including food relief, education, healthcare, technology support, and measures to improve local economies. What’s not widely discussed, however, is that, contrary to the top-down knowledge myth, people in poor communities often have the best understanding of the barriers that they face. Therefore, if given the chance, they can become effective change leaders in bringing themselves and their peers out of poverty. We’ll look at that approach in this chapter.

A PHONE CALL THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

On a Sunday evening in 2001, Mauricio Miller was interrupted during dinner by a phone call. At the other end of the line was Jerry Brown, mayor of Oakland, California, who was also a former governor of the state and was to return to that office in 2011.

Brown was clearly irritated. In front of him was a federal grant proposal from the Oakland Private Industry Council (OPIC) to create youth programs in the city. Now, most mayors would have been thrilled with the prospect of millions in federal funding coming into a city’s poorest communities, but Brown didn’t see it that way.

As an OPIC board member, Miller was aware of the proposal, but didn’t know the details. Brown sent an assistant to Miller’s house with a copy of the proposal and told him to call him back when he’d received it.

Reviewing the proposal, Miller could see that the program would be ...