Keith Goetzman of the Utne Reader writes:

As the recession rolls on, the people who run the nation’s social service nonprofits expect people’s needs for food, shelter, and other types of assistance to rise dramatically, just as donations from businesses and individuals are falling: In December, a survey of nonprofit professionals reported the gloomiest fund-raising outlook in a decade. At the same time, cash-strapped government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels are further cutting back on social spending and allocating less money to nonprofits that citizens have come to depend on for a wide variety of services. Making matters worse, a number of these same nonprofits—as well as an array of municipalities, school boards, and public works agencies—got caught off guard by poorly structured investment portfolios and scandals, like the Bernard Madoff affair, and have seen their risky Wall Street investments all but vanish.

To consider how we might remedy this state of affairs, it’s worth asking how we got here. In a way, it’s quite simple: We’ve outsourced compassion. Over the past few decades, the United States has deliberately and steadily shifted the burden of meeting social needs from the government onto a loosely organized, haphazardly regulated patchwork of nonprofits. Many groups have overlapping or competing missions, many are closely aligned with business interests through their funding or their boards, and many rely heavily on foundation funding, which ties them even more closely to Wall Street’s fortunes.

Is this really the best way to do things? Several critics have recently been asking this and other hard questions about what some have dubbed “the nonprofit industrial complex”—the $300 billion-a-year sector of the economy that encompasses everything from art museums to private colleges to local food shelves. Reform-minded critics come from both right and left, with proposed remedies that range from mildly corrective steps to a fundamental makeover of the system.

Read the article to see some of the alternatives being discussed.

From the Episcopal Church's Office of Public Affairs:

A groundbreaking report, Faith in the Balance: A Call to Action, which calls on The Episcopal Church to address the issues and concerns of the poor in this country, was released today.

The report, based on the outcomes of 2008 Presiding Bishop’s Summit on Domestic Poverty, presents a Model for Domestic Poverty Alleviation, with an initial endeavor in Native American communities. This innovative Model works in tandem with the Episcopal Church’s global poverty initiatives of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Click Read more to see the full release.

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Small farmers from poor countries are helping larger rich countries cope with the financial crisis.

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Marc Fisher's moving column in today's Washington Post tells the story of two homeless people who will be married on Saturday at Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown. You owe it to yourself to read it all, but here are a few paragraphs:

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Agence France Presse attended the nuptials of the homeless couple married last weekend at Grace Episcopal Church in Georgetown:

The groom wore a black tuxedo, a damask-rose pink waistcoat and tie, and an ear-to-ear smile.

He picked out his wedding outfit at a mall in Virginia -- his first time ever in one of the sprawling shopping centers that are monuments to consumerism in the suburban landscape across the United States.

During his 14 years living homeless on the streets of Washington, Dante White, 28, never realized that so much opulence existed. Nor had he had much luck in love in his life, having been thrown out of his mother's home when he was just 14.

Last week, White married Nhiahni Chestnut, 39, a woman whose battles with drugs and alcohol had left her on the streets of the US capital as well. Both are unemployed.

"I was basically living from day to day, trying to survive, and I wound up meeting him," Chestnut told AFP at the couple's wedding, held in the tiny chapel of Grace Episcopal Church in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood.

The Cafe's previous coverage is here.

In case you need to know, it costs more to be poor than to be rich:

Poverty 101: We'll start with the basics.

Like food: You don't have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe's, where the middle class goes to save money. You don't have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar. ...

NPR's All Things Considered broadcasts the story of how a homeless advocate, who is himself homeless, uses high tech to tell the story of what it is like on the streets and how people can help:

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Kate Santich in the Orlando Sentinel:

Twelve-year-old Trinity Fore was roused too early from sleep by the clanging of a ladle on a pot. She choked down a stale doughnut and water for breakfast and had 30 seconds to grab something to wear from a pile of hand-me-downs. Then, before she had a chance to wash her face or brush her teeth, she was hustled out into the dawn along the streets of Parramore, a homeless man as her guide.

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Episcopal Relief and Development reports on a comprehensive, integrated approach to ending poverty:

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Bishops Working for a Just World to lobby for health-care reform

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About Fighting Poverty with Faith

As communities of faith, we are grounded in a shared tradition of justice and compassion, and we are called upon to hold ourselves and our communities accountable to the moral standard of this tradition.

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The blog, NextBillion, brings us two red hot ideas NGOs can use:

1. Match Point

Question: Which manufactured consumer product has the deepest market penetration in rural India?

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From The New York Times, which visited the church of occasional Cafe contributor the Rev. Bonnie Perry:

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Harry C. Arthur, a lawyer in downtown Houston whose office is near Christ Church Cathedral, is suing in pursuit of shutting down The Beacon, the cathedral's well-used program for area homeless.

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Typically at this time of year there are many stories about how churches are responding to hunger in their communities. St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Natik is doing heroic work in their community. But the need has grown so great that their food pantry has outgrown their parish building. Luckily the community around them came to the rescue:

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From the Poverty Action Lab at MIT:

By distinguishing programs that work from those that don’t, and sorting highly effective programs from those that work but come with a higher price tag, randomized evaluations help answer tough questions on comparative cost effectiveness and are central to generating rigorous evidence for development effectiveness.

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It's a question driven out of the capacity for empathy, not the self-centeredness of youth: Why was I born where I was born? What fate intervened?

The Rev. Roger Bowen has seen the question arise on his several decades of taking young Americans to Haiti first as a chaplain and headmaster of Episcopal schools and now in retirement in Staunton, Virginia:

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As we pray and work to help the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti many of us are also planning to remember and honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many communities will embark on days of service and many people will attend events to remember and honor Dr. King, but also to be inspired to live and work in ways consistent with his call to action. Over at "Textweek.com" there are many resources for MLK, Jr. day.

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Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times writer, asks What Could You Live Without? after reading about a family who sold their house, bought a smaller one and gave the difference to charity:

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In Newark, NJ, a conference will be held for those working to eradicate domestic poverty and will examine how the church might work more effectively to reach this goal:

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Holly Heine and the folks at Jericho Road, a neighborhood-based nonprofit homebuilder that provides families with healthy and energy-efficient affordable housing opportunities in Central City, New Orleans needs our help. Just by voting in an online initiative sponsored by Edy's Fruit Bars, we can help them win a free fruit orchard for their neighborhood.

Here is what you need to do--every day:

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Vicki Black featured this quotation from the late William Stringfellow on the Speaking to the Soul blog yesterday. But it is a question that can't be examined too often. Are some people poor because others are rich? And if so, what should Christians do abut that?

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The headline above isn't intended as a joke. Given yesterday's readings, is it possible that the Church is failing in its responsibility to warn rich people--which, in the global calculus would mean most Americans--of the grave danger that their standard of living poses to their souls?

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Colin Johnson, Archbishop of the Diocese of Toronto decided to try living on the sorts of food found in the typical Toronto food bank both as a spiritual exercise and as a way of understanding better what it was like to live off the sorts of resources available to a family who have no where else to turn.

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Martin Luther King gave his last Sunday sermon at Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968. Some of that sermon is reproduced below, but we urge you to read it all. Read it all and ask yourself how a man who says the kinds of things that Dr. King said would fare in the era of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

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Albert Raboteau reminds us:

Martin Luther King Day memorials tend to celebrate King the Civil Rights leader, stressing his activism on behalf of interracial equality and reconciliation. We slight his emphasis on the link between racism and poverty and so neglect King the advocate of the poor.

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Two college juniors are taking action for the Millennium Development Goals:

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Charles Honey of the Grand Rapids Press considers the age-old question of whether the church should take part in political debates, and concludes that it should:

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Whenever Congress and the White House cut support for poverty programs, ideologues on the right assert that churches can and should fill the void--that faith-based, private charity is morally superior to government assistance, not to mention more effective. Expect to hear that argument advanced by proponents of the mean-spirited, budget deal that Republicans and Democrats struck this weekend to avert a government shutdown.

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If you have been following the political debate in Washington and Iowa, you might already have arrived at the same conclusion as a study featured in The New York Times.

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The official child poverty rate grew by 18 percent and poverty levels for families with children increased in 38 states, according to a new study.

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Riazat Butt, religion reporter for the Guardian, is traveling in Afghanistan with British army chaplains. One chaplain said to her:

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Jesus instructed his disciples to give to those who asked of them. Does that extend to panhandlers? Churches in Sacramento find themselves mulling this issue.

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Hunger is visible if you have the eyes to see.

While reflecting on the millions spent to make the El look better in Chicago while the infrastructure is falling apart, Chicago columnist James Warren sees another kind of infrastructure that is both neglected and falling apart: our people.

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In The Baltimore Sun, Jean Marbella writes about The Ark, a program of Episcopal Community Services of Maryland.

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Bishop Mark Beckwith of Newark attended the recent consultation in Durban, South Africa on issues of justice and sexuality. It inspired a reflection recently published on his blog that included this passage:

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Various reports from the past few days have pinpointed some congregations' involvement in the effort to help the homeless.

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From the folks at Need to Know at pbs.org:

More than 46 million Americans — one in seven of us — gets help from the federal government to feed ourselves and our families. If you’re surprised at how many Americans receive help in buying food, you may be even more surprised who they are. As it turns out, millions of Americans with jobs also need the help.

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From the Association for Episcopal Deacons comes a call for the church to spark a conversation in 2013 around issues of poverty.

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The Huffington Post is running a series spotlighting problems that are not being discussed by either political party this election season. As part of this project, Jim Wallis notes that we're looking at the highest rates of poverty this country has seen in 50 years:

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Leaders of "The Circle of Protection," a broad coalition of church groups concerned about poverty issues, asked Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to create videos explaining their plans to protect the most vulnerable in American society. The candidates' videos were presented yesterday at the National Press Club. Check out their responses here.

Christians err when they fall into the trap of believing that charity should be based on whether those in need deserve help or not, contends Rachel Johnson, writing at Patheos.com. This is important to consider as we debate public policy on poverty issues. In a piece titled "Jesus Doesn’t Care or Why Liberals Need Christ," she writes:

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Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Catholic social justice lobby NETWORK and leader of “Nuns on the Bus," tour has written an op-ed for the On Faith section of The Washington Post's website. She says:

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Yesterday, The Lead ran a video on wealth disparity in the U.S. It has gone viral. Susan Thistlewaith comments at Occupy the Bible:

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Today is Good Friday, when we remember what terrible injustice occurs when no one among us cries out to stop it. Yesterday in Dallas, a prominent business leader challenged a country club audience to take action to right entrenched injustice against the poor and oppressed. Rudolph Bush of the Dallas Morning News reports:

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The flights delays due to The Sequester were of a focus this week on social media, mainstream news, and in Washington where politicians rapidly responded to come up with a fix.

The rapid response has led to a steady drum beat making the point that when it wants to Washington can fix things, so why doesn't attend to more serious problems.

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