Dear Friend,

After having his students watch Poverty Inc., one college professor wrote to us: “Poverty Inc. is one of the most impactful, career-determining film products I’ve ever seen in a classroom setting. I am not exaggerating.”

In December 2014, the Acton Institute released Poverty, Inc., a documentary that exposed the serious problems with foreign aid's influence on impoverished people in the developing world.  

Seen by millions around the globe, Poverty, Inc. won over 60 international film festival honors, the Templeton Freedom Award, and the Best Documentary Award from the F.I.F.E.S. environmental film festival in Paris.
 
The film demonstrated a terrible fact: good intentions do not guarantee good results. Too often, the people benefiting from foreign aid are not the poor but kleptocratic governments and the industrial complex that has grown up around poverty alleviation. In short, because of the free-market’s counterfeit, crony capitalism.

Meanwhile, people in poverty remain excluded from participation in the marketplace and thus fail to create prosperity for themselves because they lack things we take for granted, the foundations of the free market: rule of law, clear property rights, and the ability to easily start a business.

Poverty Inc. has illuminated the minds and changed the hearts of millions of people—and changed the trajectory of countless institutions—around the world. It continues to do so ten years later. 

The Acton Institute is now turning our sights to poverty in America with a brand-new documentary. It is currently under production and directed by Michael Miller, producer of Poverty Inc. and an award-winning director. 

However, we need your help. The Acton team is currently traveling the country conducting interviews and capturing stories for this new documentary. Can you help us create this new film with us by donating TODAY? Any amount will go a long way: 
 

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Despite spending trillions of dollars on top-down, large-scale government programs to combat poverty since the Great Society legislation was passed in 1964, poverty in America has barely improved. 

A new approach to poverty in the U.S. is urgent. 

Instead of asking what causes poverty and throwing money at the problem, we should ask: (1) What causes wealth?  (2) What are the conditions for human flourishing from which prosperity can grow?  (3) How can we create and protect a space for people to live out their freedom and responsibilities?  Hint: the answers to these questions are  not more government programs and increased spending, that so often trap people in cycles of dependency.

Our approach to poverty is founded on truth about the human person, his dignity and potential, and the importance of intermediary institutions such as the family, churches, local nonprofits, and indeed the free market. We need to once again put the person at the center of our economic thinking and transform the way we look at wealth and poverty.

We provide a new framework for examining poverty and the primary obstacles to prosperity. And it begins with a correct vision of the human person: those in poverty are not objects of pity but agents capable of directing their own destinies. 

Our new film will demonstrate these themes and pave the way for a better approach to American poverty—solutions grounded in family, local institutions, and enterprise.

Today more than ever, America needs to hear this message. Will you help us make this film?

You too can help change lives by helping us complete this new documentary with a donation of any amount TODAY: 
 

<<$5>> 

<<$10>> 

<<$25>> 

<<$50>> 

<<$100>> 

I hope you join us in our mission to reframe the conversation about poverty, Friend. 

Truly yours, 

Kris Alan Mauren 

President 

Watch Poverty, Inc. HERE