Giving Compass' Take:
•  Martin Levine highlights the economic trends that push people to move from urban cities to the suburbs. He points out the challenges that nonprofits and philanthropists face trying to reach a new population of impoverished people.

• What are some potential solutions for expanding social impact to reach suburban homes? How can more city-based philanthropists replicate their practices to fit these communities? 

• Poverty rates in the suburbs have increased in the last decade. Take a look at how it affects school districts in those areas. 

Aaron Wiener, a senior editor at Mother Jones, shared a startling picture of how the geography of American poverty has changed in a recent Washington Post op-ed. But Wiener’s article is a good reminder to nonprofits that as more low-income people are forced by changing economic trends to move from the cities to the suburbs, social service and advocacy infrastructure need to follow; this, alas, has yet to happen.

This growth mirrors patterns in urban poverty in one important feature: The suburban poor, like their urban peers, are now more likely to live in concentrated communities than be scattered across wide areas. This make the challenge of responding both easier and harder—easier in the sense that it allows neighborhood targeting, but harder in the sense that suburban communities are often poorly equipped to target neighborhoods effectively.

As a whole, many suburban communities face the challenge of meeting the needs of a large, growing, and diverse poor population without a sufficient public or nonprofit infrastructure.

The nonprofit infrastructure has not kept pace. As they try to grow to meet demand, they face some unique challenges: Their large service areas are broad and they need to develop systems that work with multiple villages, towns, and cities whose own capacities and sophistication may be limited.

Of course, while we all know suburban poverty is on the rise, knowledge isn’t always met with action. Clearly, further adjustment in response by government, philanthropic, and nonprofit partners is needed.

Read the full article about the geography of poverty by Martin Levine at Nonprofit Quarterly.