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The Koch brothers have a new target: poverty. Their group, Stand Together, has actually been around for a year and a half or so, but is planning to invest $21M in Dallas to help fight poverty. The guy who’s going to be working with the Kochs is NFL Hall-of-Famer Deion Sanders.
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Via The Dallas Morning News:
“I feel like after so many years of doing this alone, I’m part of a wonderful winning team with the infrastructure and resources to take it to the next level,” Sanders said.
Sanders said he had no concerns about teaming up with anyone from the Koch family, which is known for its sometimes-divisive influence on American politics.
“I saw firsthand how wonderful and gracious and giving and kind the Koch family was in regards to really trying to make this country a better place for everyone,” he said.
Here’s what USA Today reported last year:
The organization, known as Stand Together, is still in its start-up phase but aims to raise $15 million this year, top officials told USA TODAY in the first interview about the new organization. Organizers described Stand Together as engaging in “venture philanthropy” aimed at “strengthening the fabric of American society.”
“The sole purpose of Stand Together is to make a real difference in real people’s lives by actually solving the problems they have,” the group’s executive director, Evan Feinberg, said.
He said the group won’t veer into policy fights but instead initially plans to focus on partnerships with private groups addressing social problems, such as gang violence and high recidivism rates.
The cynics will probably sit there and say the Kochs are only doing Stand Together to make their image look better. But if you look at the history of libertarianism, you’ll see it really has been about fighting poverty without the government’s involvement. The Future of Freedom Foundation opined in 2014 the government war on poverty has failed, and believes the best way to fight it is through free markets.