Personal Solutions: Personal Action, Collective Impact

This chapter of The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back From the Brink, describes the efforts undertaken by the Aspen Institute to help low-income women attain self-sufficiency. Ascend, a program of the Aspen Institute, commissioned a series of conversations with women and girls across the country to find out what information and resources they felt they were missing. Based on these conversations, Ascend came up with three ideas to put women on the path to self-sufficiency: two-generation strategies, the economic potential of social capital, and 21st-century Life Education. The report includes several examples of social capital initiatives across the country from Family Independence Initiative, the Crittenton Women’s Union, and the University of South Florida.