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Dear Friend,
Thanksgiving is a day to be grateful, and I have much to be grateful for in my life and work. But there are many others even in our wealthy nation today who are suffering - including children like 10-year old Sammy M. who has no home other than the car where he and his mother and 7-year old little sister Alice shiver from cold as winter approaches. Sam's and Alice's mother has been trying to find a job, but having primarily devoted herself to caring for her children, her chances of moving her son and daughter out of homelessness and poverty are slim.
Here are the shocking facts: our wealthy nation has the highest child poverty rates, as well as the highest infant mortality, maternal mortality, and incarceration rates, of all industrialized nations. A major reason for these brutal realities is that U.S. policies have failed to support caring and caregiving. And now, to justify even more budget slashes in healthcare, education, and other primary services, we're told that not  seeing to it that children such as Sammy and Alice have the good nutrition, adequate shelter, and sound education needed to grow up healthy and prepared to contribute to our economy and society is necessary for our nation's economic health. In reality, it is precisely because of our failure to invest in caring for people, starting in early childhood, that the United States has steadily been falling behind in the most critical factor for economic success in the knowledge/service postindustrial economy: human capacity development. This is why Kim Otis, I, and others on our CPS team are working so hard on our Caring Economics Campaign.
To support this work to fundamentally change economic thinking and policy, CPS has again received a $50,000 matching grant from the NoVo Foundation. I'm writing so we can take advantage of this generous grant that doubles every donation. Please become a partner with me in our groundbreaking initiatives to fundamentally change economics and politics and donate now.
- Our proposed Social Wealth indicators will fill a major gap in how economic success and human well-being are measured by focusing on women, children, and human capacity development.
- Our Alliance for a Caring Economy (ACE) is about to launch its own website, with members including organizations representing women, children, caregivers, teachers, socially responsible businesses, environmental and progressive faith-based activists, and others to support changes in measurements that are critical for changing thinking and policies.
- CPS is also mobilizing the movement to change economic thinking and policies on the grassroots level through our online Leadership Training Webinar Programs where women and men from all over the world are acquiring the knowledge and skills to change how we think about, and structure, economic systems.
 Please help me bring these initiatives to fruition and invest in them now - when donations will be doubled by the challenge grant from the NoVo Foundation. This is an investment that will yield enormous returns for us all.
As documented in The State of Society: Measuring Economic Success and Human Well-Being, the 2010 report of the Urban Institute commissioned by CPS, even most new indicators proposed as GDP alternatives to guide policy still marginalize women, children, and the enormous value of the work of caring for nature and people. The policy train is again about to leave the station without giving value to care work or representing the majority: women and children. We can't let this happen!
We have a window of opportunity: the old economic approaches are not working, and we urgently need new solutions. CPS's unique initiatives are vital for women and families - and foundational to building an economic system that gives visibility and value to the work of caring for people and for nature.
Each person taking our CPS online Leadership Training Webinar Program - including the low income people your donation supports - reaches hundreds of others. Your donation will help ensure that Social Wealth indicators are fully developed, demonstrating the urgent need for investing in women, children, and our future, and that ACE becomes a powerful grassroots coalition. Your investment helps us pave the way for an economics that no longer deprives children like Sammy, Alice, and millions of others of the basic necessities of life and, instead, offers them grounded hope for their future -- as well as for our nation and our world.
Please help prioritize what really matters. Please donate now and your donation will be doubled.
I thank you for your investment in our future, and wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Riane Eisler
President
Center for Partnership Studies
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