Why Don’t They Just Get a Job?: One Couple’s Mission to End Poverty in Their Community

Liane Phillips and Echo Montgomery Garrett
aha! Process, Inc. (2010)
ISBN 9781934583371
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (03/10) 

 

Dreams are wonderful. Ideas are great. Ideals are fantastic. But what really, truly counts in the end are the results. Most of us have dreams, ideas and ideals, but only a few actually achieve real, measurable results. That’s why “Why Don’t They Just Get a Job?” really matters. Liane and Dave Phillips not only had the dreams and the desire to help, they actually managed to create an outstanding and award-winning program enabling people living in poverty to get, and even more importantly, keep a job.

What makes this powerful book particularly wonderful is not only the story told in it, but the manner in which it is told. There is no condescension, no preaching and no needless moralizing. There is no assigning blame and no whitewashing. Bad things do happen to good and even to great people. Good intentions don’t always work out as desired. But the path and the method are there, and they are clear, unambiguous, repeatable and definitely doable.

Liane Phillips wrote a book that should find a permanent spot in the office of any thinker, dreamer and doer. Her description of the path Cincinnati Works took from the initial idea through all the diligent research and later implementation of things learned is an invaluable resource for anybody wanting to run a successful organization, particularly a non-profit one. She describes the challenges and the triumphs, the puzzles and the solutions to them, the barriers and the victories in overcoming them. Practical advice is deftly mixed with human interest stories, and all of it is supported by facts. Let’s look just at one of them: the program has an 80+ % job retention rate, whereas comparable government funded programs only have a 20 to 25% job retention rate. What that means in practical terms is that thousands of people who completed the program’s requirements found and kept a job. Think of the changes in the quality of life for those people. Think of the amounts of money saved in public assistance and welfare programs. More importantly, think about the difference for the future generations – with the infernal poverty circle broken, the children of those program graduates not only directly benefit from their parents’ better financial situation, but they learn by example and they are empowered at an early age to seek and achieve good things in life.

Whether you will read “Why Don’t They Just Get a Job?” for its uplifting story or as a guidebook to do something similar yourself, I can assure you that this is one true story you will not want to miss. And maybe we can suggest it as required reading for our elected officials as well? After all, Liana and Dave Phillips have a winning, proven system. Why reinvent the wheel?
 

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