This is about a NFP child care center serving low income people in my home town. Because foundations are tightening their belts, the center is facing the choice to either close, raise its fees, or deal with the bureaucratic hassle of accepting federal/state funding.

Child care is a damn important service for working families; that a foundation cut its funding to it so it could serve even more basic needs speaks volumes about the volunteer sector's capacity to deal with the problems of poverty US society is going to deal with.

We can't just cut back on government services expecting charities and foundations to pick up the slack.

Maybe the Pentagon will let go of a little of its budget billions to help out our kids. Don't count on it. You might ask your "foundations where they get their figures and what stocks they invest in.

Sometimes people think churches should be the only ones to provide for the poor.

I read that if churches were to try to fund just Medicaid, every church in America would have to add another half million dollars to its budget. And more than 95% of the churches in the USA are comprised of fewer than 100 people.

No, charity will never even come close.