According to the 2000 Census data released this year (and analyzed by DC Agenda, a group that studies social policy in the District) the ‘90s were a decade of revitalization in some areas – and growing poverty in others. The US government considers a family (one parent and one dependent child) to be poor if it has an income of $11,483 or less. Little enough as this is, in ten of the district’s 39 neighborhood clusters, thirty percent of residents have less: they live at half the poverty level – $5741. Poverty is worst among children and the elderly, our most vulnerable citizens. And as experts are quick to point out, poverty grew in good times. Philanthropy, of course, cannot replace the federal government: the Health and Human Services budget in 2000, the year of the Census, was nearly twice what donors contributed to all fields of philanthropy in a very good year. Recent tax cuts, the threatened slashing of the AmeriCorps budget (which provides crucial volunteers to already-stressed organizations), and cuts in social services – combined with plunging donations to the United Way – only increase the demand on philanthropy, making it ever more critical that we step up to the plate. Those with the most are needed even more by those with the least…for our common good.