In the old days, our governments provided cash assistance to the poor. Today, our governments increasingly contract with nongovernmental organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit, to deliver a wide range of services to the poor so that they may become less so. Will these new public-private partnerships solve our nation's welfare poverty problems? It is far too early to tell. However, now is the time to begin assessing these partnerships, and find out how they are arranged, what their goals are, what they do, and how they will be evaluated. This is an initial step toward this assessment.
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