Darryl Penrice is the Executive Director of Poverty’s Demise.  We caught up with him to talk about the ways he’s trying to eradicate poverty…

In your own words, what is the idea behind Poverty’s Demise?

Back in late 2006, because of identity theft and social ignorance, I could not find employment. I was living in Ann Arbor, MI, surrounded by wealth, I had a BA in Chinese and Minor in Computer Science from the University of Michigan, and years of international business experience, but no one would hire me because of a faulty background check. I sought assistance from the government, but only to learn that I was not qualified for one reason or another. At one point, I snapped. But when I snapped, I realized that I am not the only person in the US caught in this situation. There are millions of people out there just like me; even worse, millions of children.

Despite being the wealthiest country in the world, the US is ranked dead last by UNICEF for child welfare and poverty as of 2007. The essential core of this is because our country lacks any efficient social welfare system. Despite the fact that the natural rate of unemployment is taught in every economics class in the world, our social welfare system does not account for the structurally unemployed. It assumes there are always jobs available which is in direct contrast to the very concept of the Natural Rate of Unemployment (NRU). The NRU says up to 15% of the population must be unemployed, thus there is a need for a social welfare system to support that 15%. Looking at our national budget, it is obvious that we do not spend enough money to support 15 % of the population; hence the reason violent crime is at a five-year high, there are homeless people all over our streets, and the exploitation of women in the porn industry is booming. All are indicators that poverty is spreading. This is where Poverty’s Demise .Org (PDO) comes in. PDO targets the children of the hardcore poor who are counted as not existing by the US government unemployment statistics.

What has been your biggest success with the site so far?

PDO is still in its incubation phase. The live website is still a prototype without a functional backend database. In terms of my successes so far, I have managed to secure a fair amount of letters of interest and endorsements from several organizations and companies - including Craigslist Foundation, Riverside Church of New York, and others. I have also appeared on two different television shows (Bronxnet). I have done interviews with the New York Times and Black Enterprise Magazine about the website; however, I am still waiting for them to run the articles.

Where do you see it evolving in the future?

PDO, though it is still a prototype, is based solely on existing technology that every country in the world already has. As the system becomes more well-known, we will see millions of people rising out of poverty at a pace faster than most people would expect. This creates a paradox of consumption versus natural resources. In PDO’s evolution, I have planned to give some pretty unique answers to solve this seemingly unsolvable paradox. In the open source’s initiative section of the website, you will see that the current public functionality of PDO is only 40% of Stage One planning. There is another 60% that is not yet public knowledge. In addition, I have three further stages of development: education, homelessness, and environmental initiatives. All stages were designed to work together to achieve a pretty cool goal.

Tell us about your mission, what motivates you, and what are you trying to accomplish?

PDO’s mission is simple: feed, clothe, and house everyone. The motivation is straight forward. I’ve personally spent bouts in poverty, I have family living in poverty, and nothing motivates a person more than the people closest to you. As for what I am trying to accomplish, while it may seem to be a gigantic task to end poverty, I have a website that does exactly that. From the donor point-of-view, I am trying remove guilt from the concept of charity. We all know that poverty is wrong. That is why I created the donor portal to be hip, cool and attractive. As from the recipient portal, poor people should not have to run around to five or six different social welfare offices looking for benefits. PDO allows them to access everything from one website, enabling them to spend time with their children and look for work. Simple goals, simple plans.