Why do we need Circles?

According to a report from the Center for American Progress, our nation spends $500B a year on the fallout of children being raised in poverty. If we invest a portion of this fallout in the solutions that help people become economically stable, imagine how our communities would change. Our country should end its poverty because it can end poverty.

Move the Mountain is a private nonprofit established in 1992 to inspire and equip communities to end poverty. We apply long-lasting solutions, not band-aids. Our job is to identify the high-impact strategies that work and transfer them to new communities. We have also developed our own holistic approach to helping families out of poverty known as Circles™.

A United Way (Lane County, Oregon) study on innovative models declared Circles as “…theoretically sound, creative, flexible and strongly endorsed by its practitioners… and is the strongest, most comprehensive model we have found...”

People who are in poverty must tell their story to the community and help to provide reality-based solutions.

Circles helps people find their public speaking voice:

“A barely literate man came with his wife to support her as a Circle Leader. He was scared and uncomfortable at first. As he attended more meetings he became more confident. After going through the program he got up in front of 70 people and spoke articulately about his situation.”
Todd Lare, Bloomington, Indiana

Once we focus our community resources on tackling all the problems of helping a family out of poverty, only then we can begin to end poverty.

Circles changes the way agencies function making them more effective

"It is difficult for agencies to shift their mind frames. They tend to work in ‘silos’ doing program work and it is difficult to change the mindset to understand poverty in a comprehensive light, but once they do, they all want to get involved.”
Megan Shreve, Gettysburg, PA