- Amazon founder (and the world’s richest man) Jeff Bezos announced that he and his wife were creating a $2 billion fund to finance a network of nonprofit preschools and donate funds to organizations helping homeless families
- The Day 1 Families Fund will issue annual leadership awards to organizations and civic groups doing compassionate, needle moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to address the immediate needs of young families
- There’s also a Day 1 Academies Fund that will launch a network of free, Montessori-inspired schools in low-income neighborhoods
- Some say starting a network of free schools for underprivileged children and giving out money to help organizations that are working to alleviate the needs of the nation’s homeless are inarguably good things, but it’s unclear whether these individual steps can work to address more systemic problems that underlie problems of homelessness and a lack of educational opportunity that exists more broadly in the country
- Here’s a link to an article on the Verge about the “customer-first” mindset and Amazon business principles that he would like to see the schools model themselves upon.
