New organization aims to solve poverty

Nonprofit veteran Mark Bergel opens Palm Beach Gardens-based institute.

Mark Bergel started a nonprofit in the nation’s capital that is credited with helping more than 500,000 people in need. He won national awards for his altruism. 

Now, he’s thinking even bigger.

In January, he founded an institute in Palm Beach Gardens focused on anti-poverty initiatives aimed at structural change.

“When it comes to poverty and human trafficking, we tolerate it all as a part of life,” Bergel said in an interview. “We disconnect from people in tragic ways. We can do better.”

Bergel’s 40 years of work and research on advances in science and health shape the Bergel Institute’s approach. The intention is to explore the possibilities that come from restoring human connection.

“When we care about one another, we benefit. Our own health benefits,” Bergel said. 

The institute, run out of a Spartan office in PGA Commons, is committed to anti-poverty initiatives wherever the mission may take it and in Palm Beach County, he said.

Bergel’s community work began after he earned a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and completed master’s and doctoral degrees at American University, where he taught for 15 years.

In 2001, he founded A Wider Circle in the living room of his D.C.-area apartment as a source of used furniture for people who could not afford to buy it. 

By the end of the decade, the organization had grown into a nationally recognized grassroots effort. By 2019, A Wider Circle reported nearly $20 million in annual revenue as it expanded to connect people in need to resources and education. 

Bergel was named a Washingtonian of the Year and touted as a CNN Hero.

He left the organization in 2020 inspired to do more.

“I wanted to solve poverty,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t want to just keep treating the symptoms.”

People were benefiting from A Wider Circle and other nonprofits, he said, but nobody could get to a place where they were going to end poverty.

“Yes, there are people doing good work, but very, very few people are trying to solve this,” Bergel said. “I’m trying to find the people who are doing that great work, or who want to. People who want to solve these things and allow us to think more limitlessly.”

Why Palm Beach County?

The death of his father last year drew Bergel to Palm Beach County to care for his mother, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, and he continues his work here.

Bergel said his goal is to pursue what is possible. 

“I’m just trying to say, ‘Look, consider something bigger than what you’re considering for your own life and for our society,’” he said. “Because when we don’t do that, then we accept and tolerate poverty and human trafficking at rates that are growing out of an insidiousness that we should not tolerate.”

One example of what Bergel and others see as a failing system is the federal poverty level, which has been criticized for being too broad and not capturing the true cost of living.

“We don’t even define poverty correctly,” he said. “We certainly don’t measure it accurately, and, therefore, we don’t approach it effectively.”

The Bergel Institute’s board of directors includes Pamela Loprest, a former senior fellow and economist at the Urban Institute; Katherin Ross Phillips, an expert on how government policies affect families; and Lisa Stransky, a former board member of A Wider Circle.

A guide to helpful action

The institute has a guide on its website of what individuals or small groups can do to help their neighbors permanently rise out of poverty.

Ideas include launching neighborhood repair and maintenance cooperatives, creating a tech library, donating vehicles and setting up debt relief and repair clinics.

“The action guide is an excellent way for people to connect, think differently and hopefully start acting more in their community,” Bergel said.

The new institute will run a yearlong fellowship spent developing projects on topics including eradicating poverty.

More than 650 people applied for the three fellowship positions.

Applicants came from everywhere in the world, Bergel said. They also came from rural farmers on every continent and from people seeking to make their communities safer and with greater access to necessities for residents struggling to get by. 

The institute plans to announce selections this month.

There is also a plan for awards. The Courtney Loprest Award will honor a person working to end poverty in their community or nationally. It will come with a $10,000 prize.

One Palm Beach County high school senior will also receive a needs-based award of $2,500. Applications for the Gloria’s Girls Award will be available in October.

“I think the solutions are all local,” Bergel said. “That’s how we solve problems.”