EPIP DC is launching a new book club for our members! We will be reading books that challenge us as individuals and as professionals. Our hope is that through reading and discussion, we can foster a dynamic, thoughtful, and engaged community of EPIP DC members (and guests). Book club will meet every other month at the Meyer Foundation which is located at 1250 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 800. You'll need a photo id to get into the building. 

Our first selection is Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas. This book asks the hard questions about how philanthropy, charity, and change-makers are maintaining the status quo, not really changing it. 

"Former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can - except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. We see how they rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; how they lavishly reward "thought leaders" who redefine "change" in winner-friendly ways; and how they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm. We hear the limousine confessions of a celebrated foundation boss; witness an American president hem and haw about his plutocratic benefactors; and attend a cruise-ship conference where entrepreneurs celebrate their own self-interested magnanimity.  

Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? He also points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world. A call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike."