Freedom 22 Foundation, the family charity of Charles and Barbara Asher, is dedicated to supporting families, connecting volunteers, and building community through privately supported programs.

The Foundation derives its name from its focus on a new century--the 22nd.  We support initiatives that, instead of merely relieving symptoms today, help individuals, families, and programs to achieve in ways that will yield valuable results a century from now.

We view true compassion as the personal and  discerning commitment to help others.  Useful commitment, we believe, is determined not by numbers of resources allocated or units served, but by the great demands volunteers make of themselves to help recipients, and the great demands recipients make of themselves to profitably use that help.  Success is determined by the growth of individuals to independence, families to better functioning, and communities to closer connectedness.

We want to help reverse the fragmentation of communities so prevalent in American society at the beginning of the 21st century.

Because freedom, face-to-face compassion, and accountability are necessary hallmarks of its vision, the Foundation supports private programs and voluntary efforts which decline government aid and encourage personal and community involvement.

We believe in the seven marks of compassion elucidated by Marvin Olasky in The Tragedy of American Compassion:

• Affiliation.  Effective compassion should foster, not weaken, the natural ties of family obligation, neighborliness, and community assistance.
  
  
• Bonding.  The essential and salutary connection between committed volunteers and motivated recipients almost always requires sleeves rolled up, not charity with tongs.
  
  
• Categorization.  Useful giving must allow, even require, donors and volunteers to use their best judgment in treating people as individuals according to their particular strengths and needs.
  
  
• Discernment.  The soft heart should be accompanied by a hard head, reminding us that both the giving and the withholding of charity can be blessings.
  
  
• Employment.  Abraham Lincoln may have summarized this principle best in saying, "You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could, and should, do for themselves."
  
  
• Freedom.  Everyone should enjoy the opportunity to work, grow, and worship without the restrictions that virtually always accompany government subsidy, and everyone should be encouraged to see that he holds the power of his own success.
  
  
• God.  The overwhelming majority of successful charitable efforts have been spiritually informed to the benefit of donors, volunteers, and recipients alike.

Accordingly, Freedom 22 Foundation favors programs which:

• decline government aid and desire to move to self-sufficiency;
  
  
• make great demands on volunteers to give of themselves in genuinely helpful ways;
  
  
• make equally great demands on recipients (whether individuals or programs) to labor and profitably use the assistance lent to them;
  
  
• offer possibilities for productive volunteer involvement, including from the legal, educational, and religious communities;
  
  
• include strong spiritual, educational, and character development components;
  
  
• draw committed families, neighborhoods, and volunteers together.