ABSTRACT
Up to this point, our argument has focused on those limited mental models that are not conducive to profitable partnerships but which nevertheless strive to alleviate poverty and to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This chapter describes one practice that succeeds in overcoming this problem-engagement in the process of moral imagination. Profitable part-
nerships are not meant to replace or to supersede other proven povertyalleviation efforts (London, 2007); therefore, our starting point is where new solutions address the unmet needs of the poor. Because many of the problems facing the global poor demand a sense of urgency, the search for sustainable solutions cannot be fettered by ideological bias or utopian social engineering that is overly and exceptionally patient for results. The focus on innovation in profitable partnerships is not a mere affinity for “newness,” but a basic realization that the MDG aspirations require much more than what already exists. Simply put, the MDG aspirations require a great deal of moral imagination to get beyond the limiting mental models that we have discussed.
