Philanthropy Today

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From senior editor Drew Lindsay: We’re starting something new this week — a monthly column to help nonprofit professionals put aside jargon and adopt language that makes people feel welcome.

You’ve already met the author: Matt Watkins, a communications pro who has written two previous Commons pieces — the first on philanthropy’s “trigger words” and the second on the elitist strains of nonprofit language that contribute to distrust of the field.

The Chronicle’s Opinion team came up with the name for the column — “Watch Your Language.” In the first installment, Watkins points to seven words that he says “invite people in rather than push them away.”

“These seven words aren’t magic,” he writes. “They’re simply honest. If nonprofits want to rebuild trust in their work and the causes they champion, they need to speak to the public — not just to funders or each other. Words decide who feels welcome and who walks away.”

What if next year’s 250th anniversary of the United States could be a moment for a new founding of the nation — one committed to realizing the promise of equality for all from the Declaration of Independence?

We will explore the details of such a commitment in a conversation with Ashleigh Gardere, president of PolicyLink, a leading equity advocate. PolicyLink is calling for structural and constitutional change not unlike that prompted by the Civil War and the civil rights movement, pointing to Americans’ deep distrust of institutions, growing inequity, and gridlocked governance systems.

Gardere will speak with Chronicle of Philanthropy deputy opinion editor Nandita Raghuram for the next episode of The Commons in Conversation. Join us for this free LinkedIn event on Wednesday, October 22, at 12 p.m. ET.

Register here.

News and other noteworthy items:

• In the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, author and organizer Micah Sifry criticized the bridge-building movement in his Connector column on Substack. The calls for the country to come together ignore the Trump administration’s “flame-throwing” rhetoric and attacks on governance institutions. “Efforts to fix our broken and hyper-polarized democracy can’t avoid politics. Especially when the party in power is choosing [to] break the most basic rules of democracy.”
  
• Jonathan Stray, a scientist who studies AI-driven disinformation, counters Sifry by arguing that bridge-building is a political movement — but with neither progressive nor conservative goals. “The winning strategy — winning in the sense of democracy-preserving, not advancing either red or blue politics — is for ‘us’ to unite with some of ‘them’ against authoritarianism and corruption of whatever stripe,” he writes in his weekly Better Conflict Bulletin.
  
• More than 40 groups brought together by the U.S. Department of Education and the America First Policy Institute launched a civics education initiative in advance of the country’s 250th birthday. The effort is “dedicated to renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation,” according to an AFPI release. Organizations involved include the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA. This follows an announcement of a $56 million civics education and national service effort funded by the Bezos Family Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Stand Together. (See earlier Commons coverage.)