Philanthropy Today

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Next up in The Commons in Conversation interview series:

• NEXT WEEK: Hollywood screenwriter Erik Bork talks about the bridging themes and philanthropy behind his soon-to-be-released The Elephant in the Room, a red-blue romantic comedy. October 2 at 12:30 p.m. ET. Free registration required.
  
• Nealin Parker of Common Ground USA will report on nonprofit efforts to head off political violence in advance of the November elections. October 16 at 12:30 p.m. ET. Free registration required.

News and other noteworthy items:

• On Sean Carroll’s Mindscape podcast, Hahrie Han talks about a racial-justice effort at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati, a large white-dominant evangelical church. Han, director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, recently published Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church, which the New York Times called “a portrait in miniature of the American religious landscape.”
  
• Zoë Rom of the New York Times reports on an unlikely alliance of ranchers, cyclists, and snowmobilers who came together to win a 20-year pause of oil and gas leases on Colorado wilderness lands. Members of the group “had little in common aside from a desire to protect the expanse,” Rom writes.
  
• A recent Pew Research Center report concludes: “Americans are tired of division and existential, zero-sum political battles — especially since both sides feel like they are losing those battles.” At the same time, researchers found “they have ideas about how to change things,” including government reform and efforts to limit the influence of special interests and money in politics.