Philanthropy Today

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Next up in The Commons in Conversation interview series:

• NEXT WEEK — 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. The event is free; registration is required.
  
• How do average Americans react to common nonprofit vernacular like “community,” “diversity,” and “democracy”? Amy McIsaac leads a language perception project at Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement and will talk about words that bring us together and those that divide us. This is a special pre-election event on October 30 at 12:30 p.m. ET. The event is free; registration is required.
  

News and other noteworthy items:

• Religion, while often seen as an accelerant to division, actually drives politics much less than we think, according to a new report from More in Common. One example: Americans generally believe that only about half of evangelicals and Muslims support religious pluralism while 78 percent of evangelicals and 75 percent of Muslims actually do.
  
• The Boston Review features a forum with leading advocates championing structural change in elections, including open primaries and ranked-choice voting. Essayists include several people featured in our Commons list of “people to watch,” among them Danielle Allen ofPartners in Democracy and Lee Drutman of New America.
  
• Writing in Forbes, Subbu Vincent, director of journalism and media ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, argues that the media covering the election “largely center middle-class and upper-income voters and exclude voting-eligible people who may be struggling to make ends meet or experiencing poverty.” Yet in this razor-thin presidential race, Vincent says, they could be key swing voters.