Philanthropy Today

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From senior editor Drew Lindsay: Can mega-philanthropy shed its elite image? We offer a case study of the century-old, $3 billion New York Community Trust, which is leaning on the “community” in its name to reach out to residents of all backgrounds and political stripes, from blue-collar Staten Island Trump lovers to liberal doyennes on the Upper East Side. Read about the early moves in a yearslong strategy for a philanthropy that believes it “is built for this moment in America.”

News and other noteworthy items:

• Americans — who once routinely lived with their parents and grandparents — now live in an age-segregated society with few opportunities to connect across generations, Marc Freedman, co-CEO of CoGenerate, told New Profit CEO Tulaine Montgomery in the podcast Say More. Freedman, whose organization aims to bring generations together to solve society’s problems, cited research indicating that older people who mentor or collaborate with younger people are three times as likely to be happy as those who don’t. “One of the things that we’ve lost is that sense of the wholeness of life,” he said.
  
• Brookings Institution scholars Tim Tompkins and Tracy Hadden Loh argue that while national politics may tear the country apart, hyperlocal civic community efforts are home to “seeds of solutions.” At the local level, they write, “individuals and institutions avoid ideological arguments, build trust, and do the on-the-ground work — often starting with public spaces — across the civic, nonprofit, private, and public sectors.”
  
• More in Common, a nonpartisan research organization studying division, recently launched the Beacon Project to study American values and views and establish a new “civic vision” for the country. “While it is clear what pluralists stand against (intolerance), it is not entirely clear what pluralists stand for,” writes Daniel Yudkin, a social psychologist who will lead the project, which has support from the Templeton Foundation. “Sure, we want people to work together to accomplish something. But what? What, exactly, are we building?”