Philanthropy Today

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From senior editor Drew Lindsay: A small movement is gaining attention and modest investments from self-styled “pro-democracy” funders. Its advocates argue that America’s deep divisions lose their hard edge when people come together for the common good — or, specifically, for the good of their community through projects to fix everything from sewage to schools to civic culture. Theirs is a very deliberate intervention to re-create the bonds once formed organically in a now-frayed network of civic associations, churches, labor unions, and the like.

And despite the current rage and fury in Washington, they talk about an increasing number of Americans eager to step up and do for their community what our dysfunctional politics can’t.

“We have more of an opportunity today than maybe at any other time I’ve been doing this work,” says Rich Harwood, whose nearly 40-year-oldHarwood Institute for Public Innovation is helping a Reading, Pa., community develop an education agenda.

I talked to more than two dozen people about this movement and moment of opportunity for this story in The Commons. I hope you enjoy it.

P.S.: Chronicle editor-in-chief Andrew Simon and I will host a conversation about local democracy efforts at the Council on Foundations’ “Leading Locally” conference in Minneapolis. We’ll explore what these efforts look like in different parts of the country in discussion with three fantastic leaders in the field: Roque Barros, executive director of the Imperial Valley Wellness Foundation in California; Tracy Cutler, executive vice president at the Lancaster County Community Foundation; and Tito Llantada, director of networks and programs at the Trust for Civic Life.

The conversation will not be streamed, but if you’re in Minneapolis, please join us at the first session on Thursday morning, June 12.

If democracy is unraveling, what can save it? Scholar, author, and nonprofit leader Danielle Allen joins The Commons in Conversation to talk about a range of solutions championed by philanthropy and nonprofits. These include reform of institutions like Congress and the Supreme Court, investment in civics education, and a rekindling of civic spirit in local communities.

Allen leads the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and is director of Democratic Knowledge Project, a civics-education research project. She’s also the founder of Partners in Democracy, which advocates for democracy reforms.

She’ll talk with Chronicle senior editor Drew Lindsay on Thursday, July 10, at 1 p.m. ET on LinkedIn Live.

Register for this free event.

“You’ve got to start talking to one another and develop trust. And you use the Constitution as the foundation for moving forward.” — Former U.S. Senator Jon Tester, Montana; “Breaking the Deadlock,” a new PBS series in which political leaders and experts wrestle with how to loosen polarization’s grip.

“Facts may seem faintly old-timey in the 21st century, remnants of the rote learning style that went out of fashion in classrooms (and that the internet search made obsolete) decades ago. But societies are built on facts, as we can see more clearly when institutions built on knowledge teeter. Inaccurate facts make for less informed decisions. Less informed decisions make for bad policy. Garbage in, garbage out.” — Jeopardy host Ken Jennings; New York Times

“We define ‘grassroots’ as people who live in the neighborhoods: people who send their kids to school there, people who walk the streets there, people who breathe the air there, people who are most proximate. I’ve been having conversations with funders and larger institutional nonprofits, and they’re saying, ‘All right, we gotta think about closing our doors because we don’t have funding.’

“But what’s struck me about the leaders we work with at BOLT is that there’s no ‘closing the doors’ for them. Because they live in the neighborhoods they serve, they don’t close their laptops, lock up an office, and sign off at 5 p.m. They know what’s at stake because they experience it, too — they live here.” — Hillary Do, founder and executive director of BOLT, a Philadelphia-based organization that supports grassroots community leaders; Connective Tissue Substack