Philanthropy Today

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From senior editor Drew Lindsay: Sherreta Harrison and Raymond Jetson, co-leaders of a Louisiana community organization, defy a lot of the norms of nonprofit management. She’s 41 and he’s 69 — a generation-spanning age difference they believe benefits their organization, their community, and their personal growth.

For The Commons this week, I talked with Harrison and Jetson to identify the building blocks of their millennial-boomer partnership and understand what makes it tick. Their relationship breaks sharply from what stereotypes suggest to expect from an older man and a younger woman. “I totally reject this notion of mentor-mentee — a wise sage speaking wisdom to the young Jedi, equipping them to one day wield the sword and manage the Force,” Jetson says.

Nor does their relationship fit traditional succession planning, in which a young executive is groomed for the top position. Harrison says: “One of the first shifts that was necessary for me — and this would be the case for any younger or less experienced person — is to really remember that you’re not here to replace. You are here to build on and to build with.”

Read more about our conversation or watch excerpts on one of the Chronicle’s social media channels: Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or X.

In the second episode of our new Commons in Conversation podcast, Pulitzer Prize-winner Barbara Kingsolver talks about “urban-rural antipathy” and how her most recent novel, Demon Copperhead, aims to dismantle stereotypes of her native Appalachia that fuel the discord.

Kingsolver also talks about philanthropy’s failures in her region and her nonprofit home for women recovering from addiction.

Listen to the conversation onApple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

The smoke from July 4 fireworks has cleared, but the state of our democracy in these turbulent times remains hazy. To help identify threats and opportunities, Danielle Allen joins The Commons in Conversation to talk about what’s happening in Washington as well as a potential rekindling of civic spirit in local communities.

The scholar and author leads theAllen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and is director ofthe Democratic Knowledge Project, a civics-education research project. She’s also the founder ofPartners in Democracy, which advocates for democracy reforms.

We kick off the conversation Thursday, July 10, at 1 p.m. ET on LinkedIn Live.

Register for this free event.

Illustration by The Chronicle of Philanthropy; Canva stock images.

We’re still seeking your help to assemble a “best of” list of books, podcasts, movies, and documentaries that feature ideas about how to bring Americans together, strengthen democracy and fractured communities, tackle isolation, fix tears in the social fabric, and make governing institutions more responsive to the people. Drop your suggestions into this easy, quick-answer form.

Your suggestions don’t have to be recent; you could recommend Robert Putnam’s 2000 book Bowling Alone or the more recent documentary about his ideas, Join or Die. Regardless, we hope you’ll focus on items that are available now, either in or through bookstores, libraries, streaming services, or YouTube.

Also, to avoid promotion of “home cooking,” please don’t recommend items that you or your organization have created.

Thanks in advance for your help!

• The Courage Project, a $5 million effort to recognize nonprofits and individuals who stand up for their communities, announced its second round of winners. Among them: the Rutland County (Vt.) Pride Center, which protected participants during the county’s Juneteenth Strut; Shady Oaks Camp in Homer Glen, Ill., which provides year-round programs for children and adults with disabilities, and We the People Warwick, which addresses civic polarization in Warwick, N.Y., and brings together diverse community members. The project, whose awards range from $10,000 to $50,000, is supported by a dozen funders and nonprofits, including the Freedom Together Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and United Way Worldwide.
  
• “There is strong support and narrowing political differences between Democrats and Republicans on the importance of civic education, especially students learning civics and history,” writes Bruno Manno in a Forbes article. The longtime education policy analyst and senior adviser at the Progressive Policy Institute points to a growing consensus for K-12 civics education as well as “a broader system of civic formation” that includes debating clubs, student exchanges, and national service opportunities.
  
• Author Colin Woodard lays out a definition of America embraced by wide majorities in a series of polls by the Nationhood Lab, a project he founded at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. It opens: “We’re a nation defined not by shared bloodlines, religion, or history, but by a commitment to a set of ideals, the world-changing propositions about inherent rights of humans set forth in our opening statement as a people, the Declaration of Independence.” Only 33 percent of Americans polled said we are instead united “by shared history, traditions, and values and by our fortitude and character as Americans, a people who value hard work, individual responsibility, and national loyalty,” Woodard writes in an essay for the American Enterprise Institute.