Dateline: Inside America's Broken Psyche

Welcome to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s weekly newsletter highlighting stories and conversations from The Commons, our project exploring how philanthropy and nonprofits are working to close divides, repair the social fabric, and strengthen communities.

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From senior editor Drew Lindsay: Two years ago, when she left the anchor chair at the NewsHour on PBS, Judy Woodruff launched an ambitious project to report on one of her biggest concerns: America’s deep divisions. She wanted to learn how the country has come to be so divided — and what it will take to bring us back together.

Woodruff joined The Commons in Conversation interview series to discuss what she’s found so far in her “America at a Crossroads” series — and how nonprofits play a role in healing division. She talked about national groups like Braver Angels and the Harwood Institute but also small groups in communities nationwide — places she plans to focus on in the next year. She explained:?

"I now hear almost every day about another group that's sprouted somewhere that is trying to bring the community together.”

Watch the discussion on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s YouTube channel or on LinkedIn with free registration. And here's an interview transcript.

What Philanthropy Can Learn About Race From a Megachurch

Hahrie Han is a political scientist, not a journalist like Woodruff. But she spent years embedded with an evangelical megachurch in Cincinnati that designed its own program to bridge racial divides. In her new book, Undivided — named one of the best of the year by the New York Times — Han shows how Black and white participants in the program came together and went on to help power a successful legislative effort for universal preschool focused on low-income families.??

For The Commons, Han writes of Jess, "a white woman who grew up with a father who had the word “White” tattooed on one arm and “Power” tattooed on the other." After weeks in the program, hearing Black congregation members describe the inequities they face and probing her beliefs, Jess began to fight racism in the prison where she worked.?

The key to the program’s success? The church designed it, not philanthropy. Han writes:

“Most people in a social-change effort are spoon-fed formulaic tasks designed by professional technocrats, tested by experts, and funded as ‘data-driven solutions’ by philanthropy.

“They are not invited to design their own solutions, practice vulnerability, or take emotional and strategic risks. Instead, they are given easy solutions — buying tote bags, donating money, signing petitions — that leave control in the hands of people who design them.“?

Read Han’s essay and her answer for how philanthropy can give control to the people who must make the change.

Upcoming Events: The Commons in Conversation

On Wednesday, December 18, at 12:30 p.m. ET, we’ll explore how you can navigate political division at work and during holiday family gatherings. Journalist and nonprofit leader Mónica Guzmán joins Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Andrew Simon for the discussion. Guzmán, the founder and CEO of Reclaim Curiosity, is the author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. She is also a senior fellow for public practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, and host of A Braver Way, a podcast to help people bridge political divides in their everyday lives.?

?? Join the conversation! The event is free on LinkedIn. ?? Registration is required.

Of the Moment

News and other noteworthy items:

• The Edge, a Chronicle of Higher Education newsletter (registration required), explores how colleges and universities contribute to the fracturing of communities. “Colleges used to be local or regional, subregional, taking students from those areas,” says Seth Kaplan , author of Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society One Zip Code at a Time. “The national competition around prestige means that more colleges are not taking people locally, and graduates are not staying locally, not working to be a part of the local community.”
• The first installment of a Stanford Social Innovation Review series on foundation communication argues that grant makers must do more to cultivate trust as misinformation spreads. “Foundations and nonprofits need to focus on community building rather than just pushing messages to an audience,” write Sean Gibbons and Tristan Mohabir of The Communications Network .
• Lauren Gallup of Northwest Public Broadcasting reports on a homegrown group of Democrats, Republicans, and independents in Port Angeles, Wash., who’ve been coming together since the 1990s to talk about their differences. “I am a conservative Republican,” one tells Gallup. “And these are my friends, these Democrats on the other side of the table.”
• Researchers Stephen Hawkins and Daniel Yudkin of More in Common write in the Atlantic about their new study, which shows Americans think Democrats hold more progressive views than they really do. “By far the most notable way that Democrats are misperceived relates to what our survey referred to as “LGBT/transgender policy,” they say. “Although this was not a major priority for Democratic voters in reality — it ranked 14th — our survey respondents listed it as Democrats’ second-highest priority.”