Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Overall Excellence > Project of the Year

Title of entry: 
The Commons: Where a Divided America Comes Together

Issue or Publication date:
Magazine: April 2024 issue (#1). Online: 10/3 (#3); 6/17 (#4); 9/26 (#5); 4/1 (#6); 4/15 (#8); 4/15 (#9) YouTube: 9/4 (#7); LinkedIn 11/7 (#10)

Publication name: 
The Chronicle of Philanthropy

View Website home page:
www.philanthropy.com

Links to entry URLs

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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
Please enter a URL that will direct judges to the entry: 
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/what-philanthropy-elites-can-learn-from-appalachia
Additional URLs, if needed:
http://philanthropy.com/thecommons
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/citizen-assemblies-philanthropy
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/citizen-assemblies-philanthropy
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/black-and-jewish-allies-essay
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/10-words-and-phrases-you-should-never-use
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COvdteSoXNc&t=819s
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/the-israel-hamas-war-is-tearing-nonprofits-apart-but-some-are-bridging-staff-divides
https://www.philanthropy.com/commons/grace-courage-and-common-ground
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/inside-quiet-1b-election-effort-the-chronicle-of-philanthropy-2fn6e/?trackingId=BCfzbPUtTlKN0amsfckNfg%3D%3D

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Entry Essay: 
About a year ago, our newsroom at The Chronicle of Philanthropy detected a growing dread among nonprofit and foundation leaders. Privately, these core readers told us that nationwide polarization was derailing many efforts for the common good. Attacks from the left and the right kneecapped even the Salvation Army.

At the time, our organization was transitioning to a nonprofit newsroom, leaving behind our for-profit mothership. Always a mission-focused staff, we decided to plant a flag in the ground with a new project to explore the country’s fissures along lines of race, class, gender, and politics. This moment called for solutions as well as accountability.

We bet big. To help readers and their communities overcome divides, we used our entire April magazine issue to debut The Commons, an ambitious, year-long project to explore ways that nonprofits and philanthropy can bring Americans together, and to investigate how these fields themselves are falling short.

This digital-first project has become a dedicated section of our website, home to a magazine-like diversity of content: news, on-the-ground stories from around the country, analysis, first-person essays, advice, photo essays, and even a cheeky piece about the verbal fluff that infects so much of philanthropic messaging. We’re also producing video interviews and roundtables.

Much of the content is focused on matters specific to the field: philanthropy’s perceived left-leaning bias, the undue influence of major philanthropists, the neglect of the crisis among boys and men, and more. But we’re also taking on national issues like racial equity and reactions to Israel-Gaza war.

Commons stories appear regularly in our monthly print magazine. The kickoff April issue introduced a profile of a self-described “hillbilly lesbian” building community in conservative Appalachia; essays from 12 leaders on the field about the dangers of division and solutions; a conversion between renowned civic activist Eric Liu and Bowling Alone author Robert Putnam; and a dive into some surprising data about divisions in America.

We’ve also created an interview series that draws on the power of our audience on the LinkedIn platform (100,000 followers to our Chronicle page). Beginning in August, we streamed twice-monthly interviews with major figures (philanthropist Laura Arnold, Democracy Fund president Joe Goldman, PBS journalist Judy Woodruff) as well as Band of Brothers filmmaker Erik Bork and others combating toxic polarization.

The response from the field has been overwhelming. Since our launch, funders have stepped up with $450,000 to help carry The Commons through 2026. A Commons newsletter launched on LinkedIn has drawn almost 35,000 subscribers in just seven months.

We’re proud to be speaking truth to power, as seen by the ways that organizations ranging from the Obama Foundation to the Walton Foundation now share Commons stories with donors and colleagues, encouraging them to take heed. And we hear daily from readers with messages like this one: “In a time when the word ‘democracy’ is viewed as divisive, the Chronicle of Philanthropy's The Commons provides helpful resources on how to turn the tide.”