The Chronicle of Philanthropy has just launched The Commons, a new foray into opinion journalism that hopes to help philanthropic organizations at all levels find ways to work together despite the political divisions in their approaches.
Drew Lindsay is a senior writer at the Chronicles of Philanthropy and is leading the new initiative, focused for its first year on polarization in the U.S..
The Commons is “a way to expand the work we do in the opinion space, to do ideas journalism, roundtables, open up the idea of what you mean when you do opinion,” he says. “I think we came to the idea of polarization and the country’s divides. All of our divides will be on grand display during the elections.”
While the ongoing conversation has been, and will continue to be, how those divisions started and their root causes, it’s not just political organizations that feel the tension.
“We know from our reporting there’s a small movement, growing but still a relatively small movement, within the philanthropy world to try and address those divides, to look at polarization, the root causes and what can be done,” Lindsay says. “We thought it was a good pairing of, one, our interest in expanding our idea of what opinion is and, two, also looking at something that’s very topical, and also providing a space for the nonprofit world to learn about what’s happening in this space, learn about the different approaches, different strategies, what’s working, what’s not.”
Political divides and pressures are not solely the problem of elected officials. They are also felt by donors and fundraisers, he says.
“There’s a funder I’ve been speaking with, they are chiefly an education funder and they were one of the originators in a lot of the movement for charter schools back in the ‘90s,” Lindsay says. “There was a broad bipartisan consensus about charter schools (in the 1990s), there were Democrats and Republicans all on board. … That consensus is blown apart. They can’t get the traction and momentum they want on charter schools anymore because of the division. They’re doing work to address polarization so they can move the issue forward.”
The Commons is starting as part of the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s monthly print magazine but will eventually spin off into its own work, with a newsletter and website separate from the other publication. Lindsay says The Commons also will be a way for the Chronicle of Philanthropy to try new forms of journalism, including video for the first time.
“This is a way for us to open up as an organization,” he says. “We want to reach new readers. If we have content that gets us into the conversation, we will be introduced to a whole new set of nonprofit leaders. Some folks worried about (polarization) at the national level will be introduced to us.”
The other goal is for The Commons to be a place where people with differing opinions and approaches, within the philanthropic world, can find common ground. “If you bring in all these ideas and all these people to talk about what’s going on in this space, it can become a hub where they learn about each other, learn about what other folks are doing, learn about what works and what doesn’t,” he says.
Drew Lindsay, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Philanthropy, leads The Commons, a new vertical focusing on the issue of polarization along the lines of political ideology, gender, income, race, geography, culture, and religion.
