November 17, 2020 | Read Time: 3 minutes
“Less than 2 percent of philanthropic dollars go to democracy efforts, according to the most recent count,” noted Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, during an online briefing held days after the presidential election.
Yet the strength of a democracy can affect everything, including the rate of chronic diseases in a country and the state of the environment, public education, journalism, and so many other areas of society that nonprofits work to improve, Palmer noted, citing a recent Chronicle opinion article by the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The briefing marked the release of a collection of essays commissioned by the Kettering and Knight foundations on American Democracy and philanthropy’s long-term role. Three of the authors joined Palmer to explain their essays and answer questions from viewers.
Yuval Levin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of National Affairs, explained his belief that the breakdown of trust in our governing institutions and the polarization of our politics have an underlying cause: a sense of alienation from American democracy and culture.
“Too often we’re inclined to think about our national life in terms of ‘they’ and ‘them’ and not ‘we’ and ‘us,’” he says. The alienation sometimes stems from not wanting to be associated with certain beliefs or policies, but it also occurs when people are excluded, he adds. Levin urges Americans when thinking about our society’s problems to regard them as “our” problems and not to blame history, others, or both. There is no separating ourselves from the heritage of our society, he explains. “We are one nation over time,” Levin says.
Nowadays, it is striking how little we talk about the future, he notes. Each of us needs to find ways to think about our society and its future as belonging to all of us. There’s an important role for philanthropy, he says. As philanthropists make choices about what to support, they should find ways to contribute to solidarity and not sow division.
Cathy Cohen, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, highlighted a fundamental crisis: that our democracy “seems to function despite the fact that significant numbers of its citizens continue to suffer from systemic racism and inequality, unable to fully participate in or benefit from democracy.” Highlighting the killing of George Floyd and so many other African Americans, Cohen asks what is needed to protect the lives of all citizens to ensure all can participate.
Many policy makers and academics worry about the death of democracy as the “guard rails” of democracy, such as respect for and adherence to the U.S. Constitution, civil discourse, and tolerance, have come under attack recently, Cohen says.
Yet other threats — the vestiges of slavery, white supremacy, mass incarceration, and inequity in health care, to name a few — imperil a fully functioning democracy as much, if not more, Cohen argues.
One of the best ways to address these failings, Cohen says, is to shift power and create structural change. To bring about a rebirth, invest in organizing, protest movements, and a “movement infrastructure,” Cohen says. Such an investment will amplify the voices of the marginalized and put their concerns squarely on the agenda for the future.
Daniel Rothschild, head of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, addresses the role that scientific expertise plays in a democratic society and how the public’s faith in scientific expertise may be on the decline. He refers to the “scientizing of politics,” which means that science can be used as a cudgel to advance political or policy preferences. Rothschild explores what kinds of institutions we should nurture so that science can properly shape policy and discourse.
Listen to the whole conversation, including an audience Q&A, below:
Read the full collection of essays, Democracy and Civic Life: What Is the Long Game for Philanthropy. And join us for the next part of the conversation on November 30.
