Posts in Inclusive Democracy
A Funding Guide for Faith and Democracy: Nothing Does What Faith Does Like Faith Does It
A Funding Guide for Faith and Democracy: Nothing Does What Faith Does Like Faith Does It

Over the last few years, the relationship between faith and democracy has been of growing interest to funders. While there has long been a robust debate in America about the proper relationship between government and religions, there is also a sustained and evolving relationship between faith and democracy. Plenty of headlines have spotlighted the ways they are influencing each other–both positively and negatively.

How are grantmakers to make sense of it all?

This new guide aims to explore the role of faith communities in shaping and making American civic life, while providing a framework for funders to engage with faith communities as partners in advancing a stronger and more inclusive democracy.

Read A Funding Guide For Faith and Democracy>>

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*Produced by DFN*, Civic Learning & Culture, Inclusive Democracy, Social Cohesion, PhilanthropyThird Plateau
An Untold Story: Evidence of Faith Communities’ Positive Influence on Democracy

On November 21, 2022, PACE and DFN hosted a webinar to present newly developed evidence from four organizations–three of which were grantees from PACE’s Faith In/And Democracy Fund. During the webinar, each speaker presented evidence from their work and then participants engaged with the speakers in breakout room conversations.

VIEW HERE>

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Inclusive Democracy, Democracy Reform, *Produced by DFN*Third Plateau
Webinar Recap: The Role of Faith Communities in Preserving Democracy

In case you missed DFN’s The Role of Faith Communities in Preserving Democracy program, PACE provided a summary of the webinar.

In this meeting, DFN explored key questions around the role faith communities can play in preserving American democracy: What can faith communities contribute to a pro-democracy movement? How can faith leaders and communities be mobilized to act in defense of democracy and resist embracing extremist and anti-democratic viewpoints? What are the potential benefits of faith engagement in the pro-democracy movement, and what do we risk by failing to engage religious communities?

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Democracy Reform, Inclusive DemocracyThird Plateau
Root Causes Perspectives: How Did We Get Here?
Root Causes Perspectives: How Did We Get Here?

Everyday Americans and political insiders alike have become increasingly concerned with the dangerous levels of division, governmental dysfunction, and public distrust in our country. These trends had been intensifying for several years, and were on display in stark terms this past year in the midst of numerous domestic crises. Our country’s responses to COVID-19, widespread civil unrest, and the January 6 storming of the Capitol each highlighted the seriousness of the situation. READ MORE>

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Polarization, Social Cohesion, The Information Environment, Civic Learning & Culture, Inclusive DemocracyThird Plateau
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity. READ MORE>

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Social Cohesion, Inclusive DemocracyThird Plateau
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots. Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. READ MORE>

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Authoritarian Populism, Polarization, Inclusive Democracy, Social CohesionThird Plateau
The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

Deep and accelerating inequality; unprecedented political polarization; vitriolic public discourse; a fraying social fabric; public and private narcissism--Americans today seem to agree on only one thing: This is the worst of times.

But we've been here before. During the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, America was highly individualistic, starkly unequal, fiercely polarized, and deeply fragmented, just as it is today. However as the twentieth century opened, America became--slowly, unevenly, but steadily--more egalitarian, more cooperative, more generous; a society on the upswing, more focused on our responsibilities to one another and less focused on our narrower self-interest. Sometime during the 1960s, however, these trends reversed, leaving us in today's disarray.

In a sweeping overview of more than a century of history, drawing on his inimitable combination of statistical analysis and storytelling, Robert Putnam analyzes a remarkable confluence of trends that brought us from an "I" society to a "We" society and then back again. He draws inspiring lessons for our time from an earlier era, when a dedicated group of reformers righted the ship, putting us on a path to becoming a society once again based on community. READ MORE>

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Inclusive Democracy, Polarization, Civic Learning & Culture, Democracy Reform, Social CohesionThird Plateau
Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality

Our Declaration reinterprets the promise of American democracy through our founding text. Combining a personal account of teaching the Declaration with a vivid evocation of the colonial world between 1774 and 1777, Allen, a political philosopher renowned for her work on justice and citizenship reveals our nation’s founding text to be an animating force that not only changed the world more than two-hundred years ago, but also still can. Challenging conventional wisdom, she boldly makes the case that the Declaration is a document as much about political equality as about individual liberty. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Our Declaration is an “uncommonly elegant, incisive, and often poetic primer on America’s cardinal text”. READ MORE>

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Inclusive Democracy, Civic Learning & CultureThird Plateau
When the Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America
When the Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America

"Racism is an existential threat to America," Theodore Johnson declares at the start of his profound and exhilarating book; furthermore, it's a refutation of the American Promise enshrined in our Constitution--that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet corrosive racism has remained ingrained in our society. If we cannot overcome it, Johnson argues, while the United States will remain as a geopolitical entity, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died.

When the Stars Begin to Fall lays out in compelling, ambitious ways a pathway to the national solidarity necessary to overcome racism. READ MORE>

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Inclusive DemocracyThird Plateau
Ways to Reconcile and Heal America
Ways to Reconcile and Heal America

Amid a global pandemic, the United States is grappling with deep polarization after a divisive presidential election and the events that followed. Moments of polarization, radicalization and extremism have increased public distrust in government, legislative gridlock, and violence in cities around the county. At this critical moment in history, Brookings President, John R. Allen and Darrell West look at how polarized discussions on race, ethnicity, religion, immigration and gender stem from years of income inequality, geographic disparities, systemic racism and the rise of digital technology, and propose policy solutions to chart Americans on a path towards national unity and reconciliation. READ MORE>

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Polarization, Inclusive DemocracyThird Plateau
Democracy and Civic Life: What is the Long Game for Philanthropy?
Democracy and Civic Life: What is the Long Game for Philanthropy?

This essay series from the Knight Foundation and Kettering Foundation explores the challenges and opportunities for American democracy and what role philanthropy can play in addressing those challenges. It includes 18 pieces by leading thinkers on the future of our democracy including Francis Fukuyama, Antonia Hernández, Brian Hooks, and Yascha Mounk. READ MORE>

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Philanthropy, Democracy Reform, Inclusive Democracy, Civic Learning & CultureThird Plateau