The Renovator, a new Substack from Danielle Allen, cochair of the Our Common Purpose project, launched in August. It will feature columns, state and local news reporting and other original, daily updates from Danielle and a host of contributors. Subscribe here.

New Pluralists released a report on the impact of Healing Starts Here, a $10 million initiative launched in 2022 that supported 32 locally led, place-based projects to heal community divisions. The report offers a window into how funders, institutions, and communities can promote pluralism and bridge divides. 

Pearce Godwin, Founder of the Listen First Project, calls on all of us to find a way forward together as fellow Americans in The Catalyst, a journal from the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

The Bridge Alliance Education Fund released The Path Forward for the Healthy Democracy Ecosystem, a new report that offers both honest critique and actionable direction for democracy work in the Trump era. Kristina Becvar, Bridge Alliance Executive Director, underscored key learnings from the research.

The Knight Foundation, Pivotal, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Schmidt Family Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced a nearly $37 million commitment to provide immediate relief to public media stations at risk of closure following federal funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The New York Times reported on the organizations’ efforts to reach $50 million to stabilize the stations most at risk from funding cuts. 

OCP Champion Institute for Citizens & Scholars announced the inaugural cohort of Faculty Fellows: 37 educators from colleges and universities across the country who are leading a powerful shift in how civic learning and inclusive dialogue happen in higher ed. 

In an essay for the Knight First Amendment Institute, Our Common Purpose Commission member Hahrie Han and co-author Henry Farrell argue that current debates around AI and democracy focus too heavily on how AI might enable new forms of decision-making and instead should contend with how AI is reinforcing or undermining civic associations and political coalitions as they exist today. 

OCP Champion BridgeUSA, a cross-partisan student movement that promotes viewpoint diversity and responsible discourse on campus, hosted students from over 80 colleges and universities in Indianapolis for its national summit. Read more here about the event and how BridgeUSA’s student leaders are bridging divides. 

In a new post , Protect Democracy’s Ansley Skipper and Drew Penrose explain why switching from single-member House districts to proportional multimember districts is the ultimate solution to gerrymandering. OCP Champion FairVote and Matthew Yglesias (Slow Boring Substack) also highlighted proportional representation as the best approach to combat gerrymandering. 

The New York Times Editorial Board endorsed independent redistricting commissions as the best solution to gerrymandering.

Representative Terri Sewell (D-AL), Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) reintroduced the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that aims to restore the full strength of the Voting Rights Act. OCP Champions Business for America and Campaign Legal Center issued statements in support of the legislation.

Ashley Murray, Senior Reporter for States Newsroom, examined the impact of recent cuts to AmeriCorps grants across the country.