Funding for Millions of Conversations’ Depolarization Summit and related programming through the further development of the 3142 Program that aims to de-escalate rising tensions in America by restoring agency at the county level. Millions of Conversations Depolarization Summit, in follow up to their previous Summit in November 2020, will follow the model they have established with 3142: beginning with local stakeholders and the issues they identify to problem-solve, and then building upwards to high-level experts in government, industry, and advocacy.

The collaboration with the Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will organize a symposium on how we might find belonging through the Sacred by exploring sacred experiences, texts, and places. Additionally, it will support Samar Ali and Andrew Ladley to write a book on “De-Enemization” to highlight a seven step process to unity.

The collaboration will integrate love as the active ingredient into the work of Braver Angels and scale their programs. It will also promote faith and prophetic voices for a pluralistic democracy and strengthen DEI-related and administrative functions at Braver Angels as we position the organization as a national civil society institution to mobilize a national grassroots movement for healing divides.

The Institute is an existing funder of the Strengthening Democracy Challenge, an extensive tournament-style study of short (up to 8-minute), online interventions that aim to mitigate polarization, political violence, and/or anti-democratic norms. The Challenge aims to identify intervention types and designs that are effective, durable, and scalable in addressing these societal challenges.

Funding for the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) to support a six-month feasibility study and three demonstration projects to introduce and apply solutions journalism within the conservative and faith-based news media universe (national, commercial TV, regional, and smaller rural outlets). SJN aspires to build a networked community of journalists and news organizations that reflects and serves the whole of society, and their approach is underrepresented in conservative and faith-based media and the people they serve.

A collaborative partnership with Activist Theology Project (ATP) to cultivate an incarnational digital learning community which provides a container for social healing through public theology initiatives. The creation of an app-based community will catalyze a continuous unfolding of content and relationships that bridge the current social landscape and the traditions they inherit.

Funding over six months to co-host a retreat with The Witness Institute for their current and incoming Witness Fellows. The retreat will include time for building community and shared practice and will also allow the Witness Fellows, staff, and advisers to meet in person for the first time, since the program launched during the pandemic. The project will also offer an opportunity for collaboration and relationship building with a young organization closely aligned with the Institute’s mission, strategies, and theory of change. 

After the successful completion of phase one, the project will launch the second phase of the Courageous Pluralism project in collaboration with the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) and Stand Together. It will seek to understand the challenge of pluralism and diversity on college campuses and find solutions to the growing polarization in American civic life.

The project is designed to bring together select Institute national partners with the local state university for the purposes of advancing our mission while deepening the Institute’s relationship with a major local anchor institution. Specifically, it will provide a mutually developed forum for connecting the Institute’s partners with WMU and the local community to build capacity to bridge divides in their many forms. In so doing, it seeks to rehumanize those with whom one disagrees.