Daniel Stid

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Articles

Funding the Resistance Is Not a Winning Strategy. Here’s What Is.

Nov 7, 2024 | philanthropy.com | Daniel Stid

How should grant makers concerned about the health of democracy in America respond to the 2024 election? One response would be for them to counter-mobilize and once again join the vanguard of the resistance to Trumpian populism. This has been the strategy that many philanthropists and grantees working to defend democracy have pursued during the rise, fall, and resurgence of Donald Trump’s political fortunes.
The Meaning of Democracy in Nine Words — The Art of Association

Nov 4, 2024 | theartofassociation.org | Daniel Stid

With everything that appears to be at stake in this presidential election, it sounds off-key to refer to it as a coin-flip. But given the odds of either candidate and party prevailing over their opponents, that is what it is. The situation has prompted me to return to a pithy definition of democracy from the political scientist Adam Przeworski: “Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections.” The simplicity of these nine words is deceptive.
Five FAQs About “Taking Democracy for Granted” — The Art of Association

Sep 30, 2024 | theartofassociation.org | Daniel Stid

As I had hoped, my recent SNF Agora Institute report, “Taking Democracy for Granted: Philanthropy, Polarization, and the Need for Responsible Pluralism,” is prompting spirited exchanges. Several recurring themes have emerged in webinars, workshops, zooms, and conversations about the report. Across these discussions, multiple people have asked me some variant of the following five questions:Isn’t the big problem here left-of-center philanthropists and the groups they support?
A framework for democracy philanthropy

Aug 22, 2024 | thefulcrum.us | Daniel Stid

Stid is the executive director of Lyceum Labs, a fiscally sponsored project of the Defending Democracy Together Institute. It is challenging for philanthropic funders to get started and stay focused when it comes to strengthening democracy. The vagaries of our political system — really a complex system of systems cast on a continental scale — make it hard to know where to even begin. There are dozens of solutions that could be worthy of support.
A Framework for Democracy Philanthropy

Aug 20, 2024 | cep.org | Daniel Stid

This post originally appeared on The Art of Association blog. It is challenging for philanthropic funders to get started and stay focused when it comes to strengthening democracy. The vagaries of our political system — really a complex system of systems cast on a continental scale — make it hard to know where even to begin. There are dozens of solutions that could be worthy of support. Alas, none are backed by dispositive evidence indicating that they are the single-best way forward.
Leading to Govern

Jun 11, 2024 | democracyjournal.org | Daniel Stid |Debbie Cox Bultan

The current moment may seem like an odd time to herald a promising renewal of political leadership in the United States. In the presidential election, two men—one in his ninth decade, the other about to enter it—will stage a rematch of their dispiriting 2020 contest. As of May, their favorability ratings remain submerged in the low 40 percent range. One candidate tried and failed to overturn the last election.
Charitable Donors Operating in the Shadows Push Our Politics to the Extremes

May 2, 2024 | philanthropy.com | Daniel Stid

Philanthropists seeking to bolster U.S. democracy are pulling out the stops in the run-up to the election. Based on a recent Democracy Fund report, we can expect that annual funding to support democracy will exceed $3 billion this year.
Solving for Pattern in Democracy and Civic Life–In Kentucky and Elsewhere — The Art of Association

Mar 13, 2024 | theartofassociation.org | Daniel Stid

In February, on a sunny afternoon that broke open a gray stretch of winter, I decided to go outside and take a walk while doing a phone call. I was catching up with Savannah Barrett, co-founder of the Kentucky Rural Urban Exchange (RUX), to learn more about the organization’s work. Each year for more than a decade, RUX has engaged a diverse cohort of Kentuckians from all across the Commonwealth and brought them together in a series of weekend gatherings.
The Uniquely American Classical-Education Movement

Dec 10, 2023 | nationalaffairs.com | Howe Whitman III |Daniel Wiser |Micah Meadowcroft |Daniel Stid

December 10, 2023 Classical schools are distinctly American. Just as our country was founded both as a modern engineering project and as a recollection of ancient political philosophy and the traditional rights of Englishmen, the contemporary classical-education movement is an act of construction — one might say an invented tradition — seeking to revivify and participate in something that once lived, and perhaps could again.
We Need a Bigger Boat to Revitalize U.S. Democracy—Here Are Three Ways We Can Start Building It — The Art of Association

Dec 1, 2023 | theartofassociation.org | Daniel Stid

In less than a year, Americans appear likely to elect either Joe Biden or Donald Trump to a second term as president. To be sure, a lot could happen in the meantime, especially with an 81-year-old tackling the world’s toughest job and a 77-year-old facing ninety-one felony counts in four different trials. But we may re-do the nail-biting 2020 election. We could get a different outcome this time. Polls indicate that, were the election held today, it would effectively be a coin flip.