“Democracy Is So Much Larger Than Politics”
In my last post, I highlighted the role and importance of network weavers. These are servant leaders who work behind the scenes with a wide range of institutions in civil society to help the whole become much more than the sum of their respective parts. In this post, we will hear from one of the most talented network weavers I know, Kristen Cambell, CEO of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, or PACE. I’ve referenced the organization’s terrific work previously. In the interview that follows, we learn how Kristen has helped the small but mighty team she leads and the broader network that PACE serves flourish. We also hear how she is sizing up the challenges that lie at the intersection of democracy, philanthropy, and civil society.
In a nutshell what is PACE's mission, and how do you carry it out?
Our mission is to help foundations and funders strengthen democracy and civic life in the U.S. The spirit and approach we take to our work is what we’ve come to call a “philanthropic laboratory”—a place where funders can learn things they might not otherwise learn, collaborate with peers who are like them and different than them, experiment to test hypotheses and new ways of giving, and to do all that in a way that models what vibrant civic space can look like. This manifests in two primary ways: by providing services and supports to our members, and through our programmatic learning streams where we engage the broader philanthropic field.
What do you see as the key success factors for funder alliances and affinity groups? How can they add the most value to their participants and the broader fields in which they work?
I think it is important for philanthropy-serving organizations to be clear about when you’re acting as an independent “voice” with your own (small-a) agenda, and when you are serving as a “venue” for members’ voices and priorities. We’ve tried to strike a balance of this at PACE, without ever suggesting that we speak on behalf of our members... it can be a fine line.
Also, it's become really important to me to continually ask “what is OURS to do?” When you have members, it can be really tempting to feel a responsibility to respond to all the things happening around you all the time. It’s overwhelming. But there is no end to the list of things we could be doing, so focusing on what PACE should do because of our unique positionality is key.
You have revitalized PACE both in terms of the number and mix of funders participating and the range of activities in which you are engaging them. In retrospect, what aspects of your leadership of PACE have proved to be most important in this revitalization?
That’s very kind of you to say. You’re right—we have grown a lot since I came into this role in 2015. We’re about 3x the membership, 3x the full-time staff, and 5x the budget. I wish I could say it was all me, but during this time, the importance of the issues we work on has really come into focus. When I started, I would get lots of “why do democracy and civic engagement matter?”-type questions… I don’t really get those anymore. The question has shifted to “how can I do it?” I’ve tried to help folks re-orient their thinking that this isn’t “nice” work that sits alongside the “necessary” work—it’s the necessary work that makes all the other necessary work possible.
I think two of my leadership qualities I find myself leaning on most heavily are pragmatism and listening. I would also say these are two attributes people have most tried to talk me out of in the last few years, for a lot of different reasons that we can discuss over a martini.
What do you see as the most important long-term challenge facing U.S. democracy, and what is the PACE community doing in response to it?
In my opinion, the conflation of democracy with politics is one of the biggest challenges to sustaining it. Democracy is so much larger than politics, and politics is so much larger than partisanship. I think we have to do a better job demarcating when we’re talking about what, otherwise we can create an idea or expectation that democracy is only working when we get the political wins we want, or that everything we don’t agree with is inherently anti-democratic.
That doesn’t mean political challenges we face aren’t real or serious threats to liberal democracy, or that policy outcomes don’t matter. But there is a lot of attention on that in our field right now. I worry we don’t focus enough on civil society—the parts of democracy, leadership, and active citizenship that may not involve government (or even institutions), but compel us toward a full spirit and vision of what it means to live in a self-governing society. Systems, processes, and institutions will only ever be as strong as the civic values, democratic culture, and social norms that surround them. Plus, we know that a strong civil society with a culture of problem solving provides an important bulwark against authoritarianism.
This is why two of PACE’s priority learning areas are social cohesion and civic education. I think these are two high-impact areas that don’t receive as much attention or investment as they should, but can have both near- and long-term impact on the fabric and functioning of democracy itself, as well as upholding the belief that living in a democracy matters and is worth strengthening.
One signature program of PACE in recent years has been the Faith In/And Democracy initiative. What prompted you to undertake this work, and what have you learned from it thus far?
I love this program so much. Two of our members sparked the idea for us. Basically they realized they had a mutual interest in the intersection of faith, religion, and democracy, and some modest discretionary resources to allocate to it, but not enough capacity or strategic alignment to do it themselves in a high-impact way. So they approached us about taking it on. They thought if PACE led it, we could do so in ways that would let them learn by “walking alongside us” and that it might essentially be a research and development mechanism for them to see how they might make it an internal priority. They also thought we could attract additional investment to leverage their resources to go further. I actually got my start in this field through an Americorps position doing interfaith volunteerism, so I was immediately intrigued by the focus.
Faith In/And Democracy is a pooled funding and learning initiative exploring how faith communities are engaging in democracy and bridge-building work. We felt like the dominant narrative about faith—particularly in the context of both philanthropy and democracy—was that it was a “problem to be solved for” and most often seen as a weapon to drive people apart rather than a constructive force to bridge divides.
We wanted to see how we could challenge and re-shape that perception by learning from people doing the work. It started it as a pilot 3 years ago with 2 core funders, 5 grantee partners, and $300,000. It grew into a full-fledged initiative and with support from 7 core funders, we just crossed the threshold of granting just over $1 million to 30 organizations.
We also administered a “Learning Community” to bring the funders and the grantees together to learn and share about the challenges and realities of working at the intersection of faith and democracy. We worked really hard to do this in a peer-oriented way that recognized that everyone had something to teach the group and something to learn from the group, so it provided a bit of a leadership development and relationship-building support to the participants, in addition to the funding.
We’re now shifting to sharing what we’ve learned to advocate for more funder investment at this intersection. In short, we’ve learned that nothing does what faith does the way faith does it. There is something about the power of faith, the purpose it instills in leaders, and the power of what it manifests in the world that is truly unique and a significantly under-tapped asset. We’re in the process right now of aggregating a whole landscape of empirical evidence to demonstrate this case, and I hope you’ll have me back to share more when it’s complete!
We will. In the meantime, thank you for all that you do and how you go about it. I appreciate your perspective on these issues. And I look forward to that martini!
