“There are millions being left behind,” Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) Executive Director Ryan Stowers told an interviewer earlier this year. Stowers was discussing postsecondary education specifically, but that statement rings true for all of CKF’s focus areas. A top down health care system has not improved well-being or access to care, for example, and divisive rhetoric has created … Continued
Years of tough on crime policies have harmed families and neighborhoods without making them safer. To understand how government can better serve communities, New York University School of Law’s Policing Project has launched Reimagining Public Safety (RPS), an initiative to learn from and support jurisdictions redesigning their public safety systems. An important component of RPS is to … Continued
There is talent and opportunity everywhere, but too often businesses and people lack the tools necessary to understand where unique skills and aptitudes can be leveraged. Their systems are too focused on credentials and not enough on actual skills that people possess. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (USCCF) is working to solve this problem … Continued
Sam Staley is director of Florida State University’s (FSU) DeVoe L. Moore Center, an interdisciplinary, applied public policy research and teaching center in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy that examines how the private sector can address pressing local concerns. In addition to running the center, Staley teaches upper level undergraduate and professional masters … Continued
by Daniel J. Smith In 2011, I was flying back and forth between Joplin, Mo. and Tuscaloosa, Ala. following those cities’ devastating tornadoes. I was conducting field research to determine how communities can better prepare and respond to future disasters. I kept hearing community leaders discuss the problems that in-kind donations like clothing, shoes, and other … Continued
By Bruce Caldwell Three thinkers who have written about the ideas that are most likely to spur bottom up improvement in peoples’ everyday lives are Friedrich Hayek, Frédéric Bastiat, and Adam Smith. What they wrote so long ago still resonates today, but for our purposes let’s concentrate mostly on one. The social theorist and Nobel laureate … Continued
Americans are worried about polarization and what it means for our friendships, families, and, certainly, our society. For people to come together to solve pressing challenges, we need to trust each other. Is that coming together possible in our current moment? From what we’re reading, the answer is yes. We think we’re more divided than we actually are. … Continued
Federal data indicates there are more than 10 million jobs that employers need to fill right now. Many of these positions are at thriving companies. In fact, it’s estimated there are 680,000 jobs that do not require a college degree open now at Fortune 500 firms. Meanwhile, there are millions of Americans living in marginalized communities who have … Continued
By Ilana Redstone Many instructors of social science research methods caution students that correlation doesn’t equal causation. In other words, just because two factors are related to one another doesn’t mean that one caused the other. As important as this reminder is, it doesn’t go far enough. Rather than passively bearing this instruction in mind, students … Continued
By Kevin Vallier Free societies need social trust — the faith that strangers will follow established norms. Researchers have found that social trust advances human well-being. It helps create markets and wealth, manage corruption, and spur a robust civil society. It can even improve our psychological health. But social trust has an under-appreciated feature: it … Continued
