Category: kettering
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What Should We Do About the Opioid Epidemic? — New Issue Advisory from the National Issues Forums Institute
I am pleased to announce a new “issue advisory” that is available as a free download (or fold-out hard copy) from the National Issues Forums Institute titled What Should We Do About the Opioid Epidemic? I am proud of my role in helping develop this resource. The Kettering Foundation researches and develops issue frameworks like this one…
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The Apparatus
There is a memorable scene in Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series The Newsroom. It is the culmination of an ongoing argument between Jim Harper and Hallie Shea: Harper is a national network TV news producer and Shea is a correspondent-turned-blogger. In the 3rd season episode “Contempt,” Harper and Shea are arguing over whether Shea was right…
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Machinebrain, Gardenbrain, Forestbrain
Some of my friends may have heard me refer to “machinebrain” and “gardenbrain” in conversation over the past few months. This idea is taken from Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer’s The Gardens of Democracy, in which they argue that a new way of thinking about social systems needs to be developed. Liu and Hanauer contrast a…
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Robert J. Kingston, RIP
RIP Bob Kingston, 1929-2016. A longtime colleague — one of my teachers in the craft and science of framing public issues — has passed over the weekend. He was a giant in the world in which I work. I treasure the many projects we worked on together — him gently yet forcefully guiding a young…
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What Do I Do?
As most of my friends and colleagues know, I am a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. Even though it has “foundation” in its name, Kettering is best described as a “research institute.” (We aren’t a grant maker.) As a program officer, I am responsible for one or more portfolios of research. This begs the question: What…
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Shared Problems and Public Deliberation
I recently began thinking about different ways to convey the nature of problems that are suited to public deliberation, and I had an insight that I could draw a picture of those two different dimensions. I scrawled this down on a scrap of paper, but more recently I’ve tried to make it clearer. This is…
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Immigration: Stalemate or Progress?
The way difficult issues like immigration are framed by policy leaders and experts is often at odds, or at least out of step with, the way in which people see those issues. Where the dominant political discourse frequently sees conflict, people in communities are wrestling with tensions among the things they hold valuable. The question…
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A Guide to Framing Issues for Public Deliberation
People often talk about issue framing as some kind of specialized skill that only certain people can do — or that takes huge amounts of money, people, time, and other resources. But we’ve learned that it is relatively straightforward and really just takes a careful attentiveness to a few principles and key ideas.
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New Report: Philanthropy and the Limits of Accountability
I’m delighted to announce the publication of a new report, a joint effort by the Kettering Foundation and Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE), of which I am the author. Philanthropy and the Limits of Accountability: A Relationship of Respect and Clarity explores how the field of organized philanthropy might think about responding to a growing movement for…
Brad Rourke 