Rebuilding Broken Systems

CHAPTER 1The System Is Broken, but We Can Fix It

“When you think about how financiers come in and fund things, there’s different types of financing for different functions in an entity or a business or an advancing project. And each one of these four, the corporate, the foundations, the nonprofit, the government has a piece of a puzzle to play to solve social ills and their money should come in differently.”

—Walter Lanier, President and CEO, Great Lakes Urban Empowerment Solutions

Hope or fear. Elation or despair. Confidence or anxiety. For many, the outcome of the 2024 US election placed you squarely on one side or the other of these extreme emotions. If there was one theme throughout the endless campaigning it was divisiveness. The polls, the pundits, and the loudest voices kept stressing how splintered we had become as a nation. There was even talk about a possible civil war.

It’s my belief that the serious fractures in democracy many are just now recognizing have been quietly but dramatically developing for decades. Since the 1980s we as a nation have drifted further away from supporting the balanced infrastructure a stable democracy depends upon: the strong, collaborative, and coordinated actions of philanthropy, nonprofits, government, and corporations. Despite the weakening or destruction of many institutions, these four types of institutions, working together and playing to their unique strengths, can meet all the needs of all citizens. That might sound overly hopeful, ...