Across the country, essential health and human service programs are being gutted. Authoritarian politics are reshaping public institutions and undermining basic rights. Climate disruption, housing crises, and rising inequality threaten the very communities nonprofits exist to serve.
In this moment of historic volatility, the nonprofit sector’s inability to fulfill its transformative potential isn’t just a missed opportunity; it’s a liability. The stakes for both the sector and society are high, yet our forums for renewal feel disconnected from the urgency of the times.
It’s not that nonprofits fail to deliver an invaluable public benefit. They are foundational to American civil society. Yet, in a rapidly changing environment, they are constrained — held back by the limitations of an outdated business model.
Read the entire commentary on Substack In The Center Lane With Herb Paine →
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Commentator Herb Paine says King Charles III's address to Congress last month was remarkable as an example of civic intelligence and an exhortation to defend democracy. -
Commentator Herb Paine on the troubling revival of capital punishment in the United States and Israel. -
In the midst of all the current social and political disruption, commentator Herb Paine takes a step back and reflect on how we shifted from an age of aspirations to an era of polarization. -
Commentator Herb Paine documents the Trump administration’s continuing campaign on what he calls "a coordinated effort to narrow, sanitize and control the stories Americans encounter about their own culture and history" and offers an "inventory" of the damage already done — and the implications of allowing it to continue. -
Commentator Herb Paine examines a crucial but under-explored dimension of the current moment: How the Jewish community responds ethically when Jewish continuity intersects with political power in Israel.
