The Next ‘Greatest Generation’

My parents’ generation has rightly been called the Greatest Generation. They overcame the Great Depression, defeated Hitler, and produced a middle class that was larger and more stable than any the world had ever known. They earned the title not only for their accomplishments but also for their attitude. For my parents, giving of themselves for family, community, and country was not a noble act; it was simply an expectation of what everyone should do. It came naturally to them as immigrants in this land they loved.

I was born near the end of World War II, in a coal-mining area in western Pennsylvania. In my family and millions of others, either you enlisted in the Armed Services or you manned (or womanned) jobs in the mines and factories to support the war effort. Uncle Sam needed all of us. We answered the call. A year after I was born, my family moved to Cleveland. When the coal industry imploded in the 1950s, our modest home became a boarding house for relatives who lost their jobs in the mines back in Pennsylvania. My cousins, all much older than I, would kiss their wives and children goodbye every Sunday night and drive to Cleveland for the week to work factory jobs, where they were housed and fed by my mother.

Today, America and its families are being tested again. Our young men and women in uniform are fighting two wars. Three of America’s largest industries — auto manufacturing, financial services, and real estate — are imploding. Unemployment is on the rise, expected to get much more severe. Families are losing their homes at record rates.

Every American is aware of the challenges we face, but that all-hands-on-deck, Rosie-the-Riveter attitude that I remember is strangely absent. Barack Obama understands this at a deep, personal level and is using the bully pulpit to call us to service as eloquently as John F. Kennedy once did.

But we have no right to expect miracles from President Obama. We in the nonprofit world have a critical role to play. Here’s what nonprofit leaders must do:

Reduce the rancor in this deeply divided nation. We can create the conditions in which rigorous, respectful debate can flourish and those with differences can work together effectively. For example:

• Foundations can make grants to foster greater collaboration among public-policy organizations that don’t often see eye to eye, such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress, and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Those institutions can do more to work together to establish the basic facts upon which moderates from both parties can act.
• Foundations and nonprofit organizations can work together to strengthen independent, nonpartisan reporting. Throughout American history, there has always been a place for partisan pamphleteering (what we now read in blogs, hear on talk radio, and watch on shouting-head cable shows). But the quality of our national dialogue will suffer greatly if high-standards journalism fades away because it simply can’t compete financially with shoot-from-the-hip commentary. In the online and offline world, we need neutral arbiters — not just partisan rants that harden ideological positions. One good example for us to follow is the nonprofit, independent newsroom ProPublica, founded by Herbert and Marion Sandler and other donors.

Promote greater openness about the way our political leaders make policy decisions. In addition, we should encourage governance that is not so easily perverted by narrow special interests. For example:

• We can do more to monitor and report on what is being proposed in legislation, executive orders, and agency regulations. With the online tools now available, every American should have the ability to track where and how special-interest lobbyists are exerting influence by pushing last-minute riders into legislation and other such political chicanery.
• We can support the development of creative new approaches to overhauling the campaign-finance system. As someone who comes from the world of business, I’ve never understood why Congress shouldn’t live under the common-sense conflict-of-interest rules that operate in America’s boardrooms: If legislators have received money from a special interest (either as an officeholder or as a candidate), then they should recuse themselves from voting on legislation that affects that interest. Perhaps it is naïve to think a rule like that could ever pass the Congress. But if it did, imagine how quickly corporate donations would dry up.

Mobilize Americans to contribute in all the ways they can to the efforts by national leaders to fix the nation’s problems. For example:

• Nonprofit groups can adopt the powerful online approach to community organizing that helped Barack Obama win the presidency. We can ask people for their help in ways that align well with their location, availability, interests, and abilities; lower the logistical barriers to participation; and then make them feel valued when they do. Better online tools can help with all of these vital steps.
• We can throw our support behind the Serve America Act, introduced last year by Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah. The legislation would greatly expand opportunities for people to serve at every stage of life and use service as a force for meeting important national challenges.

None of this is easy, but we see signs every day that the spirit of shared responsibility is alive and well.

“I’m not superheroic,” Paul Prunty, a 50-year-old, recently told a Los Angeles Times reporter after racing to the Anaheim Hills to help families devastated by wildfires. “But I know it’s not up to anybody else to make the world a better place. It’s up to me.”

The drive to give of ourselves runs deep in our many faith traditions, our families’ values, and our national history. I know we have it in us to be the next Great Generation. Now is our chance.

Mario Morino, a former software entrepreneur, is chairman of Venture Philanthropy Partners, in Washington.