Thought leadership is a potentially powerful instrument for impact leaders, servicing a range of goals like increasing credibility and exposure within an organization, advancing an ambitious goal, or influencing the direction of others in the field. But how should social impact leaders sharpen their voices and expand their platforms in a noisy environment? What outlets, formats, and stages are best for advancing their ideas and reaching the right audiences. Navigating this information environment requires clarity of message, smart positioning, and strategic amplification.
On December 9, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable dedicated to unpacking how members can build and elevate their thought leadership platforms. The conversation that resulted helped to simplify complex ideas, provided instruction on how to lead with empathy, and sparked fresh thinking in a complicated and evolving landscape.
Some of the most salient takeaways from the conversation appear below:
Key takeaways
Start by influencing one key decision-maker when proposing large-scale, systems change initiatives at your organization. Build a relationship with a strategically positioned stakeholder, learn their priorities, and frame your ideas in the language they use to make decisions.
Speak the business language to gain traction internally. Translate sustainability or impact goals into financial or operational terms so cross-functional partners can see relevance and value.
Simplify and adjust your message to your audiences. Clarify the core idea, eliminate jargon, and communicate in a way that your CEO, finance colleague, etc. can understand and replicate.
Lead with authenticity and show your humanity. Share what’s working and where you’re still learning; honest reflection builds trust and credibility far more than polished corporate messaging.
Anchor your message in emotion and empathy, not just logic. If you want to move people at scale, connect to what they care about, evoke feelings, and make the desired action personally meaningful.
Pair measurement with storytelling to move internal stakeholders. Reporting on rigorous data and outcomes builds confidence with executives, but individual impact stories are often what unlock buy-in and sustain momentum.
Use a clear, compelling call to action and amplify it. Don’t just share an idea; articulate what you want people to do next, make that action as simple as possible, and reinforce it across channels.
Don’t be afraid to disrupt familiar patterns. Fresh language, unexpected framing, or new forms of collaboration can break through cognitive fatigue and open space for people to think differently.
In the third quarter of 2025, the NationSwell Council embarked on a journey across America for a Salon series dedicated to exploring The Power of Collaboration.
In an age of challenges too big for any one leader or sector to solve alone — including climate change, immigration, inequality, public health, democratic decline, and technologies advancing faster than our institutions can adapt — the way forward can only be found through deep connection and collaboration.
The Salon series served as a vehicle to connect us with some of the standout collaborations and unlikely partnerships that have become essential to unlocking new possibilities, outcomes, and solutions. Participating leaders shared with candor and courage, helping us to spark meaningful connections, fresh insights, and deeper relationships across the groups we met with.
In the following sections, we’re excited to present a curated collection of the insights and essential resources we’ve distilled from these conversations.
Key Insights:
Scale Boldly Through Cross-Sector Partnerships. Nonprofits must consider mergers, acquisitions, and coalitions designed for greater impact amid sector contraction and wealth inequality. Change is multi-racial, intergenerational, and cross-sectoral, and engagement should involve full leadership teams—not just select executives.
Share Power With Youth and Next-Gen Leaders. Movements are most relevant and sustainable when youth have true decision-making roles. Carefully defining “youth” shapes both funding and strategy. Mental health is a core priority, and initiatives like a Youth Mental Health Corps could expand both impact and workforce diversity.
Build Trust Through Proximity. As trust in institutions declines, leaders should create solutions with communities—not just for them. Practices like focus groups, co-design, and candid dialogue foster authenticity and trust, though they’re underused in many nonprofits.
Expand What Counts as Care. Solving the youth mental health crisis means recognizing care can be provided well beyond traditional therapy. Healing shows up through nature, group activities like GirlTrek, workplace programs, or caring mentors outside the family.Shift Mindsets and Culture
Lasting change grows from culture as much as strategy. That involves radical support, shared leadership, and welcoming discomfort as a catalyst for transformation. Philanthropy’s convention of “lifetime leadership” makes power transitions complex—but with widespread discomfort, now is the time to embrace new possibilities.
Effective collaborations grow from trust, where resources are shared in flexible, unrestricted ways rather than bound by rigid requirements.
Micro-philanthropy and community-driven giving demonstrate how modest yet rapid investments can fill urgent gaps and scale across contexts.
Cross-boundary partnerships—among nonprofits, employers, service providers, and connective platforms—generate more comprehensive impact by addressing both immediate needs and long-term opportunities.
Collective action helps tackle structural barriers no organization can overcome alone, such as inequitable access to financial and social capital.
Shifting from individual success metrics to collective ROI elevates community well-being alongside financial outcomes. This mindset enables creativity in partnership, aligning corporations, grassroots groups, and others around shared goals.
Innovation often emerges when “unlikely but powerful partners”—such as technology firms with nonprofits or philanthropy with grassroots coalitions—unite. These unconventional alliances unlock advantages rooted in diversity, shared purpose, and integrated action.
Building platforms for direct, transparent resource exchanges will strengthen collaboration by fostering trust.
Expanding community-driven giving models can create more resilient systems of support, whether in education, workforce, or beyond.
The pace of change in the workforce is high. Artificial intelligence, demographic shifts, economic uncertainty, and other disruptive forces are reshaping the jobs of tomorrow, redefining the skills employees need, and challenging employers to build stronger, more adaptable talent pipelines.
On December 2, in partnership with our Workforce Innovation Collaborative, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable designed to bring together impact leaders across sectors to surface the most promising models, partnerships, and strategies shaping the future of work. Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below:
Key Takeaways:
Normalize many paths over one pipeline. The four-year degree can’t be the only story we tell about success; apprenticeships and tech training need equal visibility. When young people can stack paid work, credentials, and education in parallel, they build higher earning power and employers gain a real, renewable talent strategy instead of a nice-to-have program.
Treat talent as a system, not a series of programs. The bright spots aren’t isolated pilots, but sector-level models where industry, K–12, higher ed, philanthropy, and government rewire how they work together. When employers define skills, commit to hires, and co-fund shared infrastructure, training stops being philanthropy and starts being core business.
Make AI a muscle everyone builds instead of a specialty held by few. AI “readiness” requires weaving tools, experimentation, and ethics into every role, curriculum, and career stage. When learners and employees practice using role-specific AI in real workflows, they show up as operators and co-designers in a rapidly changing economy.
Design for a figure-eight career. The new reality is looping: people move into a role, come back for training, pivot to a new role, and repeat. Workforce systems should celebrate these shifts, provide ongoing upskilling, and build clear internal pathways.
Meet emerging workers where they are. Gen Z expects mobile-first, gamified, peer-driven experiences that help them explore, belong, and level up. Career hubs, points, leaderboards, reels, and mentors – especially when built by young people – translate opaque industries like technicians, data centers, and advanced manufacturing into tangible and desirable futures.
Center narrative, transparency, and trust in the AI era. There’s a growing gap between expert optimism about AI and everyday workers’ questions about surveillance, environmental impact, and job security. Leaders who listen continuously, speak plainly about how tools are used, and invite employees into shaping guardrails can turn anxiety into agency.
Build for scale by proving ROI and impact. Philanthropy can ignite innovation, but durable solutions hinge on employer investment tied to clear returns. When companies can see and measure how apprenticeships, scholarships, and AI-enabled matching drive productivity and retention, “workforce of the future” shifts from a social good project to a competitive advantage.
On November 18, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable dedicated to unpacking how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we work, communicate, and create impact. From advancing organizational efficiency to reshaping advocacy and service delivery, AI holds enormous potential — and raises equally pressing questions around ethics, equity, and governance.
Some of the most salient takeaways from the conversation appear below:
Key takeaways
Treat AI adoption as a culture-change initiative, not just a tech rollout. Invest in thoughtful change-management strategies: designate AI champions, embed AI into everyday workflows, and ensure all staff achieve at least baseline competency through training.
Build an AI Champion network to accelerate culture change. Identify early adopters across functions and empower them to model practical use cases, lead demonstrations, and mentor peers. Champions make AI visible and approachable, increasing the likelihood of shifting day-to-day behaviors.
Recognize that this moment requires upskilling and unlearning. Encourage teams to move beyond legacy workflows and reimagine how work gets done with AI as a strategic partner. Beyond technical training, this requires a mindset and behavioral shift that fosters adaptability and continuous learning.
Establish clear policies to guide responsible, mission-aligned AI use. Staff need clarity on what is encouraged, allowed, and off-limits. Transparent guardrails reduce anxiety, build trust, and empower teams to deploy AI confidently and ethically.
Enable each team to define AI applications relevant to their work. Functions such as philanthropy, marketing, compliance, and operations will leverage AI differently. Facilitating team-specific exploration uncovers meaningful use cases that improve workflows and drive impact.
Clarify AI’s sustainability footprint to remove barriers. Many hesitations arise from misconceptions. Provide accurate context on energy use, environmental impact, and organizational commitments, ensuring sustainability concerns do not hinder adoption.
Identify opportunities where AI can deliver strategic value. Look for high-volume, operational, or repetitive tasks where AI can save time, enhance rigor, and create consistency, freeing teams to focus on higher-impact work.
Place-based initiatives often begin with promising pilots, but the real challenge lies in building models that endure, evolve, and create lasting change for communities. From knowing when to sunset a project, to adapting an initiative as conditions shift, or to nurture long-term, community-driven impact, place-based work raises important questions about what success truly looks like. Should scale always be the goal—or are shifts in power and resources, and other changes representative of deeper measures of progress?
On November 13, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable event designed to explore what it takes to move beyond the pilot phase and built place-based impact that lasts. Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below:
Center on-the-ground leadership and lived experience. Effective place-based work starts with local leaders, residents, and young people as co-designers and decision-makers, not just “voices in the room.” When communities define the problems, interpret the data, and choose strategies, funders are able to support work that is more trusted, relevant, and durable.
Shift from standalone projects to long-term strategies. Moving from a collection of disconnected pilots to a portfolio and strategy approach allows leaders to track progress over time, reallocate resources, and adapt without “killing” programs overnight. This zoomed-out view makes it easier to align partners around shared outcomes.
Treat scale as systems change, not just numbers served. In place-based work, scale often looks like stronger civic infrastructure, policy shifts, better-aligned funding streams, and new local capacities, rather than big “vanity” reach numbers. What equally matters is what lasts after a grant cycle ends: local organizations that can attract new resources, shared data systems, and cross-sector tables that keep working.
Lead with values over metrics and logic models. Shared guiding principles – such as non-negotiable youth leadership, community involvement in all decisions, and non-extractive partnership – create the trust and alignment needed for complex collaborations. When values are explicit, they shape governance, grantmaking practices, and how power is shared between parties.
Use national power to open doors, not dictate direction. Large institutions can add enormous value by validating local models, attracting co-funders, and lending policy or communications support. But they don’t need to dictate the agenda. Showing up with humility, naming reputational or political risks transparently, and “walking alongside” community partners helps make sure big brands amplify local leadership instead of overshadowing it.
Standardize the framework but localize the solution. What transfers across communities is the evidence base, theory of change, and shared indicators for success; what must be locally tailored are the specific strategies and programs. The work is a continuous loop: look at the data, ground-truth it with residents, choose evidence-informed approaches that fit local realities, test, learn, and adapt.
Measure both the journey and the destination. Robust, shared data systems are important, but so are simple, practical signals: who’s showing up, which relationships are forming, and whether local leaders feel more connected and capable. Tracking process indicators alongside long-term outcomes helps manage leadership expectations, tells a more honest story of progress, and keeps everyone committed to the multi-year horizon real systems change requires.
On November 12, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable dedicated to examining what’s ahead for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Amid a turbulent year for DEI, the discussion was designed to unpack the pressures, highlight innovative responses, and surface practical strategies that enable organizations to safeguard hard-won gains, navigate uncertainty, and continue advancing more equitable workplaces and communities.
Some of the most salient takeaways from the event appear below:
Key takeaways
Maintain progress over posture. It’s critical to make progress, not a just point—staying committed to tangible outcomes rather than symbolic gestures. This mindset demands both courage and strategy: being careful not to obey in advance to external pressures or political headwinds that discourage action.
Focus on the problem you’re solving: access, opportunity, and shared prosperity to strengthen its staying power. Get clear about naming the challenges you’re solving, like inequitable access to capital or opportunity, rather than centering the focus solely on identity. This approach to language helps protect the intent of the work while expanding its reach and legitimacy across audiences.
Reimagine investment for systemic impact. Practitioners are aligning the levers of philanthropy with the principles of venture capital, while ensuring that the return on investment accrues to the communities themselves. This means mobilizing catalytic capital that addresses the intersections of material conditions such as housing, economic mobility, and entrepreneurship.
Embed equity into leadership and institutional DNA. The shift from programmatic to executive–led initiatives ensures accountability at the highest levels. By developing collectives of teams and integrating initiatives across business units, companies can ensure inclusive work becomes a shared operational responsibility and cannot easily be targeted, defunded, or liable to scrutiny.
Build local, cross-functional ecosystems to spread the risk and keep moving forward. Leaders are forging stronger alignment among legal, compliance, communications, and other teams—working in lockstep to mitigate risk without compromising purpose. The question is not whether risk exists, but who can take on what risks, and where the risks lie. Consider which local partners you can work with to keep pushing beyond where your organization is able. Ask yourself: what costs are we willing to bear to uphold our values? And what do we lose if we don’t?
Adapt and sustain commitments amid scrutiny. Even as language shifts and brand sensitivity heightens, the overwhelming majority (94% of purpose-driven companies) continue the work. Many are increasing investment in ERGs, volunteering, and community engagement because changing words, not work, allows employees to feel continuity of mission while maintaining public trust and compliance.
A strong future hinges learning from our past, and having the courage for tomorrow. “History is repeating and rhyming, and it’s a great teacher.” By staying committed to the work while strategically responding to external conditions, organizations can thrive amid headwinds. Communicating clearly about what is changing and what remains constant, helps counter perceptions of retreat, while sharing authentic stories of impact reinforces enduring credibility.
In today’s fractured attention economy, advancing policy and advocacy goals has never been more complex. For impact leaders, breaking through the noise requires new strategies to connect with hard-to-reach audiences, build trust across divides, and mobilize stakeholders around urgent issues.
During a November 4 virtual Leader Roundtable, participants explored how leaders are navigating these challenges and reimagining advocacy for the current moment, examining the innovative approaches to earning attention, translating awareness into action, and ultimately driving meaningful change.
Some of the most salient insights from the conversation appear below:
Key takeaways:
Effective advocacy begins with reframing, not resistance. When audiences arrive with hardened beliefs, direct confrontation rarely works. The most persuasive advocates find new points of entry — rephrasing the question, offering a story, or isolating a single relatable detail. Shifting the frame in this way can help to bypass defensiveness and move people from ideology to empathy.
Small numbers, clearly told, drive disproportionate impact. In an age of data overload, specificity is what lands. Audiences can’t meaningfully conceptualize millions or billions, but they can relate to the story of a family trying to eat on $2 a meal. The same principle applies to action: small repeatable steps — writing one email, attending one meeting — build the muscle memory that sustains movements over time.
Authenticity is operational, not aesthetic. For mission-driven companies, credibility isn’t a tone of voice, it’s an infrastructure. True authenticity comes from governance models, internal accountability, and consistency across decades, not from reacting to what’s trending. The most resilient organizations root their advocacy in explicit values and distribute ownership across teams so that no single marketing cycle or leadership change can dilute the mission.
Action is the currency of trust. Many organizations talk about values, but far fewer design concrete actions that invite participation. The strongest campaigns make it easy for people to act — not just to emote — and measure success by policy, practice, and participation rather than by clicks or sentiment. Over time, that clarity of purpose builds deeper loyalty than any consumer-facing brand push. One member pointed out that organizing is a ladder and not plank: once an individual takes an action, they are more likely to take another, but are less likely to jump from the bottom rung to the top.
Inside large organizations, effective advocacy depends on internal rigor. One participant described a “scorecard” framework that guides crisis-response across marketing, comms, policy, and philanthropy. Each potential intervention is scored on employee, customer, and corporate impact, which enables the company to move quickly while maintaining transparency and fairness. This kind of cross-functional infrastructure transforms reactive decision-making into principled, replicable action.
Speed and alignment are as important as intent. In the wake of any crisis, momentum is everything. When systems are pre-built and ownership is distributed, teams can mobilize in hours instead of days — ensuring that compassion isn’t slowed by bureaucracy. The organizations that respond best have built their playbooks long before they’re tested.
Digital should drive people towards community, not away from it. While online engagement remains vital, younger generations increasingly crave in-person organizing — IRL spaces to connect, learn, and interact away from screens. The next wave of advocacy will merge the reach of new digital frontiers with the depth of human connection.
Clarity and courage still cut through the noise best. In a saturated attention economy, the most enduring messages are the ones that blend moral clarity with concise storytelling. Whether addressing AI ethics, social justice, or climate resilience, audiences are drawn to organizations that speak with conviction and lead with transparency.
Hope isn’t naive — it’s strategic. At a time of polarization and fatigue, hope is a mobilizing force in and of itself. By naming progress, celebrating persistence, and grounding advocacy in tangible wins, leaders can replenish the emotional reserves that movements depend on.
When it comes to data: Show, don’t tell. When complex systems are made visible, they become impossible to ignore. Mapping inequities or visualizing unseen harms helps people understand scale and proximity, transforming abstraction into urgency and urgency into action.
Collective action provides a pathway to greater scale, durability, and innovation. It also distributes and mitigates some of the risks that can undermine or deter individualized approaches. But what are the most successful, proven, and accessible forms of collective action in practice today? Which examples can we look to for how various models work at their best? And what should impact leaders be asking and weighing when determining the best ways to advance shared goals with would-be collaborators?
On October 30, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable dedicated to exploring The State of Collective Action by introducing new analysis on the most prevalent models for collaboration, sharing a new resource designed to help leaders identify which approaches best fits their goals, and spotlighting other ways we’re helping you spark connection and partnership within our ecosystem.
Some of the most salient insights from the discussion appear below:
Key takeaways
The field is evolving from “should collaborate” to “must collaborate.” With accelerating technological change and complex social challenges, collaboration is shifting from a desirable practice to a core strategic capability. Leaders reflected on when to launch new coalitions, when to join existing ones, when to sunset from partnerships, and how to balance urgency with sustainability.
Collective action requires clear structure and governance. Coalitions succeed when they establish shared purpose, defined roles, transparent governance, and mechanisms for accountability. Structure promotes consistency, momentum, and alignment across diverse partners.
Collaboration frameworks help leaders choose the right model. Taxonomies, like that contained in NationSwell’s new resource on collective action models, and playbooks for collaborative work are helping the field gain clarity on when to convene, when to follow, and when to partner. These models guide decisions on structure, decision-rights, and stewardship, reducing duplication and increasing efficiency.
Equity must be a design principle. Lower barriers to entry and open pathways for smaller organizations, grassroots partners, and historically under-resourced communities to meaningfully participate. Flexible funding, capacity building, and intentional inclusion practices are essential.
Trust and relationship-building are core infrastructure. Sustained and equitable collaboration is rooted in trust. Transparent communication, shared decision-making, and ongoing engagement build the social capital needed to navigate tension, share power, and stay aligned through long-term systems-change efforts.
Resource the work behind the work. Collective success depends on establishing resourcing backbone functions such as convening, coordination, communications, and shared measurement. Micro-grants and operational support help ensure all partners can contribute fully.
Measure what matters. Participants noted that impact measurement remains a difficult yet important aspect of effective collaboration. Ideally, partners should identify their key leading and lagging indicators at the outset of an initiative, ensuring transparency and accountability from the beginning.
Eighty percent of health outcomes are shaped by social drivers, not just clinical care. But too often, investments overlook community-based solutions that prioritize gaps in trust, access, and care. In this NationSwell virtual roundtable, we’ll explore how cross-sector leaders can elevate, resource, and integrate the approaches communities already trust – building a stronger, more human-centered health system in the process.
On October 14, NationSwell hosted a candid virtual conversation on the journey toward health equity: how to identify and support proven, underinvested solutions – such as Community Health Workers; how to invest effectively in the social determinants of health; and ways to strengthen your impact through practical strategies, peer-tested insights, and emerging norms.
Some of the most salient insights from the discussion appear below:
Key takeaways
Invest in the workforce that builds trust where systems cannot. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are essential to closing care gaps in rural and underserved areas. Their deep community ties, cultural fluency, and lived experience make them uniquely equipped to connect people to care.
Offer sustained funding for CHWs. Grants are part of the solution, as is Medicaid reimbursement; but for communities to truly thrive with help from CHWs, we need to start integrating CHWs into public health solutions that are sustainably funded. First port of call: Connect with your local CHW networks and support their work on this mission.
Keep care rooted in the community, not clinic-bound. As healthcare systems integrate CHWs, maintaining their proximity to communities—not just clinical settings—protects the authenticity that makes their work effective. Additionally, the human connection CHWs provide ensures that technology and convenience don’t replace trust and understanding. Over-medicalizing their role risks diluting the very trust and creativity that make their work transformative.
Pair digital literacy with inclusion. From patients and caregivers to CHWs themselves, digital literacy determines whether emerging health tools close gaps or widen them. Building confidence, access, and comfort with digital health platforms is essential to realizing the promise of tech-enabled care.
Care for the workers. CHWs often absorb community trauma and carry the emotional weight of their work, all while navigating precarious pay and limited protections as a predominantly female workforce. Sustaining this workforce requires mental health support, fair compensation, and respect for their labor.
Let lived experience lead policy and partnership. CHWs bring generational wisdom and firsthand knowledge that should inform every level of system design—from funding to regulation. Creating spaces where CHWs co-lead with clinical and policy leaders ensures decisions reflect reality, not assumption.
Lean into urgent needs that CHWs are uniquely positioned to address. The aging population brings strain on “sandwich generation” caregivers, the need to create “hospital at home”, and a social connection crisis for older Americans. CHWs are uniquely able to support
Build a common table for collective progress. Advancing health equity demands cross-sector collaboration grounded in shared definitions and mutual respect. When CHWs shape the future of their profession alongside healthcare, corporate, and policy partners, we build not just better programs—but the health system the world needs next.
On a crisp October morning in New York, more than 250 leaders came together for NationSwell Summit 2025, united by this year’s theme: Together — a call to move beyond silos and into shared purpose. Across the day’s sessions — which spanned across the challenges of childhood in the age of social media and community transformation to healing through sport, collective action, and the future of work — speakers returned to a single truth: our shared progress depends on partnership.
The day’s conversations invited participants to reimagine how we govern technology, build workplaces that nurture every kind of talent, and invest in the local trust and shared purpose that make lasting change possible. Our Impact Spotlights served as powerful and emotional reminders of the good work happening in this community, and included: It’s Time to Make Connection a Cause, featuring Aaron Hurst, U.S. Chamber of Connection; What Teachers Are Telling Us, featuring Alix Guerrier, DonorsChoose; In This Lifetime — Structural Change, Strategy, and Belief, featuring DeRay Mckesson, Campaign Zero; Collaborative Action: Strengthening Public Health by Integrating CHWs featuring Barb Short, Sanofi andDenise Octavia Smith, MBA, CHW, PN, National Association of CHWS; Neurodiversity & The Future of Business, featuring Nathan Friedman, Understood.org; Opening Doors to the AI Economy, featuring Nicole Johnson, Cadence Design Systems and Cadence Giving Foundation; and Together in Action: Unlocking the Power of Corporate Philanthropy, featuring Dale Strange, Blackbaud.
In case you were not able to be with us in the room — or if you’d simply like to revisit the day’s events — we’ve recapped several Summit sessions below:
1. NationSwell’s Book of the Year: The Anxious Generation by Dr. Jonathan Haidt
Featuring: Dr. Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation
Moderated by: Margot Brandenberg, Ford Foundation
“If aliens landed here and we didn’t understand them, would we send our kids off to play with them? Hell no. But that’s what we’re doing with artificial intelligence, and at warp speed.”
— Dr. Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation
Technology has accelerated beyond our social evolution, eroding the very institutions that once bound us together. Humans are deeply social creatures who developed systems like democracy, education, and the rule of law in order to cooperate with each other at scale. But the rapid pace of technological change, especially through social media and AI, is destabilizing those social bonds faster than society can adapt.
The greatest threat posed by modern technology is that it makes us less reliant on each other. Where we once depended on relationships for knowledge, connection, and decision-making, we now turn to machines and algorithms. This erosion of interdependence undermines empathy, belonging, and the shared fabric of human life, especially among younger generations.
The smartphone marks a generational rupture unlike any before. The sharp divide between those who went through adolescence before versus after 1995, when smartphones became ubiquitous, has created the first truly distinct digital generation. Rates of anxiety, depression, and dysfunction rise steeply beginning with this cohort, particularly among girls.
Girls are being crushed under the social and emotional weight of social media, while boys are disappearing into digital addiction. Girls’ mental health suffers from social comparison, online bullying, and exposure to predatory or appearance-based content. Boys, meanwhile, retreat into gaming, pornography, and sports betting — activities that hijack dopamine systems and stunt social and emotional development.
Parents are caught in a collective-action trap, each feeling powerless to resist norms everyone privately disapproves of. Most children admit they dislike social media but feel compelled to use it to avoid being left out. Families acting alone feel “cruel” denying their kids phones; only collective, community-level norms can reset expectations and make restraint the default.
Four collective-action norms can restore real childhood and social connection:
No smartphones before high school.
No social media before 16.
Phone-free schools.
More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
According to Haidt, these shifts would re-anchor children in lived experience rather than addictive digital feedback loops.
Passive screen time isn’t inherently harmful — but solitary, interactive screen time is. Shared story-based experiences, like movie nights, nurture imagination and moral reasoning. The danger lies in touchscreens that deliver rapid, isolated, reward-based stimuli — training children’s brains for distraction and consumption rather than focus and empathy.
Mothers have emerged as the unexpected vanguard of reform. Across political lines, grassroots groups of mothers have organized text threads, reading groups, and policy campaigns pushing for phone-free schools and age restrictions. This movement’s bipartisan momentum signals widespread cultural readiness for change.
AI poses the same relational threats as social media, but on a far greater scale and at warp speed. AI companions already draw teens away from human relationships. Unlike past technologies, AI evolves autonomously and exponentially, with little oversight or liability, amplifying the risks to truth, empathy, and social cohesion.
Children are not small adults, and AI should not be tested on them. While AI can be a powerful tool for adults, it risks replacing essential developmental struggle with servitude and dependency in children. Until its effects are understood, the safest role for AI in childhood is none.
Hope lies in collective resistance and community-based action. The success of parent-led campaigns to limit smartphone and social-media use proves society can move quickly when unified. If we can win this fight for childhood, it will build the civic muscle needed to confront even larger challenges — like AI — together.
2. The Power of Place: Community-Driven Impact in Action
Featuring: Tonya Allen, McKnight Foundation; Kwame Owusu-Kesse, Harlem Children’s Zone
Moderated by: Amy Lee, NationSwell
“Together is actually more than a theme. Given the times that we are in, it’s basically a survival tactic. The idea of togetherness is a prerequisite of the work; it’s where transformation endures — understanding that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. If we want to move the country forward toward pathways of excellence, it is a requirement that we are in lockstep with one another.”
— Kwame Owusu-Kesse, CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone
Trust and proximity are the foundation of lasting impact. Place-based work succeeds when leaders get close enough to hear the truth from those affected by their efforts. Community proximity creates accountability and keeps change grounded in lived experience rather than abstract theory.
Place is the true unit of change. Where a child grows up determines much of their economic mobility. By tightly weaving education, health, and economic programs within a defined geography, organizations like Harlem Children’s Zone prove that thriving neighborhoods drive generational progress.
Build from community assets, don’t fix perceived deficits. Effective place-based work begins with local strengths — aspirations, talents, and collective wisdom — rather than focusing on what’s broken. This approach unleashes creativity and ownership within communities themselves.
“Transformation happens in real places with real people. I think a lot of the time we think of transformation as abstract, and I think that is actually why we struggle with creating real change. We are so far away from the people and the places we want to help.”
— Tonya Allen, President of the McKnight Foundation
Transformative change requires matching the scale of the solution to the scale of the problem. Incremental fixes cannot close the wealth gap. Initiatives like the GroundBreak Coalition call on institutions holding capital — banks, governments, philanthropies — to redesign systems so wealth flows with “speed and justice” to those long excluded.
Power in place-based work means organizing people and organizing money. Communities can’t achieve lasting change through engagement alone; financial systems and resources must also be organized intentionally. Those in power have a responsibility to “rewrite the rules” so access to capital and opportunity is fair and attainable.
Collective accountability is the test of true partnership. When outcomes falter, real collaborators resist finger-pointing and instead share responsibility for results. Joint ownership of successes and failures keeps efforts aligned across the full cradle-to-career continuum.
Excellence is not negotiable in service of equity. Mission-driven work must meet the same standards of rigor and quality as any enterprise. Communities deserve world-class execution, not “good hearts” without capacity or skill — nonprofit should mean tax status, not lowered expectations.
Strong relationships and courage sustain collective impact. Partnerships endure when they’re built on trust strong enough to survive fatigue, turnover, and disagreement. Courage is required to challenge underperforming systems and refuse complacency in the face of inequity.
Lead with fierce, radical love, and guard your focus. Love, properly understood, is not sentimental but powerful and protective — it fuels persistence through difficulty. Staying focused amid distraction is an act of moral courage; every inch of lost focus, as one leader put it, “a child pays for.”
3. From Bold Ideas to Big Bets: Building Relationships that Move Impact Forward
Featuring: The Rockefeller Foundation and Big Bets Fellows; Jacob Hannah, Coalfield Development; Catherine Wilson, United Way of Greater Newark; Rey Faustino, One Degree
Moderated by: NationSwell Vice President of Partnerships and Community, Jordan Vaughn
Revitalizing communities begins with refusing to leave them behind. In West Virginia, a new generation of leaders is reversing economic decline by rebuilding from within. Through workforce development, sustainable business, and reclaimed infrastructure, communities once defined by extraction are becoming engines of renewal — proof that it is more than possible to thrive in rural America.
A modern safety net must be built for the AI age. Millions of families are lost in a maze of disconnected systems, forms, and eligibility rules. The next frontier is digital public infrastructure that connects services across agencies — not to replace human care and labor, but to make processes faster, fairer, and more humane for all. When technology is designed with community at its center, it can open doors instead of closing them.
Microinvestment can turn residents into owners and equity into belonging. In Newark, New Jersey, local residents are being invited to invest directly in new developments, giving them the chance to not only live in revitalized neighborhoods but to hold a real financial stake in their city’s growth. The model reframes community wealth as something that’s built from the ground up, where homeownership and local investment become tools for dignity and shared prosperity.
4. A Framework for Collective Action
Featuring: Nick Cericola, NationSwell
“The fight for marriage equality, the anti-Apartheid divestment movement, the Montreal Protocol — none of these were solo victories. They were built on unlikely alliances that turned moral clarity into structural change — laws, treaties, new norms, even new markets.”
— Nick Cericola, Vice President of Insights, NationSwell
Effective collective action channels outrage into agency. Movements succeed when they give people a tangible role to play. Whether through organizing, storytelling, or investment, they transform moral clarity into coordinated effort — turning diffuse frustration into focused momentum.
We are living through a Renaissance in collective action. Across the U.S., cities like Tulsa, Houston, Baltimore, and Union County are pioneering cross-sector collaborations that integrate employers, educators, and community organizations. These are not loose partnerships but structured, disciplined systems built for long-term community outcomes.
Five models dominate today’s landscape of collaboration:
Co-investment models pooling private funding with shared governance.
Shared capacity platforms that centralize infrastructure.
Learning, advocacy, and action networks aligning peers around common cause.
Public-private partnerships marrying public oversight with private sector innovation.
Place-based initiatives uniting stakeholders across a geography.
Each model balances tradeoffs between control, trust, speed, and innovation.
“The best movements don’t wait for perfect consensus — they build coalitions of the willing. They give people a role, a way to turn conviction and even outrage into agency.”
— Nick Cericola, Vice President of Insights, NationSwell
The right collective model depends on your goals. Choosing between approaches requires clarity — do you seek scale, legitimacy, deep local ties, or speed? Each configuration demands different governance, risk tolerance, and resource investment, and the best collaborations evolve as conditions change.
Enduring principles — shared purpose, clear structure, mutual value, and trust — anchor all successful collaborations. Though models differ, the underlying DNA remains constant. Trust is the most essential ingredient, enabling participants to move through the inevitable slow progress, repeated meetings, and political friction of long-term coalition work.
Systemic change is inherently slow, but it’s the only thing that works. Collaboration is messy and iterative, yet every meaningful societal advance has been collective in nature. The complexity of today’s challenges simply exceeds the capacity of any single organization, however powerful, to solve alone.
Collaboration itself is our greatest technology. When practiced with creativity and discipline, collective action becomes a living system — capable of adaptation, innovation, and scale. The question is no longer whether collaboration works, but what we will choose to do with it next.
5. Nothing Heals Like Sport
Featuring: Megan Bartlett, founder of the Center for Healing and Justice through Sport
Sport is one of the most under-utilized tools for healing and mental health. When designed around people rather than performance, sport can calm the body’s stress response, rebuild trust, and reconnect young people to joy. It’s not just play — it’s applied neuroscience in motion, capable of changing biology and behavior.
The real power of sport lies in regulating the nervous system. Sport helps young people move out of chronic “fight, flight, or freeze” states by creating safety and rhythm in the body. Regulation — feeling calm, connected, and safe — is the foundation for learning, love, and growth, and sport naturally provides it.
Movement, connection, and challenge are the biological ingredients of healing, and sport delivers all three. Patterned, rhythmic movement restores a sense of safety; connection with teammates and coaches builds trust, the antidote to stress; and appropriate challenge — neither too much nor too little — teaches resilience through safe struggle, not avoidance.
We must shift the focus of youth sports from winning to well-being. Too often, youth sports environments prioritize competition over care, leaving both kids and coaches dysregulated. To unlock sport’s healing potential, coaches must have training, resources, and community support that allow them to stay grounded and emotionally available.
Healing is relational — dysregulated adults cannot regulate dysregulated kids. Coaches and mentors are frontline healers, but they can only help young people recover if they themselves are resourced and supported. Investing in their regulation and mental health multiplies impact across entire communities.
With the right investment, sport can become a scalable system for social change. The infrastructure already exists — fields, gyms, parks, and millions of committed coaches. Through initiatives like the Move Fund, seeded by Nike, local coalitions are being equipped to harness sport not just as recreation, but as a public-health intervention that helps young people heal before they learn, achieve, and thrive.
When it’s done right, nothing heals like sport.The opportunity isn’t to reinvent sport, but to reimagine its purpose: as a powerful, ready-at-scale, evidence-based framework for rebuilding trust, resilience, and connection in a generation living under chronic stress.
6. Building a Workforce and Workplace Where All Can Thrive
Featuring: Carrie Varoquiers, Workday; Lisa Lawson, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Claire Casey, AARP Foundation
Moderated by: Utaukwa Allen, Google
“There are 48 million young people on the bridge of adolescence right now, and we should think of ourselves as the bridge-builders responsible for making sure they have what they need to make a successful passage across.”
— Lisa Lawson, President & CEO, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Thriving workplaces are built through intergenerational collaboration. With five generations now working side by side, success depends on learning from one another rather than forcing younger employees to adapt to outdated norms. The most effective organizations cultivate “intergenerational agility” — a culture of mutual learning that values both experience and innovation.
Adolescence should be seen as a bridge, not a problem. Young people are often framed through a deficit lens, described as entitled or unmotivated, but this narrative is harmful and self-fulfilling. When we view adolescence as a stage of growth and potential — one that society must help young people cross safely — we create the conditions for confidence, purpose, and long-term success.
Skills-first hiring and new learning models are expanding access — but must be guided by purpose. The shift away from degree-based hiring has opened doors for untapped talent, while AI-assisted upskilling and apprenticeships are redefining what readiness looks like. The goal is not just speed to employment, but creating pathways to meaningful, family-sustaining work that centers human dignity.
“The marginalized worker — whether younger or older — has far more in common than we realize. Only a third of low-income workers over 50 will stay continuously employed through their 50s, and just one in ten will ever earn as much as they did before… We talk a lot about lifelong learning, but we forget about the worker. It’s time we practice what we preach.”
— Claire Casey, President, AARP Foundation
Mentorship and connection remain the most powerful workforce technologies. Bridging generations through mentorship builds confidence, soft skills, and community. Whether formal or informal, these relationships help young workers navigate new environments while reminding older ones of their enduring value and leadership.
AI should amplify our humanity, not replace it. Used well, technology can reduce administrative burden and free time for creativity, empathy, and collaboration. The challenge — and opportunity — is to design systems that strengthen connection rather than diminish it, ensuring that human relationships remain the core of productive, innovative workplaces.
The call to action: Be a bridge builder. Creating thriving workforces means linking generations, sectors, and technologies in pursuit of shared purpose. Every person, regardless of age or role, can help others cross into stability and possibility — because thriving, by definition, is something we achieve together.
8. AI and the Public Good: Who’s Governing the Future?
Featuring: Michael Kubzansky, Omidyar Network; Miriam Vogel, EqualAI
Moderated by: David Gelles, author of Dirtbag Billionaire
Public trust is collapsing, and literacy is the cure. Half of Americans report being more afraid than excited about AI. Those who understand it are more optimistic, suggesting that AI literacy — not hype or fear — is the foundation for responsible adoption and social trust.
Profit-driven systems won’t self-correct. Expecting companies to prioritize ethics over revenue misunderstands capitalism’s incentives. Governance must come from a mix of policy, investor expectations, and board accountability — ensuring AI’s social license to operate.
There’s still time to design responsible AI — but only if we demand it now. Responsible AI isn’t theoretical: it requires clear accountability, transparent testing, and leadership ownership. The companies that get this right will be the ones that earn both consumer trust and long-term viability.
