Stanford PACS 2021: A Special Progress Report

Our fellowship programs and student grants exemplify our interdisciplinary orientation and commitment to increase interaction and collaboration among thinkers and practitioners. The recipients of our grants and fellowships in 2021 represented a diversity of experience and expertise and brought interesting new perspectives on topics in which there is active work underway at PACS, such as political polarization, threats to democracy, criminal justice reform, the intersection of digital rights and human rights, and environmental sustainability, to name a few.

Homelessness, a System Perspective

Homelessness is one of the toughest and most troubling societal challenges of our time. Researchers at PACS’ Global Innovation for Impact Lab concluded a case study that challenges common assumptions about the root causes of homelessness and narratives that put the blame on the victims themselves rather than reflecting more deeply about the architecture of our society that generates and perpetuates mass homelessness. The paper pushes us to adopt a system perspective rather than a simple solution perspective on this complex societal problem.
Download the full paper.

Building A healthier Future: Creating Personal, Organizational, & Societal Well- Being

On September 21-23, 2021, SSIR hosted its second virtual Nonprofit Management Institute, an annual convening that brings together nonprofit and business executives, noted academics, and prominent public sector leaders to explore pathways to strengthening and renewing our collective commitment to improving society. The theme for the 2021 NMI was “Building a Healthier Future: Creating Personal, Organizational & Societal Well-being.” The conference drew 373 participants from across 34 states in the U.S. and 16 countries abroad.
Read more.

Model Redistricting Plans to Help Redraw Congress

Draw Congress, a project developed under Stanford Law School’s Law and Policy Lab, is one of many efforts currently underway to address redistricting related issues. Sixteen law students and six Stanford undergraduate students are participating in a crash course on the difficult process of drawing congressional maps that align with the 2020 U.S. Census. The initiative is led by renowned voting expert Professor Nathaniel Persily, the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford and co-director of Stanford PACS’ Program on Democracy and the Internet. The goal of this project is to educate our students and the general public about this difficult and sometimes fraught undertaking, showing how districts can be drawn in a non-partisan, legally defensible manner. We hope these maps, eventually made for all 435 U.S. House districts, will show how communities can be fairly represented and, unlike most incumbent-drawn maps, be transparent about redistricting decisions.

The Strengthening Democracy Challenge

Anti-democratic attitudes, support for partisan violence, and extreme levels of partisan animosity have troubling consequences for democracy. In the fall of 2021, researchers at Stanford PACS’ Polarization and Social Change Lab launched the Strengthening Democracy Challenge to invite proposals for interventions that will reduce these outcomes. The researchers will then test selected interventions to see how well they work, in a massive, online experiment.​ 252 proposals were submitted by academics and nonprofit organizations working to bridge political divides. The winners will be announced in June 2022.
Learn more about the challenge.

The Platform Transparency and Accountability Act

In December 2021, new legislation was introduced to increase transparency and give researchers access to critical data gathered by social media platforms in order to gain insight into key societal issues. The legislation was informed by the October testimony, “Social Media Platforms and the Amplification of Domestic Extremism and Other Harmful Content,” provided by Professor Nathaniel Persily, Stanford Law professor and co-director of Stanford PACS’ Program on Democracy and the Internet, and presented before the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The legislation represents a critical step in holding large social media platforms accountable and allows researchers and policy makers deeper insight into challenges threatening democracy.
Read the testimony and view the legislation.

Digital Technology and Democratic Theory

One of the most far-reaching transformations in our era is the wave of digital technologies upending nearly every aspect of life. Work and leisure, family and friendship, community and citizenship have all been modified by now-ubiquitous digital tools and platforms. Stanford PACS faculty co-director Rob Reich and Senior Research Scholar Lucy Bernholz, along with Helene Landemore of Yale University, co-edited Digital Technology and Democratic Theory, an edited volume that looks closely at one significant facet of our rapidly evolving digital lives: how technology is radically changing our lives as citizens and participants in democratic governments. To understand these transformations, this book brings together contributions by scholars from multiple disciplines to wrestle with the question of how digital technologies shape, reshape, and affect fundamental questions about democracy and democratic theory. Learn more.

System Error:
Where Big Tech Went Wrong And How We Can Reboot

Stanford PACS faculty co-director Rob Reich, along with fellow Stanford professors Jeremy Weinstein and Mehran Sahami, authored a forward-thinking manifesto that has received much attention both within and outside academia. System Error reveals how Big Tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values and outlines steps we can take to change course, renew our democracy, and save ourselves. The book was reviewed by leading publications including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and the authors were interviewed by NPR and featured in the New Yorker.
Get your copy here.

Dark Patterns Tip Line for Identifying Deceptive Digital Designs

The Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS is now home to the Dark Patterns Tip Line, a platform developed by a team of designers, academic researchers, legal experts, policy specialists, and advocacy-minded individuals. The tipline collects dark patterns and allows scholars to study and better understand how technology is exploiting people. The ultimate vision of the tipline is to leverage this data to combat manipulative practices online through policy reform.
Learn more about the tipline and help take a stand against dark patterns.

Australian Philanthropy Toolkit

The Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative at Stanford PACS collaborated with Perpetual Private, a diversified financial services company based in Australia, to launch an Australian Philanthropy Toolkit (the Toolkit), an adaptation of Stanford PACS’ Philanthropy Toolkit for the Australian market. The Toolkit is the first of its kind in Australia, providing a practical step-by-step resource designed to help individuals, families and advisers engage in thoughtful conversations, be effective in their charitable giving and anchor it around what matters most to them throughout their philanthropic journey. 
Learn more.

The Guide to Effective Philanthropy for Latin America

Stanford PACS’ Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative partnered with the Center for Philanthropy and Social Investments (CEFIS) at Universidad Adolfo Ibanez to launch the Guide to Effective Philanthropy for Latin America. This initiative was supported by the Chilean Family Business Association (AEF) and Goldman Sachs and is intended to advance the ongoing work in the region to highlight the role of philanthropy and social investments in strengthening civil society.
Download the Guide.

Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society: Blueprint 2022

Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society: Blueprint is an annual industry forecast about the ways we use private resources for public benefit in the digital age. Each year, the Blueprint provides an overview of the current landscape, points to big ideas that matter, and directs your attention to horizons where you can expect some important breakthroughs in the coming year. 

Published in December 2021, the 2022 edition is organized around an appeal to the philanthropy sector on behalf of civil society to abandon existing practices that are preventing many of the changes that philanthropic organizations and individuals purport to pursue. It calls for philanthropy to examine its role in preserving the status quo rather than advancing change and offers a blueprint for reform in the sector.
Download Blueprint 2022.

First Principles Forum

The First Principles Forum convenes founders, early employees, and investors in the technology sector to advance their thinking on impact and philanthropy and challenge them to think consciously about how they can align their values in every sphere of their lives to effectively deploy all of their resources – money, time, skills, influence – for positive social change. The 2021 Forum was a virtual half-day event that featured leaders from the technology and social sectors such as Stewart Butterfield (Slack), Jen Rubio (Away), Raylene Yung (Facebook, Stripe), and Rhonda Allen (/dev/color). The plenary sessions covered topics such as workplace equity and new ways of giving, while small group discussions allowed participants to dive deep into key issues of interest, such as addressing structural racism, ways to take action on  climate change, and building a more equitable economy post-COVID.
Learn More.