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Investors Gather in NYC to Strengthen Democracy and Free Enterprise
Aug 29, 2026
Investors and family offices from across the political spectrum will gather at the Fordham Gabelli School of Business in midtown Manhattan on September 3 for the founding meeting of Investors for a Better America, a nonpartisan conference built on the premise that free enterprise and constitutional democracy depend on many of the same conditions.
"I believe we have a fiduciary obligation to keep America investor-friendly, which means we need a strong capitalist constitutional democracy," said David Teten, cofounder of Investors for a Better America and a Partner with Orange Collective, a venture capital firm exclusively backing graduates of Y Combinator, the world’s leading tech accelerator.
The convening will also mark the launch of the Collaborative Impact Initiative, a co-investment vehicle announced by the Bridge Alliance and administered by Mediators Foundation. The Bridge Alliance has committed up to $300,000 and invites additional investors to join at a $75,000 minimum.
The Collaborative Impact Initiative departs from conventional philanthropy in the expectations it places on investors. Backers are expected to contribute business judgment, networks, and time alongside capital, as a tech startup accelerator supports a portfolio company.
"Writing a check and walking away has not moved this field," said David L. Nevins, Chairman of the Board of the Bridge Alliance. "What is scarce here is not only money. It is the operational discipline venture capital investors bring as a matter of course, including the ability to interrogate a plan, assess execution risk, and help leaders stay accountable to measurable progress. We are asking for both."
Funding is directed to partnerships rather than to single organizations. Eligible proposals must involve two or three organizations with complementary rather than overlapping capabilities; name a lead organization with the capacity to hold and account for funds; and commit to an outcome verifiable within eighteen months. Proposals will be evaluated on fit to field need, durability, additionality, investor pull, and readiness.
A review panel drawn from investors, academic experts in democratic governance, and Mediators Foundation will select recipients. Funds will be released to the lead organization in quarterly tranches, with each payment contingent on a report of spending and progress.
"A funding opportunity that drives both collaboration and is directed by both funders and field experts is exactly the type of experiment needed in the field. Combining that with counsel from investors who know how to scale and execute has the potential to be transformative," said Jacob Bornstein, president of Mediators Foundation and a cofounder of Investors for a Better America.
Applications open to eligible organizations following the inaugural conference. Proposals are due approximately 45 days later, with selections announced at 60 days and funded work beginning within 60 days of selection.
The speakers for the September 3 program at Fordham's Gabelli School of Business include senior investor speakers from leading family offices and such firms as the Nigerian sovereign wealth fund, UBS, RBC Capital Markets, JP Morgan Asset Management, Bank of America, Millennium, Rothschild Asset Management, Harvard Management Company, Goldman Sachs, B Capital, First Round, Renaissance Technologies, District of Columbia Retirement, International Finance Corporation, Cantor Fitzgerald, and TIAA-CREF.
Registration is open at https://www.tickettailor.com/events/mediatorsfoundation/2316910
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U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to the White House on Oct. 7, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/TCA)
Trump’s war on Canada a pitiful own goal
Aug 29, 2026
This summer, America played host to one of the biggest international events on the planet, the World Cup, drawing millions of foreigners to our cities and towns, our stadiums and our national parks, where many of them had never been before.
The consensus was, America is awesome — visitors from Bolivia, Scotland, Uzbekistan, and everywhere in between marveled at the sheer size of our great nation, the diversity of our topography, the deliciousness of our foodstuffs, and, perhaps most importantly, the kindness of our people. (Not to mention, our eighth wonder of the world — Buc-ee’s.)
What a difference a month makes.
Despite our friends in far-flung places singing our praises, now, to hear our closest neighbors tell it, America is nothing but a “ bully” and a “ thug.”
After trade negotiations with Canada collapsed this week, and President Trump announced a whopping 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods — including Canadian whiskey and hockey sticks — it’s no surprise our friends to the north are less than pleased with their downstairs neighbors.
In our defense, not all of us are responsible for electing the bully and thug in question — and if polls are any indication, most Americans agree with Canada that Trump is doing a terrible job. But still, it’s hard to hear.
Especially since we love Canadians, and we very much want them to love us back.
But after spending years threatening to invade Canada and make it the “51st state,” and mocking its leaders with petty nicknames and school yard insults, Trump may have finally put Canadians’ famous politeness to the test.
“You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked,” said Prime Minister Mark Carney. “We’re going to hit back.”
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew called Trump “erratic,” “irresponsible,” and “a bad person” who was “not to be trusted.”
And Ontario Premier Doug Ford wasn’t nearly as nice, calling Trump the “king of bankruptcies,” and telling him to “Kiss my ass.”
Again, these are our friends talking!
But their righteous indignation is justified — we are in the midst of an unpopular war that we can’t seem to end, our economy is in the toilet, we’re banning books, deporting children with cancer, shooting unarmed protesters, spreading measles, and covering up for one of our most notorious sex offenders. And we have the audacity to attack our nice and normal friends?
But it’s not just an issue of bad manners. Americans have long been accused of that.
It may be an election issue now.
States like Michigan, Maine, Alaska and Ohio, all of which border Canada and are important trade partners, also have another thing in common: highly competitive Senate races.
And despite all but Maine voting for Trump in the last election, Cook Political Report lists all four as a toss-up.
The Canada trade issue is real these voters; for auto workers in Michigan who rely on Canadian aluminum and steel; for 95% of Mainers who rely on Canada for home heating; for Ohioans who use Canadian metals and machinery; for Alaskans who need Canadian crude.
So Democratic Senate candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Mary Peltola in Alaska have yet another important talking point to add to their reservoirs — that Trump’s dumb trade war, much like his dumb actual war, is going to make voters’ lives worse.
Add it to the pile — a majority of voters already believe they are worse off under Trump, and this won’t help.
With fewer than 70 days until the midterm elections, the imprudence of picking a fight with important allies — who now seem prepared to unleash retaliatory economic pain on Americans in competitive states hardly seems debatable.
But Trump seems hell bent on totally destroying whatever good will we still had left on the world stage.
Talk about an own goal.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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After a Title VI complaint from the Equal Protection Project, USC cut in-person Youth Leadership Institute programming. Students share the fallout
andresr/Getty Images
A Complaint Against HSF’s Youth Leadership Institute Shows Why DEI Matters for All Students
Aug 28, 2026
On June 29, the Equal Protection Project (EPP), a 501(c)(3) that challenges DEI initiatives through legal action at universities across the country, filed a civil rights complaint against the University of Southern California (USC) and Loyola Marymount University (LMU).
The complaint cites the involvement of both universities in hosting the Youth Leadership Institute, a summer program that flies out upwards of 500 Hispanic rising high school seniors to Los Angeles for a five-day intensive, teaching them about the college application process, financial literacy, and expanding their networks to student mentors who previously attended the program.
The EPP states that in hosting the program, USC and LMU have violated Title VI rights, which prohibit the use of federal funds for discriminatory practices based on race.
In an email to the Fulcrum, EPP Founder William Jacobson states that the program set off alarms for the EPP due to its alleged “discriminatory” nature.
“Here, the universities were involved at every step in the process, including promotion, programming, hosting, and housing. This conduct implicated not only the civil rights laws but also laws prohibiting discrimination in temporary housing,” wrote Jacobson. “So all-around, this set off all the civil rights alarms, and after evaluation, we came to the conclusion that a formal administrative complaint was the proper path to achieve equal protection for students.”
The YLI isn’t the only program targeted by the EPP. Since its 2023 inception, the project has taken action against nearly 550 programs and scholarships nationwide for similarly discriminatory practices, according to its website.
But does a program that hosts Hispanic students of all backgrounds, races, and identities truly violate Title VI rights? What do students who’ve attended the program believe?
In 2025, I had the honor of being part of the YLI, alongside nearly 500 peers from across the country, none of whom I had previously known. By the end of June, I was flying across the country from my home in Boca Raton, Fla., to Los Angeles, Calif., to meet the other students from my cohort and the mentor I was paired with.
Following the Civil Complaint, USC quietly withdrew from hosting the program, and the YLI was shifted to a five-day virtual format, leaving 250 students who would’ve had the same opportunity I had a little over a year ago.
Lucca Rodríguez Pedraza also participated in last year’s YLI and is now headed off to the University of California at Berkeley for her undergraduate studies. About a week before heading off to Los Angeles to serve as a mentor-in-training for this year’s YLI cohort, she was informed that the in-person program would be replaced by a virtual component.
The program, which is usually held between June at LMU and July at USC, had proceeded with its June programming as scheduled, but had its USC dates canceled at the last minute.
Pedraza shares that hearing the news was difficult, especially as she had watched her peers participate in LMU programming only weeks earlier.
“So many of my friends who had gone back to Loyola… talked to me about how refreshing it was to see the whole process from a mentor perspective. I was also building connections with my mentees and with my familia, as well as understanding that these kids did need guidance and did need help,” Pedraza said.
To participate in the in-person component, students must be selected from an applicant pool of over 6,500 and complete a two-day virtual component lasting over six hours each day. According to LMU’s website, 100% of participants are in the top 5% ranking of their class and have an average unweighted GPA of 3.94.
“It was really disappointing to see such an amazing program and something that's helped me so much, just you know, be taken away from these kids, especially because they like they earned it,” said Pedraza.
Nathalie De Paula, a rising senior from Connecticut, was selected to be a part of this year’s cohort at USC but was informed at the last minute of the program’s cancellation. She shares that hearing the news devastated her.
“I was expecting to meet so many people and make so many friends, especially since in my school, it's hard to meet like-minded people. I had heard all these amazing experiences because my mentor went to USC last year, and she was telling me all the amazing things. I was like, ‘Wow, I'm really gonna get a lot out of this.’”
Anthony Rodas, a 2026 mentor-in-training at LMU, shared the impact the YLI had on him last year.
“I think my experience at the YLI was transformative,” said Rodas. “I am the first in my family to go to undergrad here in the U.S., so… I didn't really have a lot of guidance in that. And through the YLI, it was kind of like a whole new world opening up… It really felt like I found a strong community there. As soon as I stepped foot onto the LMU campus… I just felt like there was so much future opportunity that could come from an experience like that.”
Through the program, Rodas was able to meet students who had attended Brown and other prestigious universities and came from backgrounds similar to his own. He was inspired to apply and has since committed to Brown University for his undergraduate studies.
Rodas strongly believes that without his experience at the YLI, we wouldn't have been inspired to attend the school, which is ranked #13 among national universities by U.S. News and World Report.
“It really opened my eyes about what that school was and how much more of a fit I would be there than some of the other schools I was considering. I think if I hadn't done the YLI, first of all, I wouldn't have felt anywhere near prepared enough, like apply and actually get accepted. But second of all, I probably wouldn't have even, maybe not have chosen that school to be the one that I ended up at.”
Growing up, I was always told that attending a top-tier institution was an experience reserved for the upper echelon of society, and that going to college far from home wasn’t something I would be capable of — whether I was told that by my peers or from my tight-knit Hispanic family, it didn’t matter; the consensus was overwhelmingly that it wasn’t possible.
In the U.S., Hispanics make up only about 13% of all students enrolled at private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, according to a study by UnidosUS, and are ranked among the least likely to be enrolled in college or to hold bachelor's degrees.
In recent years, it has been revealed that many public flagship universities use discriminatory practices when it comes to enrollment, barring many Latino and African American students from setting foot on their campuses.
But “Latino” isn’t the only term used to describe Hispanic students, and the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” cannot necessarily be used interchangeably — neither term is classified as a race by the U.S. Census. Admittedly, Hispanics represent one of the most racially and ethnically diverse groups in the country.
Emelyn de la Peña, president of the National Association for Diversity Officers in Higher Education, has worked on initiatives and in offices centered around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the past 30 years.
De la Peña explains that the goals of organizations like the EPP aren’t to make higher education more equitable, but rather more equal — she notes that this goal isn’t always better in the end.
“We can respond to a particular need without losing sight of our responsibility to the broader community; we can take non-discrimination seriously and take disparities in educational opportunities seriously at the same time,” said De la Peña. “I think that if we have a commitment to fair opportunity and a commitment to understanding where barriers exist, so we can eliminate barriers, then we have to look at who is showing up at particular barriers.”
When asked about USC’s cancellation of the programming, Jacobson stated that the goal of the complaint wasn’t to necessarily get the program canceled entirely, but to protect against federal Title VI violations.
“As a general matter, our goal is not to terminate discriminatory programs, but to remove the discrimination. So these programs lawfully can run on college campuses that receive federal funding, but the programs cannot discriminate based on national origin,” wrote Jacobson.
Regardless, the in-person programming for the event was canceled. The EPP boasts over 175 wins between its attacks on scholarships and higher education programming since its inception.
It’s a flawed logic to assume that asking the Department of Education to investigate a program wouldn’t cause ripples in the program's very own livelihood, and the EPP’s “wins” are nothing less than proof that their goal isn’t just to play a corrective role in programs such as the YLI.
“Ultimately, I think that's what diversity, equity, and inclusion has done: is that when we try to lift up the most marginalized, we lift up everybody,” said De La Peña.
Pedraza feels that the program, if anything, embraces the diverse roots of its participants.
“To me, being Hispanic, being Latino is to be diverse. It is to be multicultural, and like we are, you know, historically oppressed or historically have less advantages, and so these programs are so important to help higher education and to become more diverse to help give students opportunities,” said Pedraza.
De La Peña believes that the importance of programs like the YLI lies in the questions they raise about accessibility and equity. She believes that in cutting programs that value equity over equality, the most help for all students is shortened.
“Ultimately, I think that's what diversity, equity, and inclusion has done: is that when we try to lift up the most marginalized, we lift up everybody,” said De La Peña.
Gabriela Quintero is an incoming freshman at Barnard College of Columbia University, pursuing her B.A. in Political Science and Economics. Interested in politics, migration, policy, and culture, she hopes to pursue a career in political and cultural journalism.
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Michael Brown Sr. (C-front) leads a march from the location where his son Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed following a memorial service marking the anniversary of his death on August 9, 2015 in Ferguson, Missouri.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Twelve Augusts: Grief’s Spiral and the Sacred Work of Remembrance
Aug 28, 2026
Every August comes heavy and hot, and every year it brings me back to Ferguson. To a particular patch of Canfield Drive, where asphalt still seems to pulse with memory, and to the faces—some familiar, some gone—who gathered under a bruised sky after Michael Brown Jr. was killed. It has been twelve years, and I have learned that time does not heal all wounds. It teaches us the difficult choreography of living with them.
I am no longer the pastor of Wellspring Church nor a resident of Ferguson, but that moment, that street, and that season are stitched into the lining of my soul. Like many who stood in the breach that August and beyond, I am forever changed. Yet the anniversary still stalks me. It waits in the marrow. I have come to see this not only as trauma’s residue, but as a call to hold pain and faith, memory and movement together.
The Spiral, Not the Line
We are a nation that likes its narratives linear: wound, struggle, triumph, and then, cleanly, “moving on.” But Dr. William Bridges' seminal book, Transitions, explains that change does not follow an arrow-straight path. Healing, especially collective healing, moves in spirals. We return to the site of pain not because we are stuck, but because reclamation becomes possible there.
Grief, in this sense, is not an obstacle to overcome but a companion to acknowledge. Each August, I walk through the memories with new eyes: the anguish of a mother’s cry, the rage that spilled into streets, the prayers whispered in the darkness, the negotiations—holy and human—between justice and survival. These memories do not fade. They evolve. As Dr. Edward Wimberly’s communal-contextual model suggests, healing is as communal as it is internal. We do not grieve alone. We do not heal alone.
Anniversaries That Haunt—and Heal
Anniversaries are tricky things. For those of us who love or lead, who protest or pastor, they can be both holy days and haunted ones. The calendar’s return to August 9th is not just a date; it’s a collision of past and present. And yet, there is something righteous—something necessary—about returning. I appreciate Dr. J. Scott Butler’s work with African American families and faith communities. He notes that our rituals of remembrance are not simply about not forgetting; they are about turning toward justice, healing, and persistence. We mark the pain so we can measure the progress and the promise it demanded.
Recalibration is not about erasing the hard memories. It is about finding a healthy rhythm—acknowledging the wound without letting it define the whole. I have seen what happens to those who try to outrun their pain: it speeds up, nipping at their heels, bleeding into their relationships and rest. But those who pause, who turn and face it, who remember communally, find a different kind of strength. They reclaim not only their narrative but also their agency.
Living Into Promise
I have been asked, more times than I care to count, what it means to “move forward” from Ferguson. The question itself is a misunderstanding. We do not move forward as if leaving a place behind. We spiral—returning, reflecting, reclaiming, and then stepping into the world again, a little more whole and a little more resolved.
Dr. Stephanie Crumpton, in her womanist pastoral theology, frames this as the sacred work of reclamation. There are points, periods, and places of pain that must be revisited, not to wallow, but to witness. To name what happened, to honor those who suffered, and to insist that the story is not finished. This is righteous recalibration. It is the refusal to let trauma have the last word.
For me, Wellspring was never just a sanctuary for Sunday worship. It was a field hospital, a strategy room, a place where the rawness of grief and the audacity of hope could mingle. Twelve years later, I see that the real work was not about “fixing” the community but about empowering it to claim and transform its wounds. This is what gives anniversaries their sacred power: they force us to reckon with what remains undone, and they invite us to remember what has been survived.
Empowering the Struggle
If you are reading this and carrying your own anniversaries—of loss, of violence, of moments that split your life into before and after—hear me: the spiral does not mean you are failing. It means you are human. It means you are, perhaps, doing the most courageous kind of living. The recalibration of grief is not a denial of pain but a disciplined, even holy, engagement with it.
For some, this engagement might mean returning to the page each year, journaling the surge and echo of anniversary memories. Others may find comfort in creating space for quiet prayer or lighting a candle in remembrance. Some may choose meditation in the mornings of those significant days, or gathering trusted companions to reminisce and bear witness together. These personal practices, humble as they may seem, offer gentle scaffolding as we walk through the spiral, making meaning of the pain and shaping hope from memory.
We show up to the hard places, year after year, so that our communities and we are not defined solely by what broke us. This is both psychological and theological truth. Scholarship reminds us that faith is not the absence of suffering, but the willingness to integrate it into our stories. Likewise, healing is a shared responsibility, and power exists in naming and narrating our pain, especially for those whose suffering has too often been silenced.
Twelve Augusts have come and gone. I have left Ferguson, but Ferguson has never left me. Each anniversary is both an ache and an altar—a place to lay down burdens, gather lessons, remember names, and recalibrate the soul.
We spiral, yes. But we spiral upward, carrying not only pain, but promise—and the call to keep remembering, reclaiming, and becoming, with a steadier and more resolved soul.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, and scholar-practitioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
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