Rhode Island Foundation

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

And that's what I did.

So having had the opportunity to see the short, it's extraordinary and it does really reveal your incredible talent as a filmmaker for sure.

We did a feature article about you in one of the publications of the Rhode Island Foundation.

Yes.

I'd love to hear about it.

Now I am excited beyond words to kick off the season of Give Better, Get Better with our first guest, David Cicilline, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

David, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

But first, would you introduce yourself and your community foundation to our listeners?

Yes.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We are 110 years old, one of the oldest community foundations in the country.

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, President and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

He recently led the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DODEA, a network of domestic and international schools for the children of service members.

And during his 10 years, he created a Common Core curriculum for every school, and DODEA became first in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

The Rhode Island Foundation just finished a year-long process convening a Blue Ribbon Commission to design a new approach to the state's school funding formula.

So he's here in the studio to give us some perspective.

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

But I think one of the antidotes to that is building real meaningful relationships and friendships and connections that are not just words on a page in knowing who someone is and investing, investing in those relationships and that that really pays dividends even when the world is leans towards soundbites and division, that we don't have to do that because we have this relationship.

And we may not agree about A, B, C, or D, but we can still be neighbors.

I mean, what you're describing really is at the center of what we're doing here at the Rhode Island Foundation in a body of work that we refer to as civic health, you know, investing in reconnecting people to one another, learning how to engage in conversations with people with whom you may disagree and how to do it in a way that doesn't vilify that person and is respectful and just sort of trying to restore some of that kind of civic infrastructure that allows that to happen.

And actually one of the really interesting panels that I was just in Seattle at a conference that the Council on Foundation hosted was this great panel of a rabbi, an evangelical leader, an imam, and a facilitator.

🎵 🎵 Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

And I'm sure that report revealed things that you found shocking and you thought, well, this is something we really need to focus attention on.

100%.

And we're so fortunate and thankful for Rhode Island Foundation to support this because we Across our country, less than 2% of philanthropic dollars are put aside for girl and women serving organizations.

Less than 2%.

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

who are leaning in on the skill sets that they've developed while they're in high school.

That's great.

Young people have also played a role in a topic that's a big priority here at the Rhode Island Foundation, rethinking and fixing the broken school funding formula in our state and developing a really comprehensive system for funding public education.

And when we were thinking about the composition of that commission, the question of who could represent organizations and advocacy on behalf of young people and who could help us construct a way to make sure we heard directly from young people, Peter Chung was the obvious choice.

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

And I When I got here and I first started working in this world at Amos House, I was always so struck by how it did not make a lot of sense to me that we were having 20,000 homeless kids in New York City, and here we had a max of 4,000 individuals and families that were homeless, and we couldn't solve the problem.

And I think that has been continuing to be one of my biggest challenges in having done this work for the last 25 years.

I want to get to that because I do think when I've talked to colleagues around the country when I was a mayor, when I was in Congress, and even now as the president of the Rhode Island Foundation, it always seemed to me that the magnitude of our problem was such that we could be the first state that just solved the problem completely.

My very dear friend is the mayor of Los Angeles, and The numbers of unhoused people are tens of thousands.

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

So thank you again.

Thank you.

Together RI is produced by the Rhode Island Foundation and brought to you by the Civic Leadership Fund, an annual fund that broadens the scope and increases the responsiveness of the foundation's traditional philanthropy.

This audio was edited and mixed by Megan Hall.

Welcome to Together RI.

I'm David Cicilline, the president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.

We're living in a time when facts are fiercely debated, news sources can be polarizing, and it's easy to vilify our neighbors.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

It's my pleasure.

Thank you.

Together RI is produced by the Rhode Island Foundation and brought to you by the Civic Leadership Fund, an annual fund that broadens the scope and increases the responsiveness of the foundation's traditional philanthropy.

This audio was edited and mixed by Megan Hall.