As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, this is a moment to shift our perspective from nostalgia to imagination. At its best, the American project has always involved reinvention: expanding who belongs, whose needs matter, and what our citizens and institutions can make possible. That drive toward a better future is what we need now.
Many of the systems we rely on for our collective well-being were built in and for a different era and are increasingly misaligned with today’s needs. Some of this misalignment dates to our founding, when the aspirations of liberty and equality were lost to an economic model based on human slavery. Some of the misalignment is a result of well-intentioned programs and procedures that are now outdated.
Asking Fundamental Questions
Many of the disruptive changes we face as a society are compounded by how slowly public institutions adapt. Meeting those challenges requires more than defending the status quo; it requires a more ambitious idea of what we can build together.
We need to ask — and answer — fundamental questions:
- What would the relationship between citizens and their government look like if it were designed today?
- What would change if public programs were built around the needs, strengths, and experiences of individuals and families, rather than institutional convenience or inertia?
- What are the forces that can propel social mobility and flourishing?
- How could the power of the United States be a force for the greatest good, recognizing that we share one planet with eight billion other people?
At the Packard Foundation, we dedicate resources to asking those questions and supporting new and practical answers. Within our Democracy, Rights, and Governance initiative, for example, we convene peer funders to consider not only how to protect democratic institutions under stress, but how to make U.S. democracy more participatory, representative, and resilient over the long term. We are also supporting initiatives like Humanity AI and the Recoding America Fund to help direct technological advances toward the public good.
In our U.S. Racial Justice initiative, we support leaders who are moving beyond naming injustice to exploring what it will take for America to realize the promise of its founding ideal — that all are created equal — as a fundamental value about the distribution of power and opportunity. By investing in community-rooted leadership, especially in the U.S. South, we aim to accelerate a future where the promise of equality can be realized across political, economic, and social life.
And within our Children and Families and U.S. and Global Reproductive Health initiatives, we encourage partners to pair defense of essential programs with development of a creative vision about what more effective, holistic supports to health and well-being could look like. That work ranges from streamlining access to vital services to investing in products that give people greater control over their own health and childbearing.
How Philanthropy Can Lead the Way
Even as funders respond to urgent needs and evolving threats across priority issues, exploring the frontiers of what is possible is among the most important work we do — and even modest investments may pay off meaningfully.
Freed from the constraints of electoral cycles and market incentives, philanthropy can help create the conditions for collaboration, experimentation, and long-term thinking. It can support the convenings, partnerships, and early-stage ideas that allow new possibilities to emerge. And it can help ensure that these efforts are not only bold, but inclusive — grounded in diverse perspectives and connected to real-world change.
As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, the task is not only to reflect on what America has been and to protect the gains we have achieved. It is also to imagine — and build — what this country can become.
