In a world plagued by nonstop crises, slowing down may not seem like an option for those who work every day to improve people’s lives. But summer offers an opportunity to take a breath, reflect, and consider new ideas and perspectives. Books are a great way to do that.
To help guide your reading choices, the Chronicle of Philanthropy asked a diverse group of academics, philanthropy experts, and nonprofit leaders what they’re reading this summer and what they recommend. The books on the resulting list aren’t solely focused on philanthropy and nonprofit work. While the nonfiction books cover topics such as pluralism and crowdfunding, the list also features two novels, one set in the past, and the other in a post-apocalyptic present.
To keep the conversation going, we’d love to hear what you’re reading this summer. You can share your recommendations as well as any thoughts about the books below on the Chronicle’s LinkedIn page.
Contributors’ responses have been edited for length.
Cora Daniels, Senior Editorial Director, Bridgespan Group
Recommendation: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
This 1993 novel tells the heartbreaking but beautiful journey of Lauren, a Black teenager who is a hyper-empath. Lauren makes her way through a future world besieged by climate change and economic inequity, all while feeling the spectrum of everyone’s pain and joy. The book’s lessons run deep for any student of social justice, including the critical lens that Black women bring and what can happen when society ignores urgent problems.
The novel begins in the year 2024 and touches on issues that are familiar to today’s readers, cementing Butler’s reputation as a seer of truth. Its 1998 sequel even includes a dangerous, religious fundamentalist presidential candidate who vows to “make America great again.”
Fiction can powerfully ignite social change, and Lauren’s empathetic skills would help all of us working in philanthropy do our jobs better. Lauren’s empathy not only allows her to feel what is wrong with the world but find joy and beauty in it. As she writes in her journal: “The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.” Philanthropy’s success depends on multiplying the beautiful.
Jeffery Cain, Co-Founder, American Philanthropic
Recommendation: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare by Nora Kenworthy
“Crowded Out” reveals how crowdfunding technology amplifies the vexing ethical questions at the heart of charitable giving: Who and what is deserving of charitable support and why? Kenworthy focuses on crowdfunding campaigns for individual medical expenses. Nearly one quarter of all Americans have started or contributed to these campaigns, but Kenworthy shows how most don’t meet their financial goals, while all replicate rather than reduce social, racial, and economic inequities.
The book is a powerful exposition on the morality of an economic and charitable system that forces the most vulnerable to become, at their moment of greatest and often tragic need, digital campaigners on behalf of Big Healthcare. “Crowded Out” also illustrates how the rise of crowdfunding, just like donor-advised funds, is yet another chapter in the financialization of charity, amassing private profits under the guise of doing public good.
Manu Meel, Co-Founder and CEO, BridgeUSA
Recommendation: We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy by Eboo Patel
Society needs more builders at a time when the loudest voices in the room mostly create division. Young people like me are looking for examples of how to build new institutions and transform existing ones so they do a better job of promoting pluralism and bridging divides. Patel, the founder and president of Interfaith America and a Chronicle columnist, offers a helpful roadmap. He argues that building a healthier democracy requires creating successful civic spaces and institutions rather than simply criticizing those we don’t like. He draws on his experience running Interfaith America to show what that can look like.
The book seeks to answer questions such as “Can those who have raged against the unjust old order build and run the institutions of a new order? Can we evolve from protesters against a discriminatory regime to architects of a better system?”
The real divide in democracy is not between the left and the right, but between builders and breakers, unifiers and dividers, problem solvers and conflict entrepreneurs. Patel’s book is a great read for anyone looking to join the former camp.
Lisa Pilar Cowan, Vice President, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
Recommendation: On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
I doubt this book will show up on many summer beach-read lists. But it did make me think about what a hot girl summer would look like if everyone had equal access to rest, beauty, and beach time — along with housing, health care, education, and safety. To achieve that mythical future summer, the ancient Jewish philosopher Maimonides is a surprisingly useful guide.
Maimonides was a Sephardic rabbi, philosopher, and one of the Middle Ages’ most prolific Torah scholars. Among his many teachings, he posited that asking for forgiveness is less important than repairing the harm one has done — a lesson sorely lacking from today’s scripted public apologies and performative gestures. In this book, Ruttenberg skillfully applies Maimonides’ teachings to present day circumstances such as the #MeToo movement, individual cases of abuse and harassment, and racial reparations.
“You can never unbreak what you have broken,” Ruttenberg writes. “But with the sincere and deep work of transformation, acts of repair have the potential to make something new.”
Like many others working in the philanthropy and nonprofit field, I find it challenging to address all the personal, institutional, and systemic injustices I see in the world, including those I’ve caused myself, or those from which I’ve benefited. Philanthropic wealth in particular often comes from businesses and families that have caused harm in service of building their wealth. I‘ve come to view philanthropy’s work as returning resources, rather than gifting them. Ruttenberg’s guidance on how to make that shift is hugely helpful.
Nwamaka Agbo, CEO, Kataly Foundation and Managing Director, Restorative Economies Fund
What it Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World by Prentis Hemphill
This memoir is at the top of my summer reading list because it shows that so much more social transformation is possible when healing occurs on both an individual and societal level. Hemphill, a therapist, draws on their work in the social change world, including as a leader of the Movement for Black Lives, to demonstrate that healing from trauma can’t be done in isolation. It’s only through confronting past hurt, with help from those around us, that we can eliminate harmful systems and build new ones that treat everyone with dignity.
Caring for ourselves as individuals, Hemphill argues, also helps us practice self-awareness and personal accountability so we don’t inadvertently cause the same harm we’re seeking to undo. This book can help people discern the types of healing they might need in different areas of their life — personal, interpersonal, or institutional — and decide how to approach each with awareness and understanding.
Eboo Patel, Founder, Interfaith America
Recommendation: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
I’m a big fan of historical fiction, so I’m starting the summer off by re-reading E.L. Doctorow’s classic novel, “Ragtime.” It’s about the collision of social forces — immigration, racial tension, new wealth, grinding poverty — at the turn of the 20th century. It weaves together the stories of actual historical figures like Emma Goldman and Henry Ford with tales of purely fictional characters, such as the unforgettable central character of the drama, the piano-playing Coalhouse Walker Jr. And I love how it describes the emerging social and artistic movements of the time, especially labor uprisings and jazz.
Many of “Ragtime’s” events will resonate with today’s readers. There’s the abrupt shift in the character Tateh from devoted socialist to ardent capitalist; the insistence on dignity by Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the face of racial prejudice; the street violence between different wings of the labor movement and the police; and the shock that rich people register when confronted with the reality of ethnic slums and the working conditions in factories. The book’s most poignant lesson? When you are living through an era of massive macro-level shifts, you have to prepare for micro-level chaos.
