For five years now, a team of dedicated student interns, gently guided by some inspiring mentors, have been building OUR NATIONAL CONVERSATION, or ONC for short. Over 1,000 students have participated so far.
Our goal is to reduce partisanship and get America talking again. Our focus is on common-sense solutions, not finger-pointing. Our motto: “Less hate, more debate.”
We see spirit of our motto play out all the time in our articles, interviews, podcasts and more. Republicans, Democrats, Independents — all are welcome at ONC. We never yell at one another; we discuss things calmly and try to move things forward.
But in an age of hyper-polarization and rage, many have questioned how a small, unknown, under-funded organization like ours can hope to be taken seriously when the country at large is so consumed by rage.
I have been saying for some time that at some point America will decide it has had enough of the fight — and that, when that moment comes, OUR NATIONAL CONVERSATION needs to be ready to rise.
Something tells me that after Charlie Kirk’s murder, America has finally had enough.
As a country, we now have a choice to make: Do we really want to continue on the path toward civil war, with political violence as the norm? Or is it time to regain our senses and try something different?
Our Gen Z student team — fairly lacking in hope because of all the challenges this generation faces — finds some hope in what we do at ONC. We should want to encourage this.
Each month our little team of volunteers gets a little better at what we do, but events require ONC to now rise. We need to do this on a much bigger scale; we need to become known. My students and I can’t do this on our own; if you want to get involved, we’d love to hear from you.
Maybe you can help us with publicity. Maybe you’d like to be a pundit who can help our community figure out where our country goes from here. We need to invest in original content that celebrates those who are making a positive difference. We’d like to pay our students a modest stipend and we need to promote ourselves. We have some tech issues we need to tackle.
Now, your financial support is appreciated — and necessary for us to continue. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to our 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Here’s a link to our GoFundMe page.
We are very open to aligning ourselves with like-minded individuals and organizations. Maybe you know who can help get us to higher ground. Maybe you are that person.
Want to talk? Get in touch. Please send me an email: jeff.hall@ournationalconversation.org.
Jeff Hall
Editor & CEO, OUR NATIONAL CONVERSATION