Dear Newsletter,
In June 2024, about 750 of you stood in a convention hall and voted to make immigration our next national initiative.
We knew what we were stepping into.
Bipartisan consensus on immigration has eluded Congress for over thirty years. The year-and-a-half since you voted has only sharpened what was already true. Enforcement actions and policy changes have moved fast, and communities have responded in very different ways. The longest government shutdown in American history had immigration funding at the center of it. Within Braver Angels, our members hold the full range of views on what the country should do, and many of you feel the weight of this issue personally, every day.
We take on divisive issues of the day the Braver Angels Way to be relevant. Your efforts need to impact culture in the moments actually defining American life. The country needs proof, right now, that Americans across the divide can still find the answers we share.
Here is where the work stands today. Through the Citizens Commission on Immigration (CCI), Braver Angels members have now convened 36 Common Ground Workshops and 59 total immigration events across 21 states. The Immigration Policy Roundtable has brought more than 20 leaders from top immigration organizations across the political spectrum to the same table four times, and they are finding points of agreement. We have a goal of holding 26 Common Ground Constituent Conversations with 26 different members of Congress by the end of 2026, balanced between Republicans and Democrats. Eight are completed or confirmed. More are in motion. The Report to the Nation is due by mid-2027.
We are learning that when Americans come together with discipline and dignity, we agree on more than the country thinks. Not on everything. Not by erasing real differences. But the points of agreement are real, and they are reachable, and they are the kind of agreement Congress could act on to address immigration if Congress saw them.
The work of CCI continues. More workshops. More forums. More roundtables. More constituent conversations. And the report itself will not be the end of the work, just the beginning of the next chapter.
Picture what that next chapter could look like in your community. A Common Ground Workshop built around the report's findings. A Braver Angels town hall bringing the report into public conversation. A constituent conversation where you sit down with your member of Congress, report in hand, and walk them through what your neighbors found together. A debate that tests the findings. A forum that shares them.
The conversation will not stop when the report is published. The conversation will deepen, and you will be able to carry it if you choose to engage.
In the meantime, we want to share with you an opportunity from a partner organization to do more right now on immigration. CommonSense American (CSA) with the National Institute of Civil Discourse is a 90,000-member bipartisan organization led by Keith Allred (roughly 1/3 Republicans, 1/3 Democrats, 1/3 Independents). They pick one issue per year, build a thorough policy brief from member input, and brief Congress on where Americans across the partisan divide actually agree. They are four for four. Congress has passed legislation reflecting their member consensus every time.
Immigration is their fifth.
Braver Angels is partnering with CSA on immigration in three ways:
CSA has been inviting its members to join our Immigration Common Ground Workshops.
In a few weeks, Braver Angels members will get an invitation to join CommonSense American and weigh in on their online immigration brief.
CSA has been receiving our findings to date and will include prelimnary Braver Angels Common Ground Workshop results in their congressional briefings.
If you choose to vote on CSA's brief, you will review legislative proposals under active consideration in Congress, the strongest case for and against each, and be asked whether you support or oppose. CSA will then aggregate the results, publish them alongside our Common Ground Workshop findings, and brief over 300 congressional offices on where everyday Americans across the partisan divide actually agree.
Now, here's where it gets even more exciting. CSA staff and State Ambassadors will brief over 300 congressional offices on where Americans across the partisan divide agree on immigration legislation. BA members involved with CCI will have a chance to participate in those briefings to share common ground findings from Braver Angels workshops.
Your participation in voting on CSA's brief is your choice. If joining CommonSense American is not for you, the work on immigration Braver Angels is doing is still yours.
But if joining CSA to vote on the brief is for you, here is what you should know. The story they will tell, with our findings beside theirs, is the one you have been making true through workshops across the country.
Americans are not as polarized as people think.
Now go show Congress what you found.
Onward!
- Maury Giles, CEO of Braver Angels
- David Lapp, Director of National Initiatives at Braver Angels
- Keith Allred, Executive Director of CommonSense American
Debate Red/Blue Framing This Tuesday
Why do we do Red/Blue the way we do it? This is the question that Maury has seen surface repeatedly on his listening tour. It's a fair question. The world of 2026 is not the world of 2016. The people hearing about us and walking through our doors are different. The associations those words carry are different. And if we're honest, our membership data tells us we're not reaching the full cross-section of America our mission requires.
So we're doing what Braver Angels does best. We're turning our own methods on ourselves.
Is the Red/Blue dichotomy the heart of Braver Angels' success, or is it a limitation we’ve outgrown? Most Americans don’t fit in a “Red” or “Blue” box. And, still, we need a way we can clearly signal to newcomers that people like them are welcome here. So, what do we do? This is a complex challenge and the stakes are high.
Help us surface what must be preserved and what must change so that the people working on solutions have the full picture. Join us this Tuesday, May 5th, at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT for a Braver Angels Debate on
Resolved: The Red/Blue dichotomy is the best way to ensure viewpoint diversity at Braver Angels. Register
here.
Coming Up
Our latest resolution poll. Help us choose a resolution for our June 2nd national debate on Christianity and politics! It only takes a minute.
📊 Take the poll: Poll on National Debate Resolution
Reflections on Lincoln. On America's National Day of Prayer, join Braver Faith to reflect on Lincoln's Gettysburg Address speech and pray for healing.
✅ Sign up Reflection on the Gettysburg Address On the National Day of Prayer
Thursday, May 7 at 8 p.m. ET
Our volunteer forum. Are you a BA Debate volunteer? Curious about becoming one? Looking to gain wisdom or to pass on what you've learned? If so, join our monthly Debate Volunteer Forum.
✅ Sign up Debate Volunteer Forum
Wednesday, May 13 at 8 p.m. ET
Tackle a tough topic. Join equal numbers of Reds and Blues to take a deep dive into immigration and work on finding common ground and proposing solutions-- together.
✅ Sign up Workshop to Address Unauthorized Immigrants in U.S. Today
Saturday, May 16 at 2 p.m. ET
Great debates. If you want to bring a debate to your BA Alliance, one thing you'll want to put extra time into is your resolution. Learn how to choose the right wording and pose great questions.
✅ Sign up Braver Angels Resolution Development Workshop
Thursday, May 28 at 7 p.m. ET
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🔔 Join us in Philadelphia. On America’s 250th Anniversary—and Braver Angels’ 10th Anniversary—we will convene on hallowed ground in Philadelphia to renew the pledge the founders took 250 years ago. Our 2026 National Convention is a call for courageous citizens to deepen their commitment to democratic principles and strengthen their bonds with each other. Join us for inspiring speakers, interactive workshops, stirring debates, and many more exciting programs. Learn more and submit your application to attend through our 2026 National Convention website.
🤝 We're hiring! Our fundraising team is searching for a Senior Manager of Development Operations & Donor Engagement. Could this be you or someone you know? This person plays a central role in advancing Braver Angels’ fundraising efforts by managing technical donor systems, supporting major gift strategy, and executing annual fundraising initiatives. This role combines relationship-building, data-informed fundraising, and operational leadership, ensuring that donor engagement is strategic, personalized, and well-coordinated across the organization. The deadline to apply is May 15. Visit our website for more information and job description and then apply through the portal on Idealist.org.
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Courageous conversations. This author argues that university students are hungry for civil discourse and that schools must seize this moment to build ideological bridges on their campuses.
📖 Read A Blueprint for Civil Discourse on Campus
A different kind of ABCs. Civil discourse can’t occur within an echo chamber. Read how the authors of Beyond Contempt led a workshop on how to have more constructive conversations.
📖 Read Braver Angels workshop attracts twenty people willing to talk and listen
Two phone booths. In our hyper-polarized world, this social experiment showed that we can bridge deep divides by tapping into people’s creativity, curiosity, and desire for connection.
📖 Read How two phone booths connected strangers across party lines
Bridging the divide. Read about a great BA workshop in Ramona, CA, and what the participants learned and took away. 📖 Read Braver Angels workshop begins process of opening dialogue in polarized times
Going local. Listen to Wilk talk to Spike Cohen, the 2020 Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate, about the organization You Are the Power.
🎧 Listen You Are the Power: The Movement to Stop Local Government Abuse
Conversations across differences. The Spark recently hosted a live taping at Penn State Harrisburg following a “Skills for Disagreeing Better” workshop facilitated by BA. Listen to it here.
🎧 Listen The Spark Features Braver Angels Workshop on Civil Discourse at Penn State Harrisburg
Looking ahead. Watch this keynote at the E.N. Thomson Forum on World Issues by the author of The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again.
🎥Watch America's Upswing
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