How do you navigate an increasingly partisan world if you don’t fit neatly into Team Blue vs. Team Red? Since 2018, comedian turned political commentator Andrew Heaton has tried to answer that question on his podcast, The Political Orphanage, where he regularly interviews authors and thought leaders about policy and the big issues facing our nation.
This week, Heaton sat down with Laura and John Arnold, founders and co-chairs of Arnold Ventures, to discuss their evidence-based approaching to philanthropy and how they build bipartisan coalitions that can translate research into policy that will improve the lives of the American people.
“Our process really begins with idea generation and exploration of issue areas,” Laura Arnold said. “We first ask: Is this an issue of high relevance to society where we can identify either a market imbalance or some sort of dysfunction that is yielding a suboptimal outcome? We then think about if this is an area where philanthropy has a space. […] Is there an underutilization of resources? Is there an under-allocation or misallocation of resources? Is there a power imbalance that’s yielding a suboptimal outcome?”
Laura emphasized the importance of working in places where there is a bipartisan path forward to implement solutions.
“Is the problem such that we can create a bipartisan consensus and collaboration around a law that we could pass to make this circumstance better?” she said.
The Arnolds also explained how they look for gaps left by the public and private sectors that philanthropy can fill in terms of research or advocacy. This means looking at well-funded fields where unique ideas are underfunded or places where there are no natural advocates.
“We’re trying to provide tension into the system,” John Arnold said.
Listen to the entire podcast below: How Billionaires Think About Philanthropy
The Political Orphanage
