Master Class | Digital Civil Society and Democracy: How We Got Here and Where We Need to Go

The Nonprofit Management Program at Columbia University School of Professional Studies was pleased to present a Master Class in our Program's thought leadership and professional development series: "Digital Civil Society and Democracy: How We Got Here and Where We Need to Go" with featured guest Dr. Lucy Bernholz, a renowned expert, researcher, author, and lecturer on digital society and the nonprofit sector.

Over the last 20 years – and ever more so since March 2020 – people, nonprofits, and foundations have become dependent on commercially made and government-monitored digital systems for basic operations, communications, fundraising, program delivery, advocacy, organizing, and reporting. In so doing, we have enclosed civil society within the bounds of the marketplace and public sector, obliterating any meaningful sense of an independent sector. Digital threats to democracy run much deeper than digitally influenced elections and include the demise of independent civil society. Bernholz described how we got here and what we need to do to reclaim civil society and democracy.

This event was open to the Columbia University community.

For questions, please contact us at SPS-Nonprofit [[at]] columbia [[dot]] edu.