Philanthropist Melanie Lundquist takes a boots-on-the-ground approach to giving. While some philanthropists insulate themselves with protective layers of aides and spokespeople and foundation infrastructure, Lundquist is all in on the projects she supports — including the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which she and her husband, Richard, helped create, and the News Literacy Project, which they’re backing with a $10 million commitment, the largest in the grantee’s 14-year history.
The Lundquists made their fortune in real estate in Southern California, and now they’re giving much of it away. They signed the Giving Pledge, and have been included four times on The Philanthropy 50. “For us, philanthropy is the meaning of life and also what gives our lives true meaning,” they wrote when they signed the Giving Pledge in 2018. “We took it to heart when Warren Buffett said that this is not our money; we have been temporary stewards of it, and now it goes back into society for the benefit of mankind.”
In the letter, the couple also identified their giving priorities: “Our primary philanthropic focus is K-12 public school education and healthcare — basic human rights. A democracy depends on a foundation of educated constituents.” The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which they cofounded in 2007 with a $50 million gift, is one of their largest commitments to date.
The Lundquists’ belief in the vital role that educated constituents play in a healthy democracy animates their support for the News Literacy Project (NLP), a nonpartisan educational nonprofit with a national focus. NLP is the largest provider of news literacy education in the country; the Lundquists’ recent $10 million gift will allow it to expand its reach to help educators, students and the public “better navigate today’s fraught information landscape and push back against mis- and disinformation,” according to the announcement.
For Melanie Lundquist, there are few contemporary issues that are more critical. “From COVID to January 6 to climate change, the misinformation crisis facing our country is an urgent threat. Because of its proliferation, democracy is circling the drain,” she said when the gift was announced.
“I like to look not at problems, but at solutions,” Lundquist told me in a recent interview. “We see NLP as a part of the toolbox that can save democracy. There’s no shortage of problems, but there seems to be a shortage of solutions. So when I find one, I get really excited about it.”
A survival skill for the 21st Century
Alan C. Miller, who founded the News Literacy Project 14 years ago, shares Lundquist’s assessment of the risks posed by a media landscape flooded in rumors, conspiracy theories, factual distortions and outright lies.
“This is one of the greatest challenges of our time,” he told me. “Whether you’re talking about education, climate, pandemic, democracy — mis- and disinformation just represent enormous existential threats.”
As a former journalist, Miller understands the power of information. He worked as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Over the last several decades, as the internet and social media have grown in size, scope and influence, he’s seen the amount and influence of mis- and disinformation grow along with it. Miller started NLP with funding from the Knight Foundation; other supporters include Apple, the Glaser Progress Foundation, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, and the Klarman Family Foundation.
Through his work at NLP, Miller helped launch the field of news literacy, which he calls “a survival skill in the 21st Century.” (Miller stepped down as the head of NLP in July — Charles Salter is the new president and CEO — but is advising through the leadership transition and remains active as founder and as a member of the board.)
Checkology, NLP’s signature program, provides free lessons and activities for sixth- to 12th-grade students. Along with the curriculum, teachers who participate have access to professional learning classes and webinars, and to NewsLitCamp, which connects them to professional journalists.
Erin Wilder, who teaches language arts at Mill Creek High School in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the largest district in the state, began using Checkology when she helped create a media literacy program as part of her 12th-grade curriculum. (She later helped take the media literacy program district-wide.)
Wilder gave an example of a recent Checkology lesson on the importance of checking the source of information found online or on social media, a step she says her students typically fail to take. Other NLP resources point to images of celebrities in T-shirts with doctored logos or quotations, a common practice that Wilder discusses with her students. “It’s really easy to digitally manipulate a T-shirt,” Wilder said. “People don’t think about that, they just assume that the celebrity backs this or that cause or message.”
Wilder finds that young people are often more confident of their news literacy skills than is warranted. “They’re digital natives, and they think they know better than those of us who are older,” she said. “But we’ve noticed that our students don’t pay attention, they don’t put the time in. I like to say they consume information at the speed of their thumbs. They fly through information and they pass it on; they don’t take the time to assess it and really think about it.”
Research confirms Wilder’s anecdotal observations. A 2019 report by the Stanford History Education Group found that many high school students don’t challenge the sources of information they were exposed to. According to the executive summary, “Fifty-two percent of students believed a grainy video claiming to show ballot stuffing in the 2016 Democratic primaries (the video was actually shot in Russia) constituted ‘strong evidence’ of voter fraud in the U.S.” And, “Ninety-six percent of students did not consider why ties between a climate change website and the fossil fuel industry might lessen that website’s credibility.”
That’s where NLP hopes to make a difference. “We’re giving students tools to be able to understand how to read the news and other content,” Alan Miller said. “We’re reaching them where they live at a time when they’re creating habits of mind and consumption habits that will last a lifetime.”
Miller has seen the impact on students in real time. “I’ve sat in classrooms when the light goes on, it’s like they get a kind of superpower,” he said. “Students can apply it to everything: their research paper, the rumor they hear in the hallway, decisions they make about where to go to college or whether to go into the military. They’re awash in information and content, and this gives them tools to assess it, and to share that information with their family and friends.”
NLP materials provide evidence of the program’s impact: In the 2020-21 school year, 81% of the students who completed Checkology lessons were able to identify the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment, and 79% said they were more likely to engage in civic activities.
NLP wants to ensure that more students and teachers across the U.S. have access to its programs. The Los Angeles Unified School District — the second-largest school district in the country — recently entered into a memorandum of understanding with NLP that allows it to use the program in grades six through 12, system-wide. NLP also collaborates with school districts around the country, including in New York City, Chicago, Dallas, Birmingham, Nashville and Indianapolis, and is working at the state level in Colorado, Hawai’i and Iowa. The funding from the Lundquists will allow it to expand its reach even further.
“Our vision is to see news literacy be part of the American educational experience, and to see a more news-literate America,” Miller said. “So ultimately, yes, we’d love to see it in every school. We have, I think, really pragmatic goals to expand the reach dramatically in the coming years.” According to advocacy group Media Literacy Now, a number of states have or are considering enacting policies requiring schools to offer media literacy education.
News literacy isn’t just for young people; another NLP program, RumorGuard, challenges conspiracy theories and other types of misinformation — recent posts counter misinformation about vaccines, the midterm elections, the World Cup and the FTX scandal, for example.
“Just do it”
Melanie and Richard Lundquist see philanthropy as a long-term commitment; that approach has characterized their support for the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, and it’s true of their more recent support for NLP.
“I think philanthropists love to go in for two or three years and want to see great change happen,” Melanie Lundquist said. “But when things are as broken as they are in this country, I really think you’ve got to go for the long haul. Our work with NLP is a five-year commitment, and I’m hoping that it goes so well that I just can’t wait to make another five-year commitment, and another after that.”
Lundquist believes the work is so important that she and her husband are not only supporting NLP, she has joined its board and is urging other funders to support it, too.
“I will be out there helping raise additional funds so that NLP can expand,” she said. “You know, there is a lot of hand wringing going on now. I say — not to plagiarize Nike here — I say ‘just do it!’ And NLP is doing it. Are they doing it on a large enough scale? No, and that is why we are making this investment, and why we’re hoping other funders will, too.”