Angry Uncle Review: The Civic Dinner

After alienating half her family with a Facebook post following the 2016 election, Atlanta native Jenn Graham came up with the idea of the “Civic Dinner.” Here are the ground rules:

A diverse group of six to 10 people is assembled. It can be friends, colleagues, neighbors or strangers. Each participant pays a fee to cover the cost of the event, or brings a dish if it’s a potluck.

Current conversation topics at ARC-related meals include mobility, livability, affordable housing, aging, education and work. The host receives a packet that provides instructions for facilitating the dinner conversation. It also includes three “big questions” to ask each participant. Participants take turns, and the host acts as moderator.

“One of the things that’s nice about Jenn’s concept,” said Jenn Graham’s uncle, Richard Lysinger, “is it’s a formalized opportunity to have those kinds of conversations. Everybody knows the rules of the game.”

And now the $64 question:

Can we adopt that structure for our own family meals? Or what about for Thanksgiving? State Sen. Fran Millar, R-Dunwoody, who lost to Rep. Sally Harrell in the midterms, said now is the time, and the Thanksgiving table is as good a place as any to talk of important things. “What better time than the holiday season when we talk about peace on earth and good will toward men?” he said. “We can’t continue down this path of mutual destruction.”

Hmmm. This seems awfully structured for a Thanksgiving dinner. Will everyone agree to a moderated, round-robin discussion regulated by Robert’s Rules of Order? I’m having a hard time seeing it. But maybe! I think one of my readers should give this a try and report back on Friday. Two uncles.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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