By Dave Cucchiara

Communications & Program Associate

In an era of unprecedented political polarization, where Americans increasingly view those across the ideological divide not as fellow citizens, but as adversaries, Braver Angels has emerged as one of the nation’s largest grassroots organizations dedicated to bridging our political divides. Since its founding in 2016, following the contentious Trump-Clinton election, the organization has grown to a community of over 80,000 supporters, with 15,000 organized members across 130 local alliances nationwide and approximately 3,000 active volunteers working to transform how Americans engage across political differences.

Immigration stands as one of the most divisive issues in American politics, where productive dialogue seems nearly impossible and comprehensive reform has eluded Congress for over 25 years. Yet through its Citizens Commission on Immigration, Braver Angels is demonstrating that finding common ground is possible when citizens from across the political spectrum are brought together through structured dialogue and deliberation. The initiative connects grassroots Common Ground Workshops — where seven red-leaning and seven blue-leaning participants spend five hours listening to each other’s experiences and finding unanimous points of agreement — with national immigration policy experts and members of Congress.

In December 2025, Braver Angels, alongside Prevention is Key and Adirondack Community Foundation, was awarded the inaugural F. M. Kirby Foundation Innovation Engine Grant — $300,000 over three years — in recognition of the Citizens Commission on Immigration’s innovative approach to bridging divides and advancing policy solutions. This funding enables Braver Angels to scale its proven methods, conduct 100 Common Ground Workshops nationwide, convene national immigration policy roundtables, and produce a Report to the Nation in 2027 that will document not just policy recommendations, but a replicable process for addressing polarized issues through courageous citizenship.

 

 

Interview with Maury Giles, Chief Executive Officer, and David Lapp, Co-Founder of Braver Angels and Director, Citizens Commission on Immigration

Dave: All right, hello everyone. My name is Dave Cucchiara, communications and program associate here at the F. M. Kirby Foundation. I want to thank you all for joining us today. Today, I’m joined by two leaders from the bridging civil discourse nonprofit space. This is one of the foundation’s longtime partners in Braver Angels. With that, I’d like to introduce David Lapp. David’s the co-founder of Braver Angels, and the current director of the Citizens Commission on Immigration. And today, we’re also joined by Maury Giles, CEO, who took the helm of the organization last summer. I want to thank you both today for taking the time to have this conversation. I’ll jump right into it here. We’ll start with the big news and why you’re here today. Braver Angels, alongside Prevention is Key and Adirondack Community Foundation, was awarded the inaugural Innovation Engine Grant award last December. That’s $300,000 over the course of three years. And this is in support of your Citizens Commission on Immigration. So let’s start with a general background of what helps the listener better understand what the organization’s mission is at Braver Angels, and why this was chosen as a priority issue at this moment in time.

Maury: Thank you so much for this award, for the things that it’s enabling us to do, and for the work that’s ahead. It’s a pleasure to be able to be with you and to share this and the excitement we’ve had going throughout the organization with this announcement. So yeah, Braver Angels, we’re the largest player in this space, because of the people literally here with us today, David Lapp and a few others back in 2016 decided we need to get together and have conversation after the Trump-Clinton election and that took off and expanded to where now we have a community of over 80,000 people that follow the content we do, but we got 15,000 that are organized in 130 local alliances. Those are like our chapters across the country, and in those chapters, we have about 3,000 who are active volunteers. And for us, our vision is an America where courageous citizenship is the honored norm. And what we mean by that is a culture change of owning your role in the American system, understanding your point of view, and then seeking someone with a different point of view on it is what’s required for self-government. And so, our mission is to inspire and equip Americans to practice courageous citizenship, and we do that through skill building, convening, and collaborative action. And our membership basis represents the whole ideological spectrum by design, so our members don’t agree with each other. So, on this particular issue, such a powerful one today, right now, in terms of the divisiveness on this, can hardly have a conversation about it without it going into the labels. But this was actually a couple years ago at our last convention in Kenosha, when our membership base voted on what we should be focusing on with the national issue, and immigration was the one that was selected.

Dave: Yeah, and, you know, I mean, really just a nice preface into kind of how this topic has just really exploded. I mean, anyone who watches the news would understand how important this conversation is right now. So, David, with immigration arguably being one of the most polarizing topics in America at this present moment in time, what gaps in the constructive dialogue did you identify that led you to launching the Citizens Commission on Immigration?

David: Yeah, it was really thinking about a forward-looking approach to what kind of policies do we think that people across the ideological and political spectrum, what policies and ideas could they agree on to address our immigration system, not just in the short term, like what executive order for this or that, but long term, bipartisan congressional action? And we started talking with some people who are real immigration experts and leaders, and with their organizations, both on the conservative side and on the more liberal or progressive side, and one person said, you know, we’ve been fighting each other for the last couple of decades, and I don’t really know — I mean, I know who they are, but I’ve not really had a significant conversation, or at least a continued series of significant conversations, with people on the other side. So, at the national level, it was a sense of, well, what if we brought together people who disagreed? It hasn’t been done, but there’s an opportunity to do it in an intentional way again, and then to tie — the really innovative thing there too is to connect that to the grassroots and to members of Congress. So that at the grassroots level you have, which is really the heart of it, we have what we call Common Ground Workshops on Immigration: seven red-leaning people and seven blue-leaning people spend up to five hours, usually in person, to listen to each other’s experiences, deliberate about the issue, and ultimately come to unanimous points of agreement on values, concerns and policies about immigration. Now we’ve done 30 of those Common Ground Workshops already. The goal was to have 100 events by the time this is all said and done. What happens when those points of agreement from the grassroots are in dialogue with the national leaders, and what if at the grassroots, those participants have the opportunity to share those points of agreement with their member of Congress? Then we have a national conversation: citizen to Congress, citizen to national leaders to Congress, about what we can do to improve our nation’s immigration system, what are the kind of policies? It was that opportunity we saw, not only at the grassroots, not only the national leaders, not just with Congress, but with all three. And Braver Angels, it’s not about the solution, it’s about the method. We have methods to convene people, and we saw an opportunity to do that here.

Dave: Sure, yeah. And it’s been, you know, I correct me if I’m wrong, 25 to 30 years since we’ve had comprehensive immigration reform in this country at the congressional level. So, I think Congress had its chance the last 30 years, and now it’s time for the people to really step up. I think that’s really what makes this program so special. So, in terms of the Innovation Engine Grant program, right, the grant that you applied for, David, really the core tenets of this focused on innovation, addressing those unmet community needs, and scalability. So, how do you think that this Citizens Commission on Immigration embodies all three of those elements?

David: Yeah, so for us at Braver Angels, you know, throughout our history, we know how to do the Common Ground Workshop. This is something we’ve been doing. It’s our bread and butter. But the innovation for us is, how do you take that Common Ground Workshop, in this case on immigration, but you could do it on any issue — and then how do you put that in common? How do you [make sure that] what happens at a workshop in little South Lebanon, Ohio doesn’t stay there in South Lebanon, but it travels to the state legislator, it travels to Congress, so that the points of agreement and the trust and the relationship that those reds and blues and independents forge in South Lebanon, Ohio is able to help improve our political culture. So that’s the innovation there for us. We know how to do workshops that bring together ordinary citizens, but how do you take that and have it affect city council, state legislators, members of Congress? And how do you bring in national leaders and experts who are experts on their issue, and how do you involve them in the process? That for us is a whole different ballgame, which this grant is enabling us to take a little bit of a risk and to say, what happens if we engage with members of Congress? And so, we’re just getting off the ground on that, and this grant is helping us to do that. So that now, when we are preparing for a Common Ground Workshop on Immigration, we’re training our organizers to think about getting together a group of constituents and then reach out immediately to the local member of Congress to tell the local member that your constituents will be meeting in a Common Ground Workshop, and they’d love to meet with you to share the points of agreement. So that really for us is the big innovation here.

Maury: And I think that the scalability part of it on your third part is with this effort, we have an interesting dynamic of our 130 local alliances. That’s just what we call our chapters, right? And so, we can take a method and we can deploy it across these alliances all across the country, and that’s what scales it up, but then we’re still aggregating it together to be able to tell a story. And we’re going further with that. We’re looking at other organizations that are working on the same issue of immigration, like CommonSense American, and we’re saying what we’re learning can feed into their process as well. So, it really hits on all cylinders with that unmet need that people aren’t talking about things — we can’t talk about it rationally. Congress doesn’t seem to be acting, the innovation of enabling what’s possible of bringing these multiple levels of government together, as well as the dialogue, and then really being able to amp up for our alliances. And what’s really cool is our alliances, those members who participate, love that experience. I was just in one that we did here in Utah with Representative Blake Moore, and the feeling that the people had that were there, half of them who voted for him and half who didn’t, but they had a positive experience, every one of them, and they better understood the process of what’s going on with immigration in Congress.

Dave: That’s awesome. Maury, let’s zoom out a little bit. Let’s talk about those volunteers, right? I think Braver Angels is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. It was founded in 2016, so it’s an important time for the organization. I’ve been following the organization now for about two years, and I mean, over those two years just — I mean the amount of involvement, the amount of dedication the volunteers have put on display, it’s just — you talk about scalability, it’s grown all over the country, almost virtually overnight. What do you attribute that to? And who are these volunteers that help you?

Maury: So, I would attribute it to, first, the hunger of the American spirit to be able to get past what we know is not healthy. And the vast majority — we talked, you know, many people talk about different things, like the exhaustive majority, or what have you — Americans know that this isn’t healthy, but what we have to do is break through that outrage cycle that is really hard, because that tribal warfare is pushing us to our camps. The second thing is, I think about David Lapp, David Blankenhorn and Bill Doherty when they first gathered 10 years ago — they latched on to something that was really critical: proven methods to be able to help people see each other and have human connection. Because at the root cause of this is human connection. We talked about toxic polarization, partisanship — it’s human connection. When you are connected with each other on a human level, your party ideology is not what you define yourself by. You might discuss it, and you might say, ‘Oh, I voted this way. I voted this way.’ Well, now, because the root human connection is not there, these labels of the tribes are now the thing that we’re evaluating each other’s worth and dignity by. That’s not consistent with human beings. And so, the volunteers who have joined us are the ones, I think initially, the choir, the people that really believe and want to do something. And I know David Lapp, you agree with me too, that the people that are volunteers are. I did that for five and a half years myself before I took this position — these are people that just care deeply, and they give a lot of their time. And what we’re working on is, how do we lighten the load and give them more opportunities to engage in ways that can be rewarding to them as well? And this Citizens Commission on Immigration is one of those, because it’s not just something they do once. They then see their congressperson, they see it happening in other places, they see the coverage in the media, and it’s exciting for them.

David: Yeah, really. The first time I heard about Maury was he was a volunteer, and I heard about it from another volunteer that he worked with, brought together an even number of Republican and Democratic state legislators in Utah who were in the midst of a big battle over DEI and brought together those legislators for a Common Ground Workshop on DEI. And behold, they came in — I think Maury can tell the story better than I can — but they were really battling with each other and came out with amazing points of agreement and so forth. But my point is that it all happened with volunteers. And I was on staff at the time, and I just heard about, ‘Did you hear about this amazing workshop that they did in Utah?’ And that kind of thing happens all the time in Braver Angels. The creativity, the innovation and the perseverance is really impressive.

Dave: So it’s funny, David, I think last time we talked, I specifically remember you saying, you know, you start a lot of these interactions by saying, don’t ask the person across from you political questions. Just ask them something about their life, get to know them on just a little bit of a deeper level. So, you know, in these interactions that you guys have, how do you maintain that red-blue balance in these conversations during such a contentious, such a tension time? And, you know, how do you make progress towards meaningful policy conversations with key people?

David: Yeah, I mean, it starts with a commitment to having people in conversation across the ideological and political spectrum. And that’s why at the level of leadership, you know, we said, you know, if you’re going to have a certain alliance, there has to be at least one red co-chair, one blue co-chair. Because if we’re going to fulfill our mission of courageous citizenship across political differences, there has to be political differences there. You know, people have to—we have to have something to practice. And so, for instance, in this, I mean, we’re talking right now, February 10, 2026, obviously, the events in Minneapolis, and what’s happened in regards to immigration and deportation have been on everyone’s mind. And so Braver Angels in our Citizens Commission on Immigration in particular, we convene what we call a National Forum on America’s Deportation Policy. And we said, okay, we’re going to have people who differ in regards to deportation policy, and we’re going to hear from them all. And so, for instance, on that call, one person was somebody whose father had just been deported recently, and Jorge, the speaker, had shared his experience at a Common Ground Workshop on Immigration. The person that followed him was a former Border Patrol officer of 24 years, and he supports Trump’s immigration policies, and he shared his perspective. And then we heard from a panel of national leaders who disagree with each other, but are working together to see what agreement they can find. And then we heard from two members of Congress, one Republican, one Democrat. My point is the way to achieve progress here is to bring people into the room who disagree, to keep on doing that. And I mean the surprises that happen when we do that in a structured and thoughtful way — you find that, well, you know, we’re not going to agree on this and this, but we do agree on this, and we can see a path forward for continuing the conversation. So that, to me, is the key — just having the courage to continue when it feels like you can’t have the conversation. You have got to have the conversation. Of course, you have got to do it in a thoughtful way. You got to have structure, invite people’s goodwill and good faith. But I think that does build trust and hope when we’re able to bring people to continue bringing people together in thoughtful and structured ways.

Maury: Yeah, I was just going to add, David, that from a process, I think it’s part of it is training people with skills of how to approach the conversation. Because so much of this is recognizing your own agency that you might feel like you don’t have any control over any of these things, but what you have 100% control over is whether you act or react. And so we try to do things to help people enter into the conversation in a spirit of action rather than reaction, and that requires some skills. That requires you to ask yourself, am I in this conversation to win, or am I trying to score points? Or am I entering the conversation with curiosity? I loved a Robbie George, professor that has been involved in this — just recently, I was in the event where he said, ‘Every one of us,’ he said, ‘I know that I have fallible opinions in my mind. I just don’t know which ones they are. So if I’m open to conversation, I will discover them.’ And so that’s a personal thing, right? And then the last thing I’ll say, from a skill that I love, it’s one of the things that caught me right early on in participating in Braver Angels, is that if you’re going to enter a conversation with curiosity, then when someone says something and you immediately — the blood starts boiling, you can feel the anxiety because you don’t agree — rather than doing the natural thing, which is, ‘Well, wait a minute,’ and just come back with your retort, it’s pausing for a moment to say, ‘Tell me more about your life experience that shapes the way you view this issue.’ That single question reframes in almost every case the entire dialogue that happens after that. And that’s powerful, but it requires discipline.

Dave: Yeah, for sure. There’s more of a psychological element to this work than people may think on the outside looking in. So, I’ll continue on with this. You know, with this funding, what is possible that wasn’t before? And you know, this project will eventually end up in a Report to the Nation in 2027. So, why 2027? Why is that such a critical year? And what should Americans expect in this report?

David: 2027 will be critical, because we’ll have had the midterms, and there will be a moment when Congress is looking to build, to act, and we will have just had two years of participating in conversations, finding common ground, and we’ll have some results to report. And specifically what the grant from you all has helped us to do, will help us to do, is to do that work of taking what’s happening — first of all, to have more Common Ground Workshops and to convene the Immigration Policy Roundtable over the next year, and be putting members of Congress in dialogue with all that, and then enable us to put together a Report to the Nation that will document all this. And importantly, the Report to the Nation — again, it’s about — it will put forward, here is the common ground, here are some key common ground points of agreement that people found. But probably the most important thing that that report will do is it will say, here’s the process that brought together people who disagree, and here’s a little bit of the method. And that body of work is itself a testament to the possibilities for working together across political difference, and hopefully it will be an encouragement to fellow citizens, members of Congress, and people in the media. But again, even more important than this or that policy, it’s even more important than the immigration issue. It’s the idea that we can, as Americans, we can own our own response to the challenge. We can act locally with fellow citizens to address an issue, and then we can go up to the nation, share it with our fellow citizens, share it with members of Congress and the media, and we can propose a better, braver way for addressing a polarized issue like immigration. That story is one that we believe can happen across many issues, and it’s a story that we hope will inspire many of our fellow Americans.

Maury: I think it’s the secret sauce that David’s talking about, that we’re discovering we have to do more of and we have to make it more elevated for more people to see it, because it’s the surprise factor, the unexpected. It’s kind of like — sorry for this diversion for one second — but the movie Monsters, Inc., they bottled up screams because that gave them energy. But then, spoiler alert, most people don’t think about the fact that at the end of that thing, Sulley, the monster, discovers that if you bottle up laughter, it’s 10 times more impactful in terms of the energy play. So that surprise factor here of bringing this forward is showing the nation what I call the counterculture of awe — that we can actually do something that isn’t the rage bait and hate, but the actual hard work of engaging on this stuff. And it’s not about being nice. You should be nice just because that’s a good idea. This is about being brave. This is about the difference between cowardice and recklessness. Right in the middle of the sweet spot, as Aristotle taught all those years ago, is courage. And so that’s the unexpected awe that we hope your work here, your funding is enabling us to bring at a higher level to the country, and that will create more people believing in what’s possible.

Dave: That’s great. Well, you know, David, Maury, I’ve really, really appreciated this conversation. I know I speak on behalf of the staff over here at the Foundation and our board. We’ve supported Braver Angels for 10 years now, and we’ve really, really enjoyed watching this organization grow. That courageous citizenship on display — and you know we can’t wait to see what’s in store for this grant over the next two years. So, we’re super excited. So final question for you guys, how can people get involved, whether that’s attending events, supporting this work or donating?

Maury: Go to BraverAngels.org right now. We need your help. We need the funding to be able to expand. The demand is huge, and so individual donors being a part of it — you can join and become a member. You can join an alliance in your local area. You can help set one up. One of the most interesting things you can do right away on our website is, you can choose to be a part of a one-on-one conversation. Our volunteers set you up with someone that you choose based upon profile differences. But then on the Citizens Commission on Immigration, if what you’re hearing today, whenever you happen to listen to this, resonates, then go to the website, look for the local connections. Either join or contact that local connection and say, ‘Let’s do one of these in our area, in our neighborhood.’

Dave: That’s great. Maury, David, thank you both so much for your time.