By Justin Kiczek 

President 

As our most recent press release shares, the F. M. Kirby Foundation has been preparing for this semiquincentennial moment for some time now. We have often said that the 250th anniversary of our nation should not just be about one day — or even one year. It should be about way more than fireworks, we argued. That said, I could not help but grow excited as July 4th approached, seeing America250 flags being hoisted on flagpoles and watching shops, restaurants, museums, and more finding their own little ways to celebrate. And I had not anticipated what a jolt of energy that the World Cup has brought. How interesting to think that a cosmopolitan, competitive event, in which North America plays host to the world, would give Americans — a historically restless, discontented bunch — further license to feel pride in their nation. Amidst divisive politics and disruptive technological change and conflict abroad, we can still throw a great party. 

But between the fireworks, the barbeques, and the World Cup shenanigans, between the thousands of thought pieces and documentary specials and webinars this occasion has sparked, I have, over the last few days, been spending quiet time with the words themselves of the Declaration of Independence. 

One of the miracles of close reading is that it allows you to be awakened to words that, perhaps due to dull over-repetition, had been rendered flavorless. Making time for each of Jefferson’s words in that well-known preamble allows this now 250-year-old letter to feel vibrantly new. 

One could write essays on each phrase in the first two paragraphs. Indeed, many have. As for myself, lately, I have been turning over in my mind the phrase “the pursuit of happiness,” the last of the “trinity” of rights enumerated by Jefferson in that famous sentence. Jefferson was a deep reader of political philosophy, well acquainted with John Locke’s social contract theory about the way in which the state can protect “life, liberty, and property.” Jefferson chose, however, this decidedly more abstract phrase. 

Scholars like Jeff Rosen have helped modern audiences understand the 18th century context for words like “happiness,” which is far less about contentment and comfort and far more about achieving a thriving state of virtuous living. This is a fascinating choice on Jefferson’s part, to replace property — something that could be earned, sold, and traded —  with something invaluable and immeasurable. But the word “pursuit” seems to me just as inspired a choice — indeed, a proto-American one — with important implications for philanthropy and the social sector. 

To pursue is to strive. It is about, of course, reaching for a goal, an outcome. In contrast with the “life” and “liberty” that all, Jefferson argues, are endowed with at birth (recognizing here, of course, the glaring hypocrisy of this statement for a slaveholder who very clearly deprived others of their Creator-endowed “liberty”), we are very obviously not endowed with “happiness” at birth, only the option to pursue that state as we grow. Indeed, while life and liberty are characterized as universally bequeathed by a “Creator” upon its subjects, Jefferson embeds individual agency with this pursuit. In other words, Jefferson seems to be saying: “Want happiness? That is on you.” 

What we of course better understand now is that an individual cannot “pursue” this happiness if she is hungry. Or lacks good health care. Or has been failed by an education system. Or has had her home flooded again and again. One can’t pursue happiness if the pursuit of basic needs is itself full of headwinds and obstacles. 

At F. M. Kirby Foundation, our broad support across program areas gives us the opportunity to think about what conditions are required for people to thrive, to pursue happiness. In the communities where our work runs deepest, we are trying to allow for that pursuit Jefferson challenged us with 250 years ago. Our mission calls upon us to “foster self-reliance,” to remember that, if we can help develop the vital conditions for thriving, the individual maintains the dignity of choice — the ability, agency, and responsibility to choose to pursue that happiness.  

As we look back over 250 years of American history — its achievements and shortcomings, its betrayals and its promises — the social sector continues to play its part in this pursuit, in the slow work toward a “more perfect union.” But philanthropy and nonprofits cannot do this alone. Jefferson himself understood as much: “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” The pursuing may belong to each of us alone, but securing the conditions that make that pursuit possible has always depended on a partnership between civil society and government, each doing what the other cannot. 

The flags, the fireworks, the World Cup chants — these come easily, and they should. The pursuit is the harder, longer work, and it does not end when the last firework fades. It is the work we return to every day at F. M. Kirby Foundation, and the work we hope you’ll join us in exploring on July 21st, as we consider together the roles that civil society, government, and volunteers each play in helping every American, in Jefferson’s words, “effect their safety and happiness.”