Lewis M. Feldstein
Lewis M. Feldstein is President of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation www.nhcf.org, This statewide community foundation is a powerful force for change and the principal source of venture capital for New Hampshire’s nonprofit community. The Foundation finished 2007 with close to $490 million in total assets, received more than $73 million in contributions, and distributed more than $32 million in grants, scholarships and initiatives.
 Feldstein worked with the civil rights movement in Mississippi and served for seven years in senior staff positions to New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay. Prior to coming to the Charitable Foundation, Feldstein served as Provost of the Antioch/New England Graduate School. He is a graduate of Brown University and holds a Master’s in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University. Among his singular achievements were seven-year tenure as the MC of the International Zucchini Festival, and a stint as wine steward and personal assistant to John Wayne on his yacht in the Mediterranean.
Feldstein serves on several boards, including the Boards of Directors of the Independent Sector and Civic Ventures. He Co-Chaired with Robert Putnam the Harvard University three-year Executive Seminar Civic Engagement in America (www.ksg.harvard.edu/saguaro). With Putnam he is a co-author of the book BETTER TOGETHER: Restoring the American Community published in the fall of 2003.
He has received six Honorary Doctorates. Feldstein was selected as one of the 100 people Who Shaped New Hampshire in the 20th Century, published by the Concord Monitor, and one of the ten most influential people in New Hampshire by Business NH Magazine in 2001 and again in 2007.
On Social Capital: Your Grandmother was right: It is better together! There is a growing and substantial body of data, in this country and aboard, that conclusively demonstrates that communities with higher social capital are healthier, safer, feel better about themselves, are more prosperous, and provide more effective and trusted governance.
In BETTER TOGETHER: Restoring the American Community, he and Putman report on how Americans are developing new ways of making connections among people, reestablishing bonds of trust and understanding, and revitalizing civic spirit. In the final chapter of Bowling Alone (see below), Putnam detected early signs of civic renewal. In their new book, he and Feldstein explored those trends in depth through the vivid stories of twelve successful efforts that build community as the principal means of addressing key needs in every region of the country.
When Robert Putnam’s bestselling book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival ofAmerican Community was published in 2000, its central idea – that Americans were becoming less and less connected to one another and to community affairs – struck a nerve with people all across the country. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, found that every kind of civic and social involvement including membership in civic associations, participation in local and national politics, membership in churches and social clubs and unions, time spent with family and friends and neighbors, philanthropic giving, even simple trust in other people – had fallen by 25 to 50 percent since the late 1960s. As Putnam traveled the nation to discuss his findings, one question kept emerging from ordinary Americans: What can bring us together again?
 
Reporting out is a regular feature of the Consortium’s annual retreat. Above left, Joan Fogg of Yough S.D. speaks; at right Scott Hudak of Trinity Area S.D. takes the mike.
 Superintendent Roger D’Emidio and Linda Ripper of East Allegheny S.D. follow the proceedings.
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