The Our Towns Civic Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit devoted to discovering, sharing, and learning from stories of civic renewal. By showing what’s possible, we encourage success at the local level.
Our Story
The foundation grew from the work of cofounders Deborah and James Fallows, in their years of local-level reporting that led to the best-selling book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America, and the subsequent HBO movie.
Since then, our efforts have continued and expanded, with an emphasis of connecting civic-minded innovators and organizations around the country.
Our Mission
The mission of the foundation is to make progress more likely by connecting the people who make it possible. Even in times of division and standoff at the national level, evidence accumulates that Americans feel hopeful about their own communities and the people and institutions they encounter first-hand. This pattern appears consistently in polling data, as well as in journalistic and other reports about American life in recent years.
Our purpose is to help people in different parts of the country share the lessons of successes and setbacks at the local level, to recognize that their civic stories are part of a larger nationwide movement, and to see new purpose in the projects they pursue day by day in their own parts of America.
Our Board
Deborah Fallows
Deborah was trained in linguistics at Harvard and at the University of Texas, where she got her PhD. Before beginning the ‘Our Towns’ project, she worked in academia at Georgetown University and in internet search-engine design. Her first book, A Mother’s Work, was published in 1985. Her second, Dreaming in Chinese, about what learning the Chinese language teaches you about China, was published in 2010.
James Fallows
James is a longtime book and magazine writer. In his 20s he was chief White House speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter. He wrote hundreds of articles as a staff writer for The Atlantic, and won the National Magazine Award for a 2002 article there warning of the consequences of invading Iraq. He has written for many other magazines, and authored 12 books, including National Defense, which won the American Book Award. He is a long-time instrument-rated pilot, and he and Deborah traveled for years by propeller plane across the country in the reporting for Our Towns. He now writes the Substack newsletter Breaking the News.
Jen Hughes
Jen believes in the power of the arts to build thriving places, strengthen civic engagement, and foster meaningful connection. Trained as an urban planner, she is a current Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Previously, she served as Senior Advisor and Director of Design and Creative Placemaking at the National Endowment for the Arts, leading a national portfolio of projects demonstrating the essential role of arts in our communities.
Mark Potts
Mark is an entrepreneur, consultant and recovering journalist with a passion for communities. Formerly a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and other newspapers and magazines, he created one of the first digital newspaper prototypes for The Washington Post in the 1990s and has developed strategies and products for numerous media and technology companies. His current project is LocAlmanac, an AI-driven local information startup.
Supporters & Partners
Our Towns Foundation is supported by the generosity of the following people:
Eric and Wendy Schmidt
Quint and Rishy Studer
And readers like you.
Republishing policy
Unless otherwise noted, Our Towns stories are free to republish through a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Please review our complete Republishing Policy.