Fund and Partner
Weave’s Social Trust Map Picks Up Three Awards
What if you knew the strength of trusting behaviors, trusting intentions, and trusting spaces in your own community? Not in your city, county, or your zip
Fund and Partner
Culture change requires many to show courage and declare that there is a better way for us to live. Weave’s work is supported by individuals and organizations who believe that changing our culture of hyper-individualism is key to healing the disconnection, isolation and despair in American society and building social trust.
Weave’s approach
In 2018, New York Times columnist David Brooks founded Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute to address the crisis of broken social trust that has left Americans divided along many lines, isolated and unable to address our common needs. The project aims to turn Americans into a nation of weavers, spreading connection and belonging.
Based on the #WeaveThePeople event and subsequent conversations with weavers, the Weave project now combines in-person gatherings with online tools and spaces with the goal of reaching 10 million weavers over the next decade.
- Connect weavers through events, training, and an online community.
- Lift up the critical role of weavers as trusted social leaders, even when they don’t have titles or many resources, by providing them with funding, speaking opportunities, and sharing their stories.
- Inspire more people to live a weaving way of life that values relationships as highly as their own achievements.
Invest where trust is built: the Weaver Awards
Community Hosts implement the Weaver Awards in their communities, creating the conditions for social trust to grow. They invest in the weavers who foster positive relationships and address immediate community needs, while also leading a shift in norms towards connection and trust that will benefit generations to come.
The Community Host model- New Community Hosts in 2027
- 25
- Startup funding for each host
- $225,000
- Awards each host makes every year, for four years
- 20 or more
- Each award
- $2,500 – $5,000
Evidence: the Social Trust Map
Weave’s Social Trust Index and Map show the strength of certain neighborhood traits that are correlated with social trust. Trusting behaviors, intentions, and spaces are judged separately, but they influence and complement each other. You can think of them as the ecosystem that supports building relationships and trust in a community.
Ways to partner with Weave
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Put your organization on the Social Trust Map
Tell Weave about a trusting space your organization runs.
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List weaving opportunities on the Weaver Network
Weaver Network is offline while an all new version is under construction.
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Become a National BIG READ Partner
Would your organization like to join our growing list of BIG READ National Partners?
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Bring a Weave Speaker to your stage
Weave Speakers come from many walks of life and share their stories to inspire others to create belonging and connection across differences.
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Propose another way to work together
Foundations, companies and institutions can write to Weave’s partnerships team.
Funders and Partners
Countless people and organizations already work locally to support neighbors who are struggling and to build healthy, connected and inclusive communities. All are partners in this work. Weave is currently receiving funding from the following people and organizations.
- Jacklyn G. and Miguel A. Bezos
- Carnegie Corporation of New York
- Lilly Endowment Inc.
- John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
- David Rubenstein
- Walmart Foundation
- Walton Family Foundation
Weave’s Home is the Aspen Institute
The Aspen Institute is a global nonprofit organization committed to realizing a free, just, and equitable society. Founded in 1949, the Institute drives change through dialogue, leadership, and action to help solve the most important challenges facing the United States and the world. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Institute has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, and an international network of partners. Weave: The Social Fabric Project reports to the president of Aspen.
One weaving story
For Weavers
As church pews emptied, these congregations saw an opportunity
Royersford Baptist Church in a suburb outside of Philadelphia was facing a problem shared by many churches in America. Their membership had declined so much over the years that many parts of their building were underutilized. With no decline in utility bills and building maintenance costs, the pastor