Two hundred and fifty years ago today, a group of ordinary people signed their names to an extraordinary idea. Not a law handed down from a king. Not a tradition inherited from centuries past. An idea that ordinary citizens could govern themselves. 

On this Fourth of July, Colorado has its own reason to celebrate. This Aug. 1, we mark our 150th birthday as a state — Colorado at 150 and America at 250, the same experiment at different scales. What holds both together is the same thing it has always been: people who decided the work was worth doing. 

That work is on my mind this week, because new national research tells us something important. A national NBC News poll, sponsored by the Daniels Fund and More Perfect, found that eight in 10 Americans believe this country places too little emphasis on civic education — a consensus that holds across party lines.  

The same survey found that 54% of Americans believe what divides us is not our values, but our politics. Underneath the noise, we are more alike than our headlines suggest. 

We, as a people, are not broken. We have simply stopped tending our common ground.  

I have spent my career in education and philanthropy, and I have seen what happens when we invest in preparing young people for citizenship — and what happens when we don’t. The gap shows up in communities that struggle to solve local problems, in neighbors who feel distant from the institutions meant to serve them and in a democracy that still works but requires constant tending. 

Here in Colorado, that tending is happening. We have seen students compete in the National Civics Bee, proving they understand how this democracy works. We have seen teachers bring founding-era primary sources back into classrooms — not as dusty relics, but as living arguments that still ask something of us today.  

These are not programs — they are people. And they are why I remain optimistic. 

The founders understood something we sometimes forget: self-government is not self-sustaining. It requires citizens who know how it works, believe their participation matters and have the confidence to engage. They did not assume civic knowledge would be absorbed by the next generation — they trusted that a republic could survive only if each generation was prepared to carry it. 

The polling data suggest Americans know this, too. Nearly eight in 10 say we take our freedoms for granted. That is not despair — that is diagnosis. And a country that can diagnose its own condition still has the capacity to do something about it. 

Colorado has always known that freedom is a practice. You see it in how neighbors responded when wildfires took homes from families who had nowhere else to go. You see it in communities that came together not because a policy required it, but because citizenship did. That spirit — rooted in responsibility — is exactly what civic education cultivates.  

That generosity is measurable. Coloradans gave an estimated $6.1 billion to charity in 2025,  and rank third in the nation on the Philanthropic and Community Service Index and contribute 110 million volunteer hours every year. And that giving is increasingly aimed at the next generation. Initiatives like Colorado Youth Sports Giving Day are channeling support to nonprofits that develop young people through sports. 

At the Daniels Fund, we are working on exactly that. Not because it is easy, but because Bill Daniels — the Colorado entrepreneur who built this foundation — believed that character was the one thing no one could take from you, and that a country full of people who understood their rights and their responsibilities was the greatest force for good the world had ever seen. 

Two hundred and fifty years is a long time for an experiment to keep running. It has lasted only because people, generation after generation, decided it was worth passing on. This Fourth of July, that is what I am most proud to carry forward — and because the data shows, and because Colorado shows, I believe we are ready for the work ahead. 

The next 250 years will be written by all of us willing to do the work. 

Hanna Skandera Grady is president and CEO of the Daniels Fund. Learn more at danielsfund.org/at250.