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John Newsome, founder of Public Equity Group, was a guest on the Secrets of the C-Suite podcast, in an episode titled "Everyone Belongs at the Table."
The conversation covers John's career path in community-centered equity work, including leading with love, staying focused on meaningful outcomes, and the case for continuing this work despite federal opposition.
Listen to the episode.
An article by John Newsome, Igor Rubinov and Aneesha Capur in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR), lays out the “efficacy before scale” framework. To invest in and grow promising organizations and programs in a way that promotes efficacy prior to significant scaling and expansion, there are three pathways to follow: piloting, testing, and iterating. The article lays out valuable case examples from Mission Asset Fund, Working America and Nurse Family Partnerships showing notable impact after following one of pathways to scaling with efficacy.
The key to this “efficacy before scale” approach is a three-step process:
Build the prototype to demonstrate (early) results: Experiment, test, and refine programmatic approaches based on evidence, feedback, and clear metrics
Refine and “prove” the case: Codify the model to determine which elements can and must be replicated, guided by data and metrics, and develop “proof points” to show significant impact with chosen populations or target areas
Plan to scale: With clarity on effectiveness and replication, develop plans for expansion, replication, and/or dissemination, built on strengths of the refined model
Read the full article here.
Learn more about other PEG Publications.
The Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) has published its 2025 Impact Report, covering a year in which “federal funding cuts pushed many public safety organizations to scale back or close.”
LEAP’s own year included the first nationwide map of community responder programs, now covering 89 programs across 31 states, a unanimous Supreme Court decision in Barnes v. Felix on how deadly force must be judged, urged by LEAP's amicus brief, and the No Secret Police Act signed into law in California.
Read the 2025 Impact Report.
CFLeads and Public Equity Group (PEG) began collaborating in 2022 to document the equity journeys of 13 community foundations that participated in the CFLeads Racial Equity Network (2017-present).
Convened by CFLeads, a national network of community foundations, the Racial Equity Network aims to build the collective capacity of community foundations interested in advancing equity.
CFLeads and PEG have launched a field report and 13 case studies that spotlight how community foundations are advancing racial equity and diversity within their regions.
Second Chance Federation is a new nonprofit law firm in Charlotte built on the premise that reentry support has to be sustained, not episodic. The organization helps people with felony convictions restore voting rights, reinstate driver's licenses, and clear the legal and financial obstacles that follow people long after release.
Executive Director Daryl Atkinson, a practicing attorney with his own experience of incarceration, frames the stakes plainly: more than 19 million Americans have felony convictions, and full civic participation for that population would reshape democracy.
Read more here.
The recent release of millions of pages from the Jeffrey Epstein federal investigation has not led to new criminal charges. A recent NPR report examines why, highlighting familiar constraints: evidentiary thresholds, statutes of limitations, and the difficulty of building cases that meet the burden required in court.
As Diane Goldstein of Law Enforcement Action Partnership notes, “If you don't have a legitimate police investigation to start, you're not going to get any type of criminal filing." Her observation reflects a core challenge: even extensive documentation cannot substitute for the procedural and evidentiary foundations required to move a case forward.
The gap between public disclosure and legal accountability in the Epstein case highlights a broader structural dynamic. Transparency can surface patterns and raise awareness, but without clear investigative pathways, its impact remains constrained.
Read the article here.
Public Equity Group launched Viva DEI, a resource hub for social sector organizations navigating the current diversity, equity, and inclusion landscape. The site curates and distills the best legal, policy and communications resources, to help organizations understand what's still lawful and how to keep the work going.
Explore the resources at: vivadei.org
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Learning to disagree well is a civic act, argue Peter Levine and Dayna L. Cunningham in Stanford Social Innovation Review. Drawing on examples from the Civil Rights Movement, Tufts University, and Costco, they show how organizations that create conditions for constructive dissent help sustain democratic habits and how clear commitments embedded in durable practices allow institutions to absorb external pressure without abandoning core values.
Peter Levine is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, and a leading figure in civic studies. Dayna L. Cunningham is the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Dean of Tufts University's Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, a civil rights lawyer by training who previously led MIT's Community Innovators Lab.
Read the article here.
Public Equity Group principal John Newsome shares insights on the Equity Learning Lab (a three-year initiative to help grantees of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation learn about and make progress on racial equity), and the work of transforming health systems in this featured conversation on The Intersection.
Listen here.
Over 500,000 U.S. properties are "heirs' property"—land passed down informally without legal paperwork, leaving every descendant with equal ownership stakes. This creates vulnerabilities: predatory developers exploit fractional ownership through partition lawsuits, families struggle to access loans or FEMA benefits, and unanimous agreement is required for any decisions. Black farmers lost 90% of their land in the 20th century due to these issues.
The issue connects to health equity, disaster relief, and wealth building, yet the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the only major national funder currently addressing this problem, investing $3.4 million since 2023.
Read the full article here.