Builders Movement

Civility Nonprofit

Background

In May 2024, Daniel Lubetzky, the billionaire founder of KIND Snacks, announced a pluralism initiative called the Builders Movement. Its stated mission is to “overcome ‘us vs. them’ thinking and solve problems together.” In October 2024, Builders announced the launch of “Builders Power Rankings”—a weekly dashboard that rates the words and actions of Congress members and sorts them into “Builders” or “Dividers.” The scores are generated by AI-powered analysis and machine learning, with data provided by the Polarization Research Lab based at Dartmouth College, combined with insights from a panel of analysts that includes Karl Rove (Deputy Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush and a former tobacco industry consultant ), and Joe Lonsdale (a billionaire Trump ally who led a national push to criminalize homelessness), among others.

Notable People

Daniel Lubetzky

Billionaire KIND Snacks founder and co-founder of Builders Movement

Lubetzky participated in a private WhatsApp group whose communications were obtained by The Washington Post; the Post reported that members discussed how to influence New York City's and Columbia University's response to the spring 2024 encampment and that Lubetzky was part of an April 26, 2024 Zoom call with Mayor Eric Adams. After the call, Lubetzky circulated proposed actions that included contacting Columbia's president and trustees and resharing a link through which supporters could contribute to Adams's reelection campaign. Asked by the Post about the messages, Lubetzky emphasized the importance of building bridges between Black and Jewish communities. Lubetzky served on the board of the staunchly Zionist Anti-Defamation League from 2018 to 2024 and he delivered these remarks at a November 2023 ADL event:

There’s a lot of challenges on college campuses. The anti-colonial ideology is so rigid. It’s an us vs. them ideology. … The extremists that are calling “from the river to the sea”...they’re causing antisemitism [and] they’re also preventing this conflict from getting resolved.

See also: Viewpoints Project; Stanford University.

Jonathan Haidt

Co-founder of Heterodox Academy and Constructive Dialogue Institute

Haidt is one of several prominent individuals listed as a co-founder in the Builders launch announcement. He is well known as the co-author of the controversial 2018 book The Coddling of the American Mind (with FIRE President Greg Lukianoff). In a December 2023 blog post about pro-Palestine activism, Haidt described college campuses as “rife with antisemitism” and chastised university administrators for being too “slow, weak, or entirely absent” in their response to protesters.

Sean Westwood

Director of the Polarization Research Lab at Dartmouth College

Westwood’s lab is the source of data for the “Builders Power Rankings”—a weekly dashboard that rates the words and actions of Congress members and sorts them into “Builders” or “Dividers.” The Polarization Research Lab is funded primarily by a multimillion-dollar grant from the conservative Charles Koch Foundation, a major funder of right-wing infrastructure for several decades. Westwood is the Starr Foundation National Fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution and he has contributed research to Hoover’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) initiative. He is also co-chair of Dartmouth’s Heterodox Academy chapter.

See also: Dartmouth College; Stanford University.

Notable Funders

Lubetzky Family Foundation/PeaceWorks Foundation

$400,000 (2024)

Established by billionaire KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky, co-founder of Builders Movement. In 2024, the foundation donated $60,000 to American Friends of LIBI (which supports the Israel Defense Forces).