The following is from The Cambridge Forum About Page:
Our Mission
Cambridge Forum hosts free public discussions designed to inspire and engage, so that people can better explore the varied issues and ideas shaping the changing world. CF broadcasts these events via podcasts, weekly NPR shows and through GBH Forum Network on YouTube to audiences locally, nationally and globally.
Cambridge Forum’s purpose is to advance civil discourse through meaningful conversations with compelling activists & intellectuals across the whole ideas spectrum. In this way, CF fosters community with those who care about the salient issues affecting their lives and distributes these recordings, free of cost.
Cambridge Forum furthers understanding by engaging everyday people with thought leaders in lively conversations. Employing vigorous but respectful dialogue on a wide range of important subjects, CF aims to further public understanding and promote a community of informed citizens. It accomplishes its mission by hosting events on timely topics through live audience discussion and shares the content through a range of free media platforms.
Cambridge Forum’s mission has been devoted to exploration and education, amplifying ideas that impact the world and humanity. CF’s enduring principle is to further democracy, by equipping people with the information they need to make better decisions about subjects affecting their lives, and the future of all life on the planet.
About Us
Mary Stack brings a rich and varied background to her role as Executive Director of Cambridge Forum. Her professional background is in network documentary production and journalism. Her work has appeared on all the major British TV channels and also on NOVA for PBS; her writing credits include The Guardian. She earned a degree in Journalism and a Masters in Mass Communications from the University of Leicester.
Cambridge Forum was originally founded by Rev. Herbert Vetter in 1967 as a program of the First Parish (Unitarian Universalist) in Cambridge to provide a safe platform from which to examine the Civil Rights Movement and the war in Vietnam. It brought experts, writers, policymakers, and thinkers face to face with a public audience in a lively and engaged dialogue. Cambridge Forum was incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)(3) in 1999, to better maintain its mission, financially. It remains deeply committed to its civic engagement, and to fostering the principle that an informed public make wiser and more just decisions. In this way, Cambridge Forum strives to contribute to the vision of democracy as a viable, enduring entity.
Our Network
Cambridge Forum broadcasts a weekly radio show via NPR, and GBH Forum Network uploads our programs to YouTube, thus bringing program recordings to an aggregated online audience of 350,000 in the U.S. and around the world. In addition, the programs are available as podcasts on iTunes (or wherever you get your podcasts).
Cambridge Forum is available free to public radio stations nationwide via NPR’s Content Depot.