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The COVID-19 epidemic is sweeping through the globe, bringing societies to a near halt while spawning new threats that leaders are struggling to contend with. To help SSIR readers keep up with the crisis and its impacts on civil society, SSIR's editors not only launched a series on the crisis, but also wanted to do more to point out the helpful, informative, inspiring, and insightful work being done by many others. This inaugural edition of "Click Here" focuses on coronavirus, given its dominance over all other concerns. Future versions of this links roundup will alter their focus as appropriate to respond to the news and broader developments in the social sector. If you have links you'd like to share in today's edition or for consideration down the road, please leave them in the comments.

Eric Nee (@ericnee), editor in chief: My dad was an orchestra conductor and music professor, and my mom was a modern dancer and actor, and now my oldest son is also an actor. That is why it is painful for me to watch so many US nonprofit arts organizations in desperate trouble due to the new coronavirus: theaters, operas, orchestras, and dance troupes are canceling their seasons; museums and galleries are closed; and individual actors, musicians, dancers, and other performers are out of work. One of the best places to learn how the coronavirus is impacting the arts and how these organizations are responding is the Americans for the Arts website. Others covering this include Vulture, Arts Ready, Art News, and the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. For those of you who are tired of watching videos on Netflix or HBO, check out this article in The New York Times that lists dozens of art organizations that are now streaming their performances, offering tours of their galleries, recordings of artist interviews and performances, and more.

Rethinking Social Change in the Face of Coronavirus
Rethinking Social Change in the Face of Coronavirus
    In this series, SSIR will present insight from social change leaders around the globe to help organizations face the systemic, operational, and strategic challenges related to COVID-19 that will test the limits of their capabilities.

    David Johnson (@contrarianp), deputy editor of print: If my day-to-day has become so enervating, why have my dreams become so interesting? COVID-19 is more than a public health crisis. It represents a systemic disruption of nearly every aspect of human society. “It’s the start of a completely different way of life,” writes Gideon Lichfield, editor of MIT Technology Review, in his essay “We’re not going back to normal.” And as we adapt to the demands of our new world, we are finding that the social innovations SSIR covers are becoming urgent necessities. Bridging the digital divide, for instance, has always been important, but now that so many people are working, educating children, and interacting over the computer, universal high-speed broadband that is free, or at least affordable, is essential, argues Ernesto Falcon at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The new normal is also forcing a long overdue “revaluation of all values,” as Gregg Gonsalves and Amy Kapczynski argue in their Boston Review essay “Markets vs. Lives.” “What is happening today has no analogue in mainstream economic analysis: a rapid retraction of our paid economy, and a vast expansion of the kind of unpaid work that has never been properly valued,” the pair write. In these times, dreams can become reality.

    Marcie Bianco (@MarcieBianco), editor: I am religiously reading whatever appears on the Twitter threads of Ford School of Public Policy economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson, whose postings and analyses are incredibly insightful, which helps to (somewhat) mitigate my pandemic-panic. Rarely do I rely on economists for human-centered thinking, but what is unique about their work is that it does indeed center humans. I recommend Stevenson’s NPR interview on potential lessons from the federal government’s coronavirus response. Here's a snippet of her comments:

    “We can't evict people right now when everybody's sheltering or trying to stay within their own homes. But beyond that, people are going to just face difficulty making loan payments, making student loan payments, making mortgage payments, making credit card payments. If we let this temporary shock cause a wave of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and ruined credit scores, it's going to be even harder to come out of this recession.”

    Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu), editor: I’ve been trying to break myself out of the bad habit of checking the COVID-19 stats like a baseball box score each morning. I'm mostly failing because it sometimes feels like the more bad news I consume, the better informed I’ll be. But alongside the bad—and alongside the pure, beautiful distractions—it’s inspiring to watch people find ways to help other people and to re-establish and build new bonds as the old ones are broken. Look at Stephen Smith’s WV gubernatorial campaign turn resources towards coronavirus support or Bobi Wine’s glorious coronavirus PSA. Everyone’s buying seeds and baking bread and sewing masks and forming mutual aid networks. And I have to admit, doing Zoom meetings with friends that I can’t see in person is nourishing.

    M. Amedeo Tumolillo (@hellotumo), deputy editor of digital: Crises like worldwide wars, massive bank failures, and the current one triggered by coronavirus reveal and remake societies' understanding of private versus public enterprises. An SSIR article from the Summer 2015 issue explores this tension, recently exemplified by President Donald Trump's implementation of the Defense Production Act and the transformation of private hospitals in Ireland. What is the right balance to be struck? For an interesting exploration of the topic in American history through the additional lenses of equity and justice, read "Nationalization Is as American as Apple Pie" by Thomas M. Hanna (@ThomasMHanna) in Jacobin. 

    Jenifer Morgan (@jenifermorgan), contributing editor: Nonprofits fill many critical gaps in our society, across all aspects of life—and now many of them face critical gaps of their own, as resources to support their work dwindle. Struggling organizations can find help in this article on financial aid in the United States and this database on global relief from CASE at Duke.

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