Loneliness in America is not just about social isolation. It’s about meaning, identity, and the invisible architecture of our public life. Few understand this more deeply than Rick Weissbourd, psychologist, researcher, and founder of Making Caring Common at Harvard University. Weissbourd's latest research study, Loneliness in America, pushes us to question easy narratives about success, community, and even poverty itself, and asks us to reimagine the institutions and relationships that make us whole. Last fall, we spoke with Rick about the deeper story of loneliness, and how leaders—particularly in philanthropy and public health—can think differently about connection.
How did this work begin for you?
I didn’t set out to become a loneliness researcher. My work began with a more personal concern: what kind of people are we raising? As a parent, I started noticing that people in my community—myself included—were so focused on our kids’ achievement and happiness, but we rarely talked about empathy, or caring for others or our kids’ responsibilities to their communities.
So, I started asking young people directly. We conducted a national survey and found that 80 percent of teenagers ranked either happiness or achievement as their top value. Only 20 percent chose caring. When asked what they thought their parents valued most, caring came in dead last. It was certainly a wake-up call. In prioritizing individual success, we’ve demoted or sidelined caring for others and the common good, and that has huge consequences for our kids and for our communities and society.
This realization led me to create Making Caring Common, a project rooted in a simple goal: to make ethical character—compassion, responsibility, moral awareness, a commitment to justice—central again in the way we raise children, shape institutions, and measure success.
What do we get wrong about loneliness?
I think some people connect loneliness to poverty. But in many low-income and immigrant communities, we see a stronger ethic of care and mutual obligation than in affluent ones. Lots of families are helping each other out and supporting each other.
Instead of just focusing narrowly on deficits in these communities, we should be asking “what are these communities doing right—and what can the rest of us learn?”
What makes loneliness a public health issue—not just a personal one?
I fundamentally believe loneliness is a public health issue. It’s harming huge numbers of people, and it demands a collective response, a rebuilding of our social infrastructure. The most effective responses to loneliness will also take on a slew of problems and engage various sectors of government. Loneliness is deeply entangled with other things—anxiety, depression, a loss of meaning. It’s not just about being alone. It’s about not feeling seen, not feeling needed, not feeling like you matter, not having a purpose.
This complexity demands a broader response. A collective response would involve investing in many dimensions the social infrastructure we’ve let erode: third spaces, neighborhood rituals, intergenerational relationships, and the civic and spiritual traditions that once gave people a sense of rootedness. The challenge is also how to rebuild a culture of mutual obligation without relying on the same exclusionary systems of the past.
Can schools help—or are we asking too much of them?
Schools are one of the last remaining public institutions capable of intervening meaningfully in loneliness—especially among youth. Kids need to feel anchored. They need to belong. And they need at least one adult and one peer relationship they can count on. But I’m wary of schools being asked to fill every gap left by a disintegrating social fabric.
I’ve worked in school systems for decades, and I can tell you—most schools can’t function as comprehensive social service centers. What they can do is build strong relational cultures, help kids develop the skills to form real friendships, and connect them to the right resources. For funders and nonprofits in the education space, there needs to be a shift away from overloading schools and toward strategic alignment—where emotional development is seen not as a distraction from learning, but a precondition for it.
There’s a strong correlation between achievement pressure and loneliness.
Why are leaders so lonely—and what can they do about it?
I’ve come to understand some things about how loneliness plays out at the top. There’s a strong correlation between achievement pressure and loneliness. When people are consumed by performance, they start seeing others as threats. Even their friendships may become transactional. In that sense, leadership can become the ultimate isolator: the more responsible you are, the more you perform, the more alone you may feel. And if the culture of leadership continues to reward stoicism and self-sufficiency, it may only accelerate this problem.
This has profound implications for philanthropists and nonprofit leaders. If connection is part of the solution, but your organizational culture rewards disconnection, then you may be reinforcing the very problems you’re trying to solve. There are no easy fixes, but we need to move toward leadership styles that are more reciprocal, more human, and more democratic. Leaders don’t need to be disconnected to be effective, they just need a different model.
So, what’s next? What can leaders actually do?
What’s often missing from discussions of loneliness is the need for ties to the sacred and to meaningful groups. People need rituals—moments where they feel connected to something bigger than themselves. They need service. They need to feel a responsibility to their ancestors and to future generations. In the past, these experiences were largely hosted by religious institutions. But as secularization accelerates—and institutional trust erodes—those rituals and experiences haven’t been replaced. They’ve just disappeared.
What remains is a vacuum. And in that vacuum, loneliness grows. I challenge funders and changemakers to take this existential gap seriously—not with doctrine, but with design. The future of belonging may depend on our ability to create new rituals, new forms of public meaning, and new invitations to care. Because ultimately, loneliness isn’t just an emotional problem. It’s a cultural reckoning. And the only way forward is together.