Our Better Angels aims to support local, national, and global organizations which support our core values of courage, compassion, continuous learning, community service, and fun. 

Our Better Angels (OBA) was originally created as a qualified subsidiary of the Wisconsin Leadership Institute (WLI) with headquarters at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin. Thus many of our original Good Causes also host chapters in Ripon led by our friends and neighbors.

Moving forward, Our Better Angels will help our Good Causes recruit members and raise funds for projects we endorse. You can find out more about our Featured Good Causes here.

Though some of our Good Causes compete with some of our other Good Causes, we are guided by the moral example of Abraham Lincoln, universally regarded as the greatest presidential leader in US history. Lincoln not only called for guidance from “the better angels of our nature” in his first inaugural address, he also recruited a “team of rivals” to serve in his cabinet, thus ensuring a full and healthy consideration of viewpoints. We envision the Better Angels Community as a “Rivalliance” – an alliance of rivals in the same way that Lincoln trusted the advice and counsel of his cabinet members, even though they frequently disagreed with each other on important issues. Lincoln, by the way, was the first president from the Republican Party, which was founded in Ripon in 1854 and acknowledged by the US Department of the Interior as the “Birthplace of the Republican Party.”