The On Being Project is an independent non-profit public life and media initiative. We pursue deep thinking and social courage, moral imagination and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.

We make audio, digital, live event, and other offerings towards the generative possibilities of a tender, tumultuous global moment. We look behind and beyond the news cycle, attending to the human change that makes social transformation possible across generational time.

On Being has its origins in a public radio show called Speaking of Faith, which was created by Krista Tippett, piloted in the early 2000s, and launched nationally at American Public Media in 2003. A journalist and former diplomat who had studied theology, Krista saw a black hole in media where intelligent conversation about religion, meaning, and moral imagination might be. Her show evolved into On Being and a pursuit of the ancient and enduring human questions that gave rise to our spiritual traditions and resonate through every institution anew in this century: what does it mean to be human, how do we want to live, and who will we be to each other?

In 2013, Krista and a founding production team of three (Trent Gilliss, Chris Heagle, and Liliana Maria Percy Ruíz) spun out of APM as Krista Tippett Public Productions. They wanted to be creative and entrepreneurially nimble in response to the beautiful and unusual impact this content was having in lives and communities. In 2018, Krista and a growing team of comrade-leaders opened the new chapter of mission-driven innovation that is The On Being Project. We’re based in a studio/work/public event space on Loring Park in Minneapolis, with community, colleagues, and partners around the world.

On Being with Krista Tippett, now heard on over 400 public radio stations and a successful podcast, is produced by On Being Studios, together with the On Being Blog, initiatives like the Poetry Radio Project and Public Theology Reimagined, and an expanding portfolio of new podcasts including This Movie Changed Me.

The Civil Conversations Project (CCP), which began in 2011 and has become a front edge of our evolution, is an emergent approach to conversation and relationship across the differences of our age. It is an offering towards renewing common life through grounding virtues and spiritual technologies like generous listening, adventurous civility, and hospitable questions. Civil Conversations are increasingly happening in live public events on the road while CCP/On Being’s Better Conversations Guide is finding its way into far-flung settings.

CCP was also at the heart of the inaugural On Being Gathering at the 1440 Multiversity in California in 2018.

Our newest adventure, the On Being Impact Lab, is the home of our Fellows Program, and extensions of the CCP into classrooms, circles of family and friends, and civic spaces. It is led by the team behind the influential How We Gather report that mapped how new generations are creating communities of meaning and belonging. Here, we'll incubate projects that integrate spiritual depth and social healing — 21st-century formation.

We believe that collaborative discovery will be a key to living into the generative possibilities of this moment — not just in the halls of the academy or scientific laboratories, but in the everyday living laboratories of our communities, our friendships, and our minds.

New to On Being?

Behold the "Spotify" of On Being, our Discovery Tool: type in a name (e.g. John O'Donohue, Brené Brown, Ruby Sales, Abraham Joshua Heschel) or a subject (e.g. poetry, meditation, race, silence, music, neuroscience, physics, doubt) and find a curated list of kindred episodes from across our archives.

 Our Funding Partners