Chicago rapper Common has always been a unique force in the hip-hop world. He was one of the first rappers my parents let me listen to in middle school, where he waxed philosophical on tracks like “The 6th Sense” over DJ Premier’s majestic beat. Later, his career expanded to Hollywood, with appearances in films like “American Gangster” (2007) alongside Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, and the hoops rom-com “Just Wright” (2010) with Queen Latifah. That introduction shaped how I understood hip-hop: not just as popular music for the moment, but as a place for big and uplifting ideas.
As the first rapper to win a Grammy, Oscar and Emmy, Common, now 53, has long balanced commercial success with a steady moral and intellectual compass, weaving themes of love, justice and spirituality into a genre too often stereotyped as bravado. His philanthropic journey began early, when he and his Ph.D. educator mother, Mahalia Hines, founded the Common Ground Foundation in 2000. Relaunched in 2012, the foundation today focuses on providing direct services to empower young people to realize their dreams. Its anchor program, Dreamers and Believers, focuses on holistic development across eight pillars, helping with mentorship, college prep, career readiness and opportunities to connect with alumni and community leaders.
But Common Ground also leans into the creative side of youth empowerment, with arts programming, a strong emphasis on spoken word and hip-hop, and leadership opportunities that encourage self-expression as a tool for change. Ultimately, Common Ground aims to help young people create lasting impact in their communities.
That word — impact — resonates especially now, as Common marks 25 years of organized philanthropy and prepares to host the 2025 .ORG Impact Awards. Powered by Public Interest Registry (PIR), the nonprofit behind the .org domain, the awards honor changemakers worldwide working at the intersection of community, innovation and social good.
“This year’s group of finalists represents the very best of our .ORG community,” said Jon Nevett, president and CEO of Public Interest Registry. “From nearly 3,000 applications, our judges selected 35 outstanding organizations and individuals whose innovation, dedication and impact embody what it means to drive positive change, and I can’t wait to celebrate them all at our event this October.”
Among the finalists are groups like Long Way Home, which uses green building to promote democracy and economic justice in Guatemala; Manna Café Ministries, serving the hungry and unhoused in Tennessee; Ocean Alliance, advancing whale and ocean conservation through research; and Red Dot Foundation, which crowdsources data on sexual violence to improve safety and justice. All finalists will receive donations of $2,500. The winner of the .ORG of the Year award will receive a donation of $50,000, while the other category winners will each receive $10,000.
And of course, Common presides over all of it. “We’re thrilled to have Common as our host this year,” Nevett said. “Common is an inspiring activist, philanthropist and a fellow changemaker who embodies the spirit of the .ORG Impact Awards. PIR is excited to have him help uplift the forward-thinking changemakers honored at this year’s awards and celebrate the immense impact of the OIA finalists, winners and .ORG community at large.”
I recently caught up with Common ahead of the ceremony, which will take place in Washington, D.C., on October 7. I found out more about the deeply personal forces behind his own philanthropy, what he thinks people get wrong about his native Chicago, and why he got involved with the Public Interest Registry. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Big fan, Common. I’d love to learn a little bit more about the lessons you learned in philanthropy growing up. I know your mother plays an important role at your foundation.
Thank you, man. My philanthropy really started just by living on the South Side of Chicago and being connected to the people in my community. I felt blessed to have a mother who’s a teacher, stepfather who’s a plumber. These blue collar people gave me a great foundation, spiritually and just work-ethic-wise. But I also noticed that some of my friends who were just as smart as me, gifted in other ways than I am, didn’t have that same foundation in their homes. And I always felt like I wanted my brother or my son or my friend to have those same opportunities. The ironic part was, it wasn’t that my household was so financially above. It wasn’t a finance thing. It was more about access, a foundation being set, and just stability and hope.
I always went back home. I went away to school at Florida A&M, came back home. I got my first record contract, came back home. In coming home, I still saw some of the same conditions that existed when I was growing up. So I felt like it was my duty and my purpose to provide access and opportunity for the communities that I come from. It started at home, but if you see some people in need in a foreign country, if you have heart and humanity, you’re going to want to help them in some way.
Twenty-five years in, you’ve been on a long journey. Where do you think you guys are now? And what are some of the biggest takeaways or lessons you learned throughout this journey?
Well, 25 years is a great amount of time to be serving people, man. The graduating class that I saw this year, seeing the young people and talking about what schools they were going to, or what they were pursuing — and then when I go out on the road and meet up with some of the alumni from the Common Ground Foundation that are doing things professionally — I’m like “What, that is amazing.” It lets me know that this work is well worth it and that it’s being effective. That’s the thing I always wanted to do, it’s to be effective.
From the first year, even though we didn’t know exactly what to do, my mom and I made sure educators were part of the mentoring program. We had people that would be doing this work in the community whether it was under the Common Ground Foundation [umbrella] or not. By the way, I’m speaking specifically about Common Ground but we are evolving into Free to Dream, the hub for all the philanthropic work we do: our work in prisons, the charter school Art in Motion [a creative arts school in Chicago for students grades 7-12], and obviously the mentoring programs we have with Common Ground.
My first memories and impressions of when I knew things were really different are going to come from the camps we have. We took our kids not far away, and they were doing outdoor activities. No cell phones. Initially, that was disturbing to them. But eventually, they didn’t even want their cell phones. They would have these powwows where all the young men and women could sit with the mentors and talk about life. It was really a therapy session. Our mentors found out a lot, and the young people shared a lot.
Me seeing that camaraderie and us taking our young people to the White House to see President Obama and Michelle Obama, to some of the inner city farms — that’s a great lesson to teach our young people early. We’re building you up, but we also want you to think about the “I” in “we.”
The Common Ground program evolved as we evolved. Initially, it was a lot of academics and social awareness. But the more and more my family started understanding about my vegetarianism, about nutrition and health, I also felt like our kids needed to know about that. Then there was the mental health component. My mother is from a different generation, but how we’ve evolved, just like people evolve as parents. “Do it because I say so,” some of that is necessary. But it’s also about hearing people out and understanding that, say, you might have a kid who is drawn to the arts.
You’re such an icon in Chicago. What do you think people get wrong about the city? And what could philanthropy do to help tell that story?
Well, thank you for saying that. I think one thing people get wrong about the city is that I don’t know if they understand that the people of Chicago do lead with love. They do lead with caring and consideration. We suffer from a lot of things that have impacted inner city communities. We suffer with violence and drugs and lack of employment because of lack of resources and not having the proper education in each of these areas where there is a deficit of resources.
One of the reasons I’ve always believed in philanthropy is because if we educate and teach ourselves how to do things — from spiritual levels, to mental health levels, to emotional levels, to financial health — it will allow us to rise above the mindsets and kick through the door of the nonsense, and sometimes evade the nonsense and do what we need to do.
Us being like, I’m going to bring these programs into the inner city, bring instruments, bring books — we don’t need the government for those things. Yes, it would be great to get some support from local, state and federal, but one of the reasons why we do these things is so that we can bring awareness to these things.
With the .ORG Impact Awards, we want people to know the work that individuals are doing so that people who are sitting on millions, billions, can say “Hey, you know what. I want to actually put some of my well-earned money into bettering these communities.” What the Public Interest Registry does is keep people aware and bring some of the best social activists in our country to the forefront. This allows smaller organizations and the people doing the work to actually thrive without it just being based on government. And I’m a firm believer in that empowerment.
Where do you want to take your philanthropy next? What do you feel like you’ve yet to accomplish?
Oh, well, I would really love to see some actual centers created where, starting in the states, we have these different community centers where people get served holistically. They’ll be able to come in and get into athletic things, get into creative things, get into actual job training if needed. Get into nutrition. Feed the youth, like the [Black] Panthers did back in the day. These centers would be very important because they would be in the neighborhoods.
One of the things I’m most proud about with Common Ground and Free to Dream is when I was in our celebration for Common Ground, a lot of our mentors are from the areas where the children they’re working with are. What’s next is to have some of these leaders work in these centers so that they know how to serve in a real, pure, natural, and holistic way. So those are some of my visions for what we will do going forward.
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