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Statement On the 2024 Election From Democracy Fund President Joe Goldman

Joe Goldman

November 7, 2024

As a leader of a foundation committed to a more inclusive multiracial democracy, I want to acknowledge the pain, fear, and exhaustion that so many of us are experiencing right now — while also feeling an urgency to take action to respond to the threats that lie ahead.

In a heightened authoritarian environment, civil society and philanthropy will be under tremendous pressure. The authoritarian playbook depends on the expectation that we will mute our values to appease those in power and leave targeted communities, including Black people, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and others to fend for themselves. It expects communities to scapegoat one another and for us to accept the harmful and discriminatory policies of Project 2025 as our future.

As we move forward, we must find solidarity and unity within the pro-democracy movement. We must reject efforts to blame or scapegoat targeted communities, and look for opportunities to resist and to build. I believe a multiracial democracy that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy is not only possible – it is essential.

The leadership of our grantees and partners has shown us that now, more than ever, we must:

1. Pursue accountability for – and defend against – abuses of power that undermine democratic institutions and values, especially those that threaten free and fair elections or prevent the free and independent exercise of power by those opposed to authoritarian actions.
2. Build the durable power of grassroots pro-democracy organizations and broaden the coalition committed to an inclusive multiracial democracy in order to lay the foundation for long-term transformational change.
3. Defend the safety, security, and well-being of organizations and communities who will be most vulnerable to authoritarian attacks, including the physical safety and well-being of so many of us in the movement who will continue to face attack for our commitment to defending our democracy.

Democracy Fund grantees have led years-long efforts to ensure the integrity of our electoral systems, improve voter access, expand access to information, and motivate the public to get engaged in this election. We are inspired by their creativity and heart in the face of many challenges: from hurricanes, to misinformation, to voter suppression attempts. It is thanks to these efforts that we saw so many bright spots in this election, and we are deeply grateful. While some of these leaders pause to rest, process, and recover, others of us will need to take up the banner for them.

Today, like every day, we draw inspiration from the resolve of our grantees and partners, and from the stories of generations of pro-democracy champions around the world and in our own history. Democracy Fund remains committed to this fight and to you. We’ve got your back.

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A Letter of Gratitude to Democracy Champions

Lara Flint, Sanjiv Rao & Lauren Strayer

October 29, 2024

We are seven days away from the 2024 election. You can feel the combination of excitement, anxiety, and fatigue in the air. In any given moment, many of us are experiencing some version of those feelings simultaneously. We want to take this moment to express our enormous gratitude for the work of every organization and individual that is working to build the inclusive, multi-racial democracy that our country needs.

This work is made harder and more necessary by the challenges our democracy is facing at this moment. Political violence is worsening, efforts to disenfranchise communities of color continue, and major newspaper owners are censoring their editorial boards. While our country has made great progress over the past 250 years — anchored by demands for change by systematically oppressed communities — progress is often met with resistance. Simply put, pro-democracy work is hard, complicated, and can feel like an endless cycle of two steps forward, one step back. We appreciate the work our grantees and partners are doing every day, even outside the spotlight of an election year, and acknowledge that philanthropy needs to do a better job of offering consistent, meaningful support.

This year’s election is rightly on our minds as we see and hear candidates up and down ballots across the country make their cases for how they will represent their constituents’ interests. Our commitment is to building a multiracial democracy where people are treated fairly, feel they belong, and have long-term power — and where our political system is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy.

We remain committed to helping sustain the fields and grantees doing this work every day and every year, and we commit to stepping up in the days, months and years ahead to ensure the pro-democracy field has the resources it needs to continue this important work year round.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks, we are humbled by the tireless work of pro-democracy civil society organizations and leaders to ensure our elections are free, fair, and representative. Many organizations have tightened their budgets and made it work to continue to build power in the marginalized communities that have been historically targeted and scapegoated during election cycles time and again. They are safeguarding the progress the pro-democracy field has made over the years, and continue to lay the foundation to respond to the opportunities and challenges to come.

We know the work toward creating an inclusive, multi-racial democracy continues beyond Election Day, and Democracy Fund remains committed to that work in responsive partnership with others in philanthropy and with our grantees — on Election Day, and every day.

In deep and sincere gratitude,

Lara Flint – Managing Director, Elections and Institutions

Sanjiv Rao – Managing Director, Movements and Media

Lauren Strayer – Managing Director, Communications and Network

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Project 2025 is a threat to our democracy. Here’s how funding accountability work can help.

October 10, 2024

Readers of this blog have undoubtedly heard of Project 2025 by now. The 900-page document has been widely criticized for its ambitious and extreme plans to undermine and politicize career civil servants in the federal government, eliminate important safeguards against weaponization of government law enforcement, limit freedoms like access to reproductive healthcare, and much more. It aims to give the president unchecked power over the executive branch as a means to achieving policy goals that will negatively impact life for millions of Americans. The consequences will be far-reaching and difficult to reverse.

Thankfully, the government accountability field has prepared for years to preserve our system of checks and balances and ensure there are consequences for those who abuse their positions of power. Through coordination, litigation preparation, and public education, these organizations — including many Democracy Fund grantees — are preparing to halt and hinder these dangerous proposals.

In this piece, we’ll get deeper into how Project 2025 is a threat to democracy, how the accountability field is responding, and why funders must do more to provide sustained support to the field.

How is Project 2025 a threat to democracy?

Project 2025 is a threat decades in the making. The project is spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation and a coterie of influential groups, including America First Legal, Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms For Liberty and others that have espoused an authoritarian vision for governing. Its authors have advocated for ending marriage equality and LGBTQ+ protections, restricting abortion rights, mass deportations of immigrants, conservative takeovers of school boards, curtailing voting rights, and much more.

The proposals in Project 2025 touch on every aspect of federal policy-making, from education, to climate, to national security. At its foundation is a desire to weaken nonpartisan expertise throughout the government, increase the power of partisan officials, limit checks on the president, and roll back rights and freedoms to align with an authoritarian worldview. If put into place, these actions would not only reduce the effectiveness of the federal government, they would significantly enable abuses of power. Here’s what it would look like:

1. Weakening nonpartisan expertise would politicize and hamper essential government functions.

Project 2025 calls for the president to re-issue an executive order that allows for the replacement of a large swath of career officials, including scientists, researchers, and economists, with politically appointed cronies (known as “Schedule F”). These new officials would be selected based on loyalty tests and the extent to which they agree with the policies laid out in Project 2025, rather than qualifications and expertise. This opens the door to mismanagement of critical government functions, from air traffic controllers to food inspectors. A sobering example of this dynamic was illustrated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response to the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with unqualified political appointees being cited as one reason for the government’s failures. More recently, public health researchers cited the appointment of a Coronavirus Response Coordinator with vague authorities as one of the key factors contributing to haphazard inter-agency coordination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Removing checks on the president would lead to the weaponization of law enforcement.

Project 2025 aims to politicize and weaponize the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies. There is a long-held practice of insulating the Department of Justice from the partisan goals of the president. This firewall protects the rule of law against real or perceived bias or influence. It prevents a president from ordering law enforcement agencies to selectively enforce the law for the benefit of his allies or detriment of his opponents. Project 2025 seeks to turn this norm on its head, by overturning policies that limit the president’s direct communication with the Attorney General and making explicit that all litigation strategies must be aligned with the president’s agenda. Project 2025 also proposes a vast expansion of the number of political appointees within the FBI, further opening the door for partisan motivations guiding investigatory decisions, rather than unbiased assessments of the law.

The impact of these changes could be the targeting, harassment, and eventual prosecution of perceived political foes of the president, selective enforcement of the law to benefit industries aligned with the president’s party, and legal actions against district attorneys who do not strictly follow the president’s agenda. Put simply, the rule of law — the foundation of our legal system – is at risk.

3. Rolling back federal policies that protect women, LGBTQ+ people, and communities of color would open the door to discrimination.

Project 2025 relies on a core element of the playbook used by authoritarians around the world — idolizing white, heterosexual men and the nuclear family while denigrating those who fall outside of this definition of a “real” American. To this end, Project 2025 seeks to roll back access to reproductive healthcare, target LGBTQ+ youth and families, and unravel federal policies to advance diversity and inclusion. It proposes eliminating guaranteed free access to emergency contraception while criminalizing the mailing of abortion medication — which could result in a de facto nationwide abortion ban. It orders the National Institute of Health to study the purported “negative effects” of gender affirming care for children while enabling adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples. And it broadly prohibits federal agencies from working to ensure their programs, hiring processes, and staff training utilize diversity, equity, and inclusion principles. Taken together, these policies would make the government more hostile and less responsive to women, LGBTQ+ people, and communities of color — potentially turning back decades of progress.

These are just three examples. The plan is extensive, and its architects hold many ideas that are dangerous to our democratic system of checks and balances. For example, a key author of Project 2025, Russell Vought, argues the president should use an illegal practice called “impoundment” — the withholding of congressionally appropriated funds – to effectively defund any federal program or agency he wishes. The threat to American values and civil liberties is clear.

How is the accountability field responding?

The pro-democracy response to the authoritarian ideology underpinning a platform as dangerous and sweeping as Project 2025 must be bold and comprehensive. It requires a broad coalition of groups with expertise on issues from healthcare to tax policy that are ready to fight in court and the court of public opinion. Thankfully, strategies for slowing or stopping the worst aspects of Project 2025 are in motion, and the field is coordinating to respond on Day One. Activities groups are pursuing include:

1. Research on Project 2025 policies and their impact.

The fact we know as much as we do about the proposals in Project 2025, and how dangerous they are, is due in large part to the indefatigable efforts of groups like Accountable.US, which shed light on the vast network of groups, supporters, and funders of the project — many of whom are influential political operatives. Documented helped uncover secret training videos provided to the supporters of Project 2025, providing additional context for how it could be implemented and even advice from its authors on how to avoid the scrutiny of the pro-democracy field. And the Center for American Progress reviewed all 900+ pages to highlight its most pressing threats. Without these efforts, the democracy field would be less informed — and likely less prepared to respond. Accountability-focused organizations have proven their worth, confirming the need to consistently support their efforts.

2. Raising awareness around Project 2025 policies and their impact.

The research underway is not only essential for groups that are planning legal and other responses, it is key to raising the public’s awareness. Polling now shows that a majority of Americans have heard of Project 2025 (a significant increase from just a few months ago) and more importantly, it shows that Americans view the policies negatively. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that Project 2025 would receive almost-daily front page coverage in national news outlets and extensive coverage in popular shows like Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show without the tireless efforts of these organizations.

3. Preparing for the legal and regulatory battles ahead.

Many of the policies in Project 2025 depend on regulatory and executive actions. To prevent or delay them, Democracy Forward is coordinating a broad range of issue-advocacy groups to prepare legal and other responses. They have also been a leading voice in congressional testimony regarding the harms of Project 2025. The Partnership for Public Service is working with media outlets to tell stories about real-life civil servants to help the public better understand the critical role of federal workers. It is also helping ensure federal employees understand their rights, building off of successful work coordinated by the Partnership, Protect Democracy, the Project On Government Oversight, Democracy Forward, and others, to advance a new federal rule that will make it harder to implement Schedule F.

4. Strengthening guardrails to prevent abuses

Many dangerous elements of Project 2025 are possible only because of weak or nonexistent checks on presidential power. An over-reliance on norms and policies that the president may discard at will paves the way for abuses. Combined with inaction and even assent from Congress and the courts, this is a problem decades in the making and one that will persist without further action. The accountability field is working to bolster guardrails to prevent abuse by:

Identifying weaknesses in the law and proposing model reforms. This includes research by Protect Democracy to better understand the weaknesses an authoritarian can exploit and a blueprint for model guardrail legislation from CREW.
Supporting key oversight functions in government. This includes work by the Project on Government Oversight to strengthen internal watchdogs, including Inspectors General, and work by the Government Accountability Project and Whistleblower Aid to support disclosures by government employees and contractors.
Demanding the courts and Congress hold the executive branch accountable. This includes legal advocacy and court filings from the Constitutional Accountability Center and work by Public Citizen to pressure Congress to investigate government wrongdoing.

What funders can do now

The work described above is just a snapshot of the ongoing efforts to understand and fight back against Project 2025. These efforts must be sustained through, and beyond, 2025. The threat encapsulated by the extreme policy proposals within Project 2025 existed before its publication and will continue to loom over our democracy even if not implemented next year. While the project is notable for its audacious scope, its policies have been years in the making and include the core tenets of the authoritarian movement.

We must sustain funding for research, communications, legal, and advocacy efforts about Project 2025, its authors and supporters: it guts checks and balances, threatens the rule of law, and is a brazen attempt to turn our democracy toward authoritarianism.

Please reach out to learn more about specific funding gaps, needs, and opportunities that Democracy Fund has gathered from our grantees and network.

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Democracy Fund Invests in the Promise of Representative Institutions

October 10, 2024

Americans have witnessed our democracy lurch from crisis to crisis in recent years. The stakes have become higher in each election, and our country remains stuck in an outdated political system that fails to reflect the will of most Americans. We need to reimagine our election system and governing institutions so we can fulfill the promise of a democracy where all voices carry equal weight and have real representation at all levels of power.

Currently, our institutions — including the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral College — are set up to privilege the interests of a small minority. At the same time, our “winner-take-all” election system has given outsized power to extremists, leaving voters frustrated by the lack of options on the ballot. These interrelated issues have caused many Americans to question the integrity of our governing institutions.

It’s time to shift power to the people and communities that have been excluded for far too long.

Over the past year, Democracy Fund has advanced its new Representative Institutions strategy, working toward long-term, transformational changes to our institutions and election systems at the local, state, and federal levels. By looking beyond incremental reforms, we are confronting the anti-majoritarian practices embedded in our democracy’s foundation and moving closer to achieving the principle of “one person, one vote.”

To achieve this vision, we have developed a field-building strategy that supports organizations developing critical networks, resources, and infrastructure to advance structural changes to our democracy. We define these changes as improvements that lead to fairer representation and better governing institutions.

Our strategy prioritizes support for organizations that include community perspectives and engage diverse audiences. Far too often, these voices have been under-represented in reform efforts, and important considerations — such as racial and gender justice — have been overlooked in structural change efforts.

One organization we support, Democracy Rising, launched in 2020 with a mission to engage communities in reimagining and transforming our democracy. It helps voters, leaders of color, and election administrators adapt to new election systems such as proportional representation. This work is building a foundation for structural change and the community power required to achieve it.

Important work is also occurring to bring these leaders together with others in civil society. The George Washington University Law School’s Multiracial Democracy Project convenes legal scholars, civil rights leaders, and democracy reformers to examine the harms of our current system and explore new forms of representation that better serve communities of color. These improvements could provide the foundation for a new voting rights consensus — one that more closely reflects an increasingly multiracial and multicultural United States.

“These organizations are laying the groundwork for institutional changes that may not be fully realized in this generation, but must move forward today. Our democracy’s future depends on their efforts to shift the power of the vote back to the majority,” says Sean Raymond, Governance Senior Program Associate at Democracy Fund.

In 2024, Democracy Fund invested nearly $4 million to support organizations and changemakers advancing transformational shifts in our governing and electoral institutions.

“While we must respond to urgent threats facing our democracy, these investments allow us to simultaneously work toward reimagining our institutions and making our political system fairer,” says Winny Chen, Associate Director of Governance at Democracy Fund.

2024 Representative Institutions Grantees

Democracy Fund is proud to announce the 2024 Representative Institutions grantees, who all share a commitment to building a democracy in which all voters have meaningful representation and a stake in governing.

The 2024 Representative Institutions grantees include:

Boston Review, to support its forum on fusion voting and multi-party democracy.
Center for American Progress, Democracy & Elections Program, to bring together the progressive community to combat countermajoritarian features in our federal government and encourage adoption of election systems reforms.
Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago, to launch a series of research primers and events that make cutting-edge scholarship on structural democracy accessible to those who can use it.
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, to convene legal scholars, civil rights leaders, and advocates to study, identify, and recommend electoral systems reforms that increase representation for all voters, particularly historically underrepresented voters of color, as part of its Guinier Project on Strengthening a Diverse Democracy.
Cornell University, Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group Lab, to produce critical research and leading-edge modeling that will inform communities’ selection of election systems reform, while building a deeper evidence base for the field of structural democracy.
Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, to support its symposium on proportional representation and various implications of the reform, including effects on gerrymandering and ramifications for racial representation.
Democracy Revival Center, to bring the next generation of social and economic justice leaders, working across issue siloes, into the long-term fight to transform our political and governing institutions.
Democracy Rising, to provide effective, community-centered support for implementation of structural reforms that enable proportional representation and build stronger support infrastructure for women of color in public service.
FairVote, to advance better election systems in the United States through research, advocacy, and coalition-building.
Future of the Senate Project (Brookings Institution), to convene leading experts and practitioners to examine modern-day challenges to the Senate, such as the filibuster, malapportionment, and the need for modernization.
George Washington University Law School, Multiracial Democracy Project, to convene and build the capacity of prominent civil rights organizations to help shape the structural democracy movement.
New America, Political Reform Program, to build the research and intellectual architecture for electoral systems reforms, such as fusion voting, ranked choice voting, and proportional representation.
RepresentWomen, to advance systems-level structural solutions that increase and improve women’s political representation.
Sightline Institute, Democracy Program, to build momentum toward pro-voter structural reforms in the Cascadia region through research, education, and implementation support.

This portfolio of grantees represents just a portion of the investments needed to transform our political system. Democracy Fund’s work complements the efforts supported by our partner organization Democracy Fund Voice, a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) that empowers organizations and communities to express their political voice through lobbying, advocacy, ballot initiatives, and campaigns at the federal, state, and local levels. Democracy Fund Voice’s grantees marshal the collective power of communities to advocate for changes to achieve a multi-party, proportional representation system and to enact overdue reforms to institutions like the Senate and the Supreme Court.

In the coming months, look out for more updates and news about Democracy Fund Voice’s investments.

Through the combined support of Democracy Fund, Democracy Fund Voice, and many other critical philanthropic partners, a new field is emerging to advance much needed, transformational changes in our democracy. Collaboration with partners and grantees is essential to achieve our vision of an inclusive, multiracial democracy — one where our political system is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. We invite you to join us and learn more about our work.

Please Note: Democracy Fund does not accept unsolicited business plans, proposals, or personal requests. For more information on our work and grantees, sign up for updates. For general inquiries, contact info@democracyfund.org. To view a complete list of grantees, visit our grants database.

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3.6 Million U.S. Citizens Can’t Participate in Democracy. Here’s How Philanthropy Can Help

Javier H. Valdés and Winny Chen

September 24, 2024

Not only are people from the U.S. territories unable to vote or access government benefits, they’re also largely ignored by grant makers.

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Meeting the Moment for the Pro-Democracy Movement

Joe Goldman

January 11, 2024

Ten years ago, Pierre Omidyar and I launched Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice after a three-year incubation inside Omidyar Network. The world has changed a lot since then, and so have we.

Over the past decade, Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice have committed $425 million in grants to strengthen American democracy. In that time, we have evolved and grown in our understanding of the perils facing our country and the importance of racial justice as fundamental to our work. We believe that achieving an inclusive multiracial democracy means we must fight for our democratic values now — while pursuing transformative changes that can unrig our political system.

As we enter the 2024 election season, the challenges in front of us are sobering. Despite overwhelming evidence of the dangers posed by authoritarians, new Democracy Fund research shows just how easily Americans will accept undemocratic actions if it benefits their side. For example, even though they say that they reject political violence, about half of Republicans describe the January 6 insurrection as an act of patriotism. While our grantees have worked to ensure consequences for those who tried to undermine our free and fair elections in 2020, the authoritarian threat has not subsided.

Today we face a set of challenges that create profound uncertainty about the future of our republic. The pro-democracy field cannot afford to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the high stakes or range of threats. We’ve risen to the moment before and we can do so again.

Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice are focused on ensuring the field is prepared and resourced for the challenges that may emerge before, during, and after the 2024 election cycle:

We are working on protecting free and fair elections by shoring up election administration.
We’re fighting back against mis- and disinformation.
We’re strengthening accountability systems for authoritarian abuses that could come in 2025.
We’re also calling on our peers to join us in making their nonpartisan election-related grants by April, so that groups have the resources they need in time.

While we stand up against urgent threats, we continue to pursue transformative change toward a political system that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. This work is complex and challenging, but innovators and advocates continue to make steady progress and real strides toward transformation.

For example, a decade ago, Democracy Fund began responding to warning signs that local journalism was under threat. The sector was seeing layoffs, newsrooms collapsing, racism and sensationalism were all too common, and communities were being left with little or no trustworthy reporting. Together with our grantee partners, however, we saw in this crisis an opportunity for reinvention. We saw the promise of promoting new business models and centering the voices of communities who were never well-served by traditional journalism. Today there is a growing and thriving landscape of non-profit journalism. A tremendous community of news innovators, including our grantees, have created a new way forward for civic journalism. It’s taken years of patient investment to build from a ripple to a wave — but today we see the wave.

This past fall, funders made a new commitment to scale these approaches. Democracy Fund and a coalition of 20 funders announced plans to invest more than $500 million into local news and information over the next five years. We see this as a down payment toward an even more ambitious vision to reimagine the place of local news in the life of communities and our democracy. Local news will never be what it once was, but Democracy Fund grantees have had the vision to rebuild it as something better. The work ahead of us, in journalism and across our democracy, will take more collective action like this.

Exactly what lies at the end of 2024 is uncertain, but with a clear focus on resourcing, mobilizing, and expanding the pro-democracy movement, our field can navigate the year. It is also the time to work with resilience and purpose on advancing the promising ideas that may grow to be the next wave of change for our democracy.

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Introducing Democracy Fund’s New Government Accountability Strategy

Rudy Mehrbani

July 26, 2023

Back in 2017, we realized we needed better ways to defend the rule of law and hold our leaders accountable – and fast. We were seeing abuses of power almost daily. They included things like the “Muslim Ban,” threats to ignore court orders and the disparaging of sitting judges, and coordinated efforts to obstruct an independent investigation into the foreign interference in the 2016 election. Politicians and government officials were repeatedly violating the institutional norms that underpin our foundational democratic values. Democracy Fund made its first government accountability-focused grants in direct response to this disturbing trend. We hoped that a swift response by leaders across the ideological spectrum would reverse it. Yet, it became clear that the incentives for abusing power were too strong and the existing guardrails were too weak.

Over the last five years, we explored ways to strengthen these guardrails, balance government powers, and bolster accountability measures to deter future abuses. Democracy Fund grantees worked tirelessly toward these goals by:

Helping Congress conduct more effective, fact-based oversight;
Spearheading groundbreaking litigation to impose limits on executive power;
Defending transparency measures to expose wrongdoing;
Highlighting the consequences of unethical, illegal or abusive acts;
Defending an independent counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and obstruction of justice by President Trump; and
Helping secure significant legislative reforms, including those that strengthen the ability of inspectors general and whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing in the executive branch and clarify the rules for certifying presidential elections and conducting transitions of power.

Despite these efforts, some of our worst fears were realized. The magnitude of the abuses multiplied, culminating in a mob attacking the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the two years since these attacks on our democracy, we built a strategy to address the growing threat of authoritarianism to our institutions. We are deeply troubled by how the authoritarian playbook is being implemented and replicated across states, cities, and towns across the country that are insufficiently resourced to respond. The communities often targeted include communities of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the working class, and others who have been historically disenfranchised or intentionally marginalized by those in power.

Building toward a more accountable government

In 2021, Democracy Fund announced a new organization-wide vision to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement, while also working to weaken and dismantle those who threaten our republic and oppose a multi-racial democracy. In alignment with this vision, we examined our government accountability work.

After deep consultation with experts in the field, we realized a new approach was needed to address the sustained efforts of the increasingly authoritarian bloc in our politics. The existing guardrails in our system depend on the willingness of political actors to tolerate dissent and difference. But as we saw on January 6th, authoritarian movements have no patience for long-held norms, cross-ideological discourse, or even respect for legitimate electoral outcomes. We need to bolster our system to respond to abuse and deter future political violence. We also need to expand the coordination and reach of organizations responding to authoritarian actions and defending their communities’ rights and interests at all levels – including the state and local level.

We have transitioned our accountability work into two new initiatives. The first, Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power, may look familiar to those who have followed our work to date. This initiative will build on existing efforts to strengthen our federal institutions against abuses by the authoritarian movement. It will:

Work with Congress and through the courts to create robust guardrails against abuse. This includes developing and advancing reforms that would limit executive power, improve government transparency, protect whistleblowers, and firmly defend Congress’s constitutional role as a check on executive branch abuse.
Build more resilient federal institutions that can withstand future efforts to politicize their work. This includes strengthening internal and external accountability mechanisms that ensure these institutions work in the public’s interest, not solely in the interests of those in positions of power.
Hold accountable those who have engaged in unethical or illegal conduct. This includes deploying a range of tactics to deter and to respond to abuses, including civil litigation, support for independent investigations, public education, or other efforts.

Stopping abuses at the federal level remains essential — but focusing on federal institutions alone overlooks serious risks at the state and local levels, where abuses are spreading and disproportionately impact communities of color and other historically disenfranchised groups. Community organizers and advocates have long been under-resourced in their fight for accountability. To begin solving for this, we have created a new State and Local Accountability initiative that will:

Support state and local groups responding to authoritarian abuses of power. This will include direct support of groups working on the ground, particularly those groups addressing priority issues for communities of color or other historically disenfranchised groups. We recognize that local leaders and organizations are often in the best position to identify the key concerns for their communities and the tools and tactics that hold the most promise.
Create connective tissue across the accountability field. This will include efforts to build partnerships and connections between accountability groups working at the state and local level with groups working nationally to share knowledge, resources, and tools to improve accountability across all levels of government.

These areas of focus build on our learnings from the last five years. They are informed by conversations with our grantees about how philanthropy needs to respond in this moment of democratic crisis, and what is on the horizon if we fail to act.

Some changes you will see in our funding

Over the next five years, we are committing to building capacity and resilience to withstand future attacks on our democracy by the authoritarian movement.

While we’re not making any major changes, some key shifts you’ll see include:

Breaking the cyclical nature of accountability funding. We are committed to funding this work for the next five years. This means transitioning the work in our temporary special project on Government Accountability, Transparency, and Oversight to permanent initiatives at Democracy Fund. This will enable us to provide multi-year support to core accountability organizations.
Supporting organizations working on the ground at the state level. Previously, we focused on federal level policies, abuses, and interventions. Our State and Local Accountability initiative, however, will enable us to broaden the ways we think about stopping the authoritarian movement and build a more diverse field of allies.
Greater focus on connecting groups across sectors and silos. The authoritarian threat does not have clean boundaries, and neither can our grantmaking. Stopping this threat requires interventions across all levels and branches of government, and between government and community. It also requires a greater degree of coordination and collaboration between groups working at the federal level and those working in the states and resourcing those network- and field-building efforts.

As we move into our new strategies, we’re committed to continue learning and growing, and to being transparent, accessible, and accountable along the way. We are excited to invest in organizations that are fighting for a government that is accountable to the people, and that push back against abuses of power at all levels, and especially those abuses that most impact communities of color and marginalized groups.

Moving into the next five years

We are in a troubling new era of political and government malpractice that threatens to topple the pillars of our democracy. From the Tennessee state legislature’s expulsion of two lawmakers for protesting gun violence, to bills that ban teaching about racial history and LGBTQ+ issues, to the Supreme Court’s rollback of reproductive rights, we are seeing the authoritarian movement exert its power across the country. As their influence grows, so must our response to it. We are deeply grateful for your ongoing partnership, and as always we welcome your input to hold us accountable to our values.

In the coming months, we will have more to share as our full Governance program strategy takes shape. Stay tuned for updates, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team with any questions.

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Democracy Fund Welcomes New Leadership to its Board of Directors and Programs

April 13, 2023

As part of the organization’s ongoing development in service of its new strategy, Democracy Fund is pleased to announce the expansion of its board of directors and organizational leadership.

Three new board members began their two-year term on Tuesday, March 21:

Danielle Allen, professor of public policy, politics, and ethics at Harvard University, director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics, and James Bryant Conant University professor, one of Harvard’s highest honors. She is also founder and president of Partners In Democracy.

Crystal Hayling, executive director of Libra Foundation and a leading advocate for racial justice in philanthropy. During the global pandemic and racial justice uprisings of 2020, she doubled Libra’s grantmaking and launched the Democracy Frontlines Fund.

Sabeel Rahman, associate professor of law at Brooklyn Law School, and a co-founder and co-chair of the Law and Political Economy Project. Previously, Mr. Rahman led the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget and served as the president of Demos.

“I’m honored to welcome our new board members to Democracy Fund. Each joins with invaluable expertise in the pro-democracy movement, a deep commitment to racial justice, and a keen understanding of what it will take to move our democracy toward a more inclusive, just, and trustworthy future,” said Democracy Fund President Joe Goldman.

Goldman also serves on the Democracy Fund board of directors along with board chair Pat Christen and board member Sarah Steven.

As prominent leaders with extensive expertise in efforts to create a more inclusive, multi-racial democracy, these new board members will be important partners in implementing Democracy Fund’s new organizational strategy.

Democracy Fund’s sister organization, Democracy Fund Voice, also announced new appointees to its board of directors: Deepak Bhargava, lecturer in urban studies at the City University of New York, and Robinson Jacobs of Comprehensive Financial Management.

New Programmatic Leadership

Democracy Fund is also pleased to announce Sanjiv Rao as our new managing director of media and movements to oversee our Public Square and Just & Inclusive Society programs. Sanjiv most recently served as a senior equity fellow in the Office of Management Budget in the Executive Office of the President, on assignment from his role as a senior fellow at Race Forward, working to support federal agency action plans to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities. Before that, he completed a nearly decade-long program term at the Ford Foundation, concluding as director of the Civic Engagement and Government program.

Sanjiv joins Lara Flint, managing director of elections and institutions. She is a skilled advocate with more than 20 years of legal, public policy, and government experience, including a decade on Capitol Hill. Lara previously served as director of the Governance program at Democracy Fund. Before joining Democracy Fund in 2017, she served as chief counsel for national security to then-Chairman Patrick Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she led the committee’s work on national security, privacy, and technology.

“Together, Sanjiv and Lara will play a critical role in executing Democracy Fund’s new strategy, strengthening the organization’s grantmaking efforts, and positioning more pro-democracy champions for long term transformational work,” said Laura Chambers, Democracy Fund chief operating officer. “As our organization continues to evolve, our new, dynamic leadership will help us pave a path forward in our pursuit to strengthen American democracy. We are excited for what they will enable us to achieve.”

Additionally, Tom Glaisyer has been appointed executive advisor to the president. As one of Democracy Fund’s earliest staff members, Tom built the organization’s Public Square program and most recently oversaw the organization’s programs as managing director. In his new role, he will forge collaborations between Democracy Fund and its peer organizations across The Omidyar Group, as well as work with the organization’s leadership to anticipate and prepare for long-term threats and opportunities.

These changes occur at a pivotal time for the organization, as Democracy Fund nears its tenth anniversary in 2024. We expect our new, dynamic leadership to challenge us, guide us, and help us pave a path forward toward a more inclusive, multiracial democracy.

Back to Ideas

Op-Ed

Philanthropy’s Inauguration March: What the Real Work of Protecting Democracy Demands Now

Joe Goldman

January 20, 2021

After a heroic effort to maintain the integrity of our election system over the past year, Wednesday’s inauguration marks a key turning point, one that requires philanthropy’s continued focus on the health of our democracy.

Back to Ideas

Statement

Philanthropies Condemn Political Violence, Call on Leaders to Protect Democracy

Democracy Fund

January 13, 2021

As representatives of nonpartisan philanthropic institutions, serving rural, urban, and suburban communities across the nation, we condemn the violence that broke out at the U.S. Capitol this week. The events in Washington are a stain on our nation’s history and a painful break in the peaceful transition of power that has been a defining hallmark of American democracy for more than 200 years.