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:
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.
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.
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.
We are just one week away from Election Day in the U.S., and in this week, good information matters more than ever — from coverage of candidates, to information about how and where to vote, to endorsements. This is particularly true in local communities where voters are deciding on everything from president, to school boards, to affordable housing.
Yet, we live in a time when falsehoods about the election, the issues, and the candidates themselves are spreading rapidly. And that’s not likely to change after the election — regardless of who wins. As Americans go to the polls, as they watch the results roll in, and as they move forward after Election Day, they need help sorting fact from fiction. To safeguard our democracy, funders cannot wait until the next election cycle to fund local news. We must act now.
As someone who has spent the better part of my career working with local news outlets, I have seen firsthand how local journalists can serve as the first line of defense against falsehoods that undermine public trust in our democracy. Local journalists are uniquely positioned to understand the nuances of their communities, to reflect residents’ diverse voices and viewpoints, and to build bridges and find solutions. This makes them a powerful defense against anti-democratic tactics that seek to divide us and diminish us.
However, even in this critical moment for democracy, local newsrooms remain largely underfunded and overlooked. A coalition of foundations that have mobilized around the Press Forward campaign just gave $20 million to more than 200 local newsrooms — an unprecedented set of grants. But it only just scratched the surface of what is needed — more than 900 newsrooms applied for funding.
There is an incredible movement of civic media entrepreneurs rebuilding local news from the ground up, reimagining how reporting can spark civic engagement, and reinvesting in people and places that have long been marginalized in our communities and our democracy. If funders step up now, we can ensure this emerging ecosystem of hundreds of new local newsrooms are ready to report on what happens after the election.
Recent natural disasters underscore the urgency for investing in local news. After Hurricane Helene, false claims spread in North Carolina that FEMA and state officials were using storm recovery efforts to impose stricter controls on local residents. These rumors, fueled by fear, quickly generated confusion, mistrust, and even threats of violence, but local journalists stepped in to clarify the situation with accurate reporting.
We saw similar tactics during the 2020 election, during which Latino voters in Florida were inundated with false claims about voter fraud and mail-in ballots. This disinformation specifically targeted those with histories of living under authoritarian regimes to erode their trust in democratic processes. The same tactics continue to be used in this election cycle in other communities. Publishers of color reporting online, in print and over the air are helping set the record straight but need resources to dispel these false narratives.
Consider The Haitian Times and DocumentedNY, which played a critical role in debunking disinformation targeting immigrant communities in Springfield, Ohio, following the presidential debate. Rumors spread fear and sought to divide residents, but these journalists worked to give voice to the people behind the talking points. This came at a cost: outlets faced harassment, and a newsroom’s community event was canceled due to safety concerns amidst the more than 30 bomb threats to government buildings and schools in Springfield.
The power of local news as a check and balance on disinformation, hate and division is one of the reasons why anti-democracy forces target independent media. If we want local journalists to have our back, we need to have theirs.
Backing local journalism is not just about halting disinformation — it’s about creating a media ecosystem that can handle future challenges. Outlier Media in Detroit provides residents with vital information via text messages, empowering them to make informed decisions. Similarly, El Tímpano investigates health issues like lead in soil, and hosts community events for local residents to come test the soil in their backyards, and learn about steps they can take to protect their families.
For funders, the message is clear: supporting local journalism is a powerful way to strengthen democracy. Initiatives like NewsMatch, the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, and The Pivot Fund have created easy on-ramps for funders to ensure their dollars will support powerful, trustworthy community journalism. They are working to create more diverse, inclusive newsrooms that prioritize community engagement and equity. But we need more funders to step up — quickly and boldly.
The election is just one week away, but the work of covering the impact of this election is just beginning. Here at Democracy Fund, our new campaign, Election Day to Every Day, emphasizes that funder support must extend beyond the electoral cycle, ensuring local journalism can support resilient communities long after the votes are cast.
Our democracy depends on a well-informed public. Local journalism — especially new and emerging models — stand as one of the most critical tools to defend democratic values, build trust, and empower communities. For funders committed to advancing equity and the common good, the question is not whether to support local journalism, but how swiftly we can act.
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
Studies have long demonstrated that strong local journalism can encourage higher voter turnout, counter polarizing narratives, expose corruption, and lead to people feeling a strong sense of community.
We’ve seen much of this show up anecdotally in the local news ecosystems that Democracy Fund supports. We define a news ecosystem as the network of institutions, collaborations, and people that local communities rely on for news, information, and engagement. This approach puts people and places squarely at the center of our goals and vision.
When we launched our new Equitable Journalism strategy in 2023, we wanted to learn even more about how journalism is strengthening democracy. We recently partnered with Impact Architects (IA) to revisit the Healthy News & Information Ecosystem framework. This framework was initially built in 2020 in partnership with Impact Architects, Knight Foundation, and Google News Initiative to share models for understanding the health and evolution of local news ecosystems with other funders who were considering funding local news. The graphic below illustrates the four layers of data that our updated model uses to understand local news ecosystems:
This new “Democracy Indicators” layer provides a deeper understanding of how Democracy Fund’s vision of an inclusive multiracial democracy is coming to life, community by community. Some examples of data we’re taking into consideration include:
the availability of legal resources for local journalists;
the relative difficulty of voting for residents in different states;
and the percentage of residents who have recently contacted a public official, attended a political demonstration, and/or donated to a political candidate or organization.
Through these indicators we want to understand how expanding access to local news and information can result in deeper engagement with our democracy. We can then pair this layer of research with even deeper dives in ecosystems that include more community listening and collaboration.
How Democracy Fund Thinks About Local News Ecosystems
At Democracy Fund, we’ve invested over $15.75 million in local news ecosystems across the US since 2016. If our work is successful, then communities will have access to news and information that advances justice, confronts racism and inequality, and equips people to make change and thrive, wherever they live.
In New Jersey, the state has allocated millions of dollars to bolster community media, building on years of community-informed organizing.
In North Carolina, media makers from the western mountains to the eastern coast are receiving recognition and resources for their work.
In New Mexico, more people have more opportunities to get involved in news gathering and reporting, including a fellowship program to help recent grads stay in-state.
The local news ecosystem funding model is also growing. Press Forward, a national coalition investing more than $500 million to strengthen local journalism, launched the Press Forward Local network modeled on this news ecosystem approach, which quickly grew to 25 chapters of local funder coalitions in its first year.
Findings from the Latest Research
While we purposefully didn’t rank the ten ecosystems that Democracy Fund explored overall because of their variety and diversity, the latest research shows there are still many promising themes that can be found across them, especially when we consider the ecosystems in different stages of their development.
Strong ecosystems (Chicago, Michigan, and New Jersey)
Strong ecosystems generally have higher than average indicators across most if not all of the four categories in the graphic above. There is evidence of a relationship among information providers, community, and civic engagement and democracy. These strong ecosystems demonstrate more consistency across the entire ecosystem. For example, this could be more equal access to information across various racial, ethnic, and/or linguistic groups.
Emergent ecosystems (Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and North Carolina)
Emergent ecosystems generally score higher than average across many of the indicators and/or groups of indicators and show evidence of gathering momentum. However, they still have gaps in information providers and/or access for significant segments of the population. Impact Architects also found less evidence of connection among information providers, community, and civic engagement in these ecosystems.
Ecosystems ripe with opportunity (Arizona, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C.)
These ecosystems score lower than average across many indicators or categories of indicators. They demonstrate significant need and opportunity with respect to information providers and support for community and civic engagement. In each ecosystem, there are examples of bright spots across an uneven landscape. For example, this could be one strong region within a larger ecosystem or one prominent organization that is helping local news thrive.
Under-resourced ecosystems
Under-resourced ecosystems score lower than average across some indicators and/or categories of indicators and demonstrate significant need across information providers. These ecosystems have information gaps in communities and uneven and/or low levels of civic engagement. Impact Architects did not identify any under-resourced ecosystems in this assessment. However, these local news ecosystems are large and complex and there are likely under-resourced areas within many of the identified ecosystems.
How We’re Using What We’ve Learned
We believe that this framework can support conversations, including our own at Democracy Fund, about how we can take a more nuanced approach to learning about communities’ news and information ecosystem health. We have invested in this space for nearly a decade, and there is a lot we can learn from the changes over time. One of the most powerful things equitable local news can do is build powerful relationships between people that help them make change in their lives — and that is hard to track. We hope to revisit this data in the coming years to understand more of the changes taking place.
There are many organizations and projects taking on this challenge that we are grateful to continue learning with on this journey. We hope this framework serves as a resource for the field and this cohort of organizations, and welcome further ideas, collaboration, and feedback on the themes and ideas within it.
This work would not have been possible without the many folks who contributed time to share thoughts and feedback on their ecosystems. Thank you for all you do in Arizona, Chicago, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington, D.C., and beyond.
Please reach out to learn more about Democracy Fund’s work with local news ecosystems.
In 2020, our Digital Democracy portfolio (DDP) wanted to find a way to learn more about our grantees’ challenges while also being mindful of their limited time during a turbulent year. We decided to hold learning conversations with our grantees instead of commissioning formal evaluations, so that we could quickly extend support. Our learning and evaluation partner, ORS Impact, led these conversations by hosting 90-minute small group discussions with grantees, focusing on their work ensuring tech, telecom and media serves communities of color, trends they were seeing across the digital rights movement, and challenges they faced. After a couple of iterations of these yearly learning conversations, we adapted them to count as narrative grant reports, providing the option to replace the traditional, often time-consuming annual narrative reports written by each DDP grantee.
ORS Impact currently conducts these sessions on an annual basis and prepares a final report, which we submit internally to meet the grant reporting requirement. This method of reporting and evaluation is an efficient way to get all the information we need to explore how grantees’ actions lead to outcomes in the aggregate. It also helps us adjust our strategies and activities to best support grantees and the field. Note: Initially, Democracy Fund staff attended the small group sessions. We no longer participate in the sessions because we know our presence creates power imbalances and may alter results.
This new method is just one way that Democracy Fund is experimenting with different forms of reporting that are inclusive, add value to the field, and embrace complexity (tenets of our Strategy, Impact and Learning values).
While the learning cohorts are a unique practice of DDP, Democracy Fund has been using other forms of reporting, like one-on-one verbal reporting, in addition to traditional narrative reports. Most Democracy Fund grantees have the choice between verbal reports or narrative reports, which so far, caters to each grantee’s preferences and reduces the burden on their time and energy.
What we’ve learned from this new model
Over the past four years of experimenting with this method of reporting, DDP grantees have had in-depth discussions on topics ranging from field infrastructure, coordination and networks, and strategies connecting research and advocacy. We have been able to learn a lot from our grantees on these topics, with a richness of findings that is only possible through group conversations.
The small group dynamic has many advantages:
Facilitating real-time learning for us and our grantees. This allows us to spot more connections and patterns across our portfolio, which a traditional one-off narrative report doesn’t do.
Ensuring our grantees have access to the same learnings we do. We share the final report back to grantees and share it with other partners, making our learnings known to the field.
Building relationships and more coordination between grantees.
Reducing grantees’ time spent on reporting.
Most importantly, this approach de-centers the funder and ensures that learning isn’t happening in a vacuum.
There two disadvantages worth noting:
Unlike with written grant reports, the findings from group discussions are aggregated and anonymous so there is less specificity and consistency year over year.
This method, along with verbal reporting, caters to verbal processors, and not everyone prefers learning this way.
Because of our learning philosophy to embrace complexity and conduct learning activities that are inclusive and add value to the field, these disadvantages do not outweigh the benefits of this reporting method. We value our grantees’ time and expertise, and strive to help build more opportunities for coordination.
What we learned from DDP grantees in 2024
This year’s findings have produced valuable insights for the DDP team and our grantees. We asked our grantees about field coordination, philanthropy’s impact on the field, infrastructure support, and how to support local organizing work. These topics, among others, were best discussed without Democracy Fund in the room, to promote candor and provide a safe space. The grantees raised that funder-driven shifts create disruption, loss of strategic agency, and competition and instability. When shifts happen, funders should provide transparency and transition support, and connections to other funders.
Another finding worth noting from this year’s conversations was about supporting local organizing. Our grantees who do local organizing around tech justice talked about the importance of trusted relationships between organizations, community visioning processes, and national policy organizations taking direction from community organizing. The grantees were able to riff on each other’s ideas, and find commonalities across locales. This discussion was less likely to have been as rich or honest if it had happened in a one-on-one conversation.
More findings from the 2024 learning cohorts, such as what grantees surfaced as infrastructure needs and inhibitors to local organizing can be found in our 2024 summary report.
Funders need to consider the impact of their reporting models
As trust-based philanthropy takes hold across the field, more and more funders are looking for methods to learn alongside their grantees and track changes within the field without creating an overwhelming burden on grantees. As a result of Democracy Fund’s recent Grantee Perception Survey, we are committed to finding more ways to share what we are learning. We encourage other funders to do the same, and avoid reporting requirements that put funders’ needs above those of grantees.
Here are some resources, organizations, and individuals that informed shifts in our internal reporting requirements:
Misinformation is hardly a new problem, but it often spikes around breaking news events. Racist narratives and conspiracy theories have rapidly escalated after the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign. Misinformation from across the political spectrum about the motivations behind the attempted assassination of former President Trump has also intensified.
The spread of misinformation is being acutely accelerated by political violence and the amplification of false AI-generated media. Newsrooms and journalists face staggering challenges to deliver reliable information to communities in a presidential election year — especially when these tensions are high.
The good news is we know more about the solutions today than ever before. The missing piece is the scale of resources needed to adequately respond to today’s challenges.
Philanthropy can address these challenges by combating misinformation and amplifying trustworthy information. Both actions are essential this election year and beyond to ensure communities have the necessary information to make decisions that impact their daily lives. It’s not too late to invest in this strategy.
Here are four ways that pro-democracy and journalism funders can act now:
1.Fund the organizers and experts who are mobilizing against misinformation. They are working right now to disrupt bad actors, hold Big Tech accountable, and intervene against harmful and false information campaigns targeting voters, particularly communities of color. Here are some examples of Democracy Fund grantees doing the work:
A coalition of media and tech advocates including Free Press and MediaJustice are running the Change the Terms campaign to hold companies accountable when their technology is used to discriminate and suppress the vote.
Check My Ads is following the money from ads that show up next to authoritarian messaging that seeks to undermine the election.
Nonpartisan researchers at Protect Democracy and Over Zero are publishing essential resources that support journalists in explaining the various threats to democracy and de-escalating hate speech and dangerous rhetoric.
Democracy SOS and the Center for Cooperative Media are providing crucial support for journalists to stay prepared and quickly respond to emergent issues. This includes curating resources for journalists, providing direct support to newsrooms, and boosting reporting on democratic backsliding, political violence, and misinformation in real time.
2. Fund newsrooms who are sharing trustworthy information. Newsrooms have the ideas, strategies, and motivation to meet this moment and are ready to move with more resources. In particular, newsrooms led by people of color have unparalleled reach and trust with the communities they serve — positioning them to counter misinformation and drive civic engagement. Here are some ways to find and support newsrooms:
Use the Center for Community Media’s Maps & Directories to find and fund diverse community media outlets.
Visit the INN Network Directory to find national and local independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan, and public service news organizations.
Learn about 12 powerful projects already underway in need of resources. The Lenfest/AP Forum on Democracy & Journalism recently highlighted these efforts to strengthen this year’s election coverage and voting integrity efforts.
3. Protect the messengers who are vulnerable to physical, digital, and legal threats. Small independent newsrooms and freelancers are especially exposed, particularly those serving communities with high levels of political polarization and voter suppression. We are already seeing authoritarian leaders attacking the media, and we anticipate this strategy will continue. To prepare for these risks, funders can proactively engage their grantees in scenario planning and be ready to quickly deploy resources if grantees are threatened.
4. Ensure newsrooms have the flexibility to adapt within an unpredictable political environment. News operations need the flexibility to plan, respond to challenges, and maintain operations. Restricted funding can lead to short-term solutions at the expense of long-term organizational health. Our funding practices can evolve to better meet their needs by offering multi-year, general operating support whenever possible, extending the timeline of grants, or reducing cohort and reporting requirements.
The need for trusted information doesn’t end on Election Day. Ultimately, elections and democracy reporting needs sustained support from philanthropy to be successful. Fully-funded democracy reporting would cover the decisions made about our voting system year-round by legislatures, courts, and local officials and track voter suppression efforts. It would allow the space to build stronger relationships with the community and the expertise to explain how national patterns impact local events. This coverage requires funders to think of democracy and elections coverage not as a seasonal activity, but as an ongoing process.
Please reach out to learn more about specific funding gaps, needs, and opportunities that Democracy Fund has gathered from our grantees and network.
Today Press Forward, the national movement investing more than $500 million to strengthen communities and local news, announced a new cohort of 11 Press Forward Locals. The new chapters are in Colorado, Lancaster, Pa., Lexington, Ky., Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, South Florida, and Wyoming. Combined with existing chapters in Alaska, Chicago, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Springfield, Ill. and Wichita, the total number of Press Forward Locals is now 17.
These local chapters are helping build a vital new infrastructure for independent media across America. They’re uniquely positioned to listen to the field, identify approaches that meet the needs of their communities, and rally support for a shared local vision.
Democracy Fund is proud to partner with dozens of Press Forward funders to support this growing local leadership, which builds upon years of learnings from Democracy Fund’s Equitable Journalism strategy. Six of the Press Forward Locals are existing Democracy Fund local news ecosystem grantees and partners, and we’re thrilled to see them joining the Press Forward movement.
Democracy Fund has long believed that transforming local news must begin with local communities. Since 2016, Democracy Fund has invested more than $15 million in 10 geographic areas across the U.S. to support vibrant ecosystems that reimagine news and information as civic infrastructure. Now through Press Forward more funders are able to join the effort to acknowledge, celebrate, and resource incredible leaders and innovators on the ground who are building a brighter future for local news.
The local funders who lead Press Forward Local chapters are committed to deep listening, bringing more funders to the table, and sharing what they learn. Local news ecosystems are not one-size-fits-all — what works in New Mexico is different from what works in Wyoming. But all ecosystems are rooted in coalitions of diverse stakeholders across a region, working together to support authentically local solutions.
Why Democracy Fund is committed to an ecosystem funding approach
An ecosystem approach to local news funding aims to create equitable local journalism for all, rather than replicate old systems of journalism that did not serve all communities. An evaluation of Democracy Funds’s ecosystem investments has shown that this local news ecosystem approach can drive significant impact by:
Increasing access to local news and civic information for local people,
Addressing shared challenges across local media,
Sparking reporting collaborations that serve community needs,
Bringing millions of new dollars from local funders to support local news, and
Resulting in more equitable grantmaking to publishers of color.
We have seen notable success in the funding efforts we have undertaken with our partners. In North Carolina, funders have moved nearly $8 million in direct and aligned funding to over 50 organizations across the state, with 75 percent of direct grantees being led by Black, Indigenous, Latino or other people of color. In New Jersey a public/private partnership is leveraging state funding alongside philanthropic funding to award more than $5 million in grants to 52 organizations, half of which are led by people of color. In Colorado, funders have utilized national resources and models for local use, like creating a statewide NewsMatch campaign called #newsCONeeds that has raised over $2.3M for Coloradan nonprofit and for profit newsrooms.
Through this work, we have learned the importance of patience, humility, and a deep commitment to building lasting relationships in places. We know that the change we want to see in the world will take time. We remain committed to our vision of a future where local news ecosystems move resources to news organizations led by and serving people of color, equip residents for civic action, and build communities of belonging that strengthen an inclusive, multi-racial democracy.
Today’s announcement of new Press Forward local chapters, and the chance for those chapters to apply for funding, is a significant step in Press Forward’s work to be a good partner to local communities. Democracy Fund will continue to support and expand our work in local news ecosystems both through our own investments and through Press Forward, and look forward to learning in partnership with those leading this work.
For more information about Local News Ecosystem Funding, check out these resources:
Across the nation, state and local leaders are building movements for digital equity. The goal? For everyone to have access to safe online spaces, and technology that represents their needs, concerns, and dreams. This will allow people to fully participate in their communities — and in the discussions and decisions that affect our democracy. The need is especially urgent for communities of color who experience low levels of opportunities to control the narrative about their lives, and high levels of harm on digital platforms.
Democracy Fund has spent years learning where we can have the greatest impact in transforming digital media and technology to be safer and more inclusive, particularly in and for communities of color. To us, inclusion in the digital public square does not simply mean access for all. It means nurturing the conditions needed for equitable opportunities, increased leadership and representation for communities of color, and positive outcomes for all people — regardless of socioeconomic status, background, or location.
We believe that on-the-ground, place-based organizing helps communities, especially communities of color, achieve tangible progress at an impressive rate. This is why our Digital Democracy strategy focuses on increasing our investment in state and local efforts. We are focusing our support across Arizona, Michigan, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania — where leaders, many of whom are people of color and come from and represent the communities closest to these issues, are building momentum by:
Advocating for regional digital policies to support communities of color;
Campaigning to roll back restrictions on community broadband;
Organizing their communities to respond to harmful tech company practices, and more.
In 2023, Democracy Fund invested $3 million in grants to support state and local leaders advancing digital equity. We believe this work is vital for an inclusive, multiracial democracy.
“It’s critical to support community-led movements for digital justice seeking to repair harms wrought by decades of policies that left behind rural communities, people living on low incomes, and communities of color,” says Erin Shields, Senior Associate, at Democracy Fund.
“State and local efforts are the backbone of national civil and human rights fights — whether it’s community broadband, digital rights, algorithmic discrimination, or state-based litigation. We are at an opportune time for US civil society to fight for a shared rights-based vision for the future of tech and broadband,” says Haneen Abu Al Neel, Program Associate, at Democracy Fund.
The 2023 State and Local Organizing Grantees
Democracy Fund is proud to announce the 2023 Digital Democracy grantees who all share a commitment to action toward community-focused media policy and tech accountability. Grantees will receive general operating support grants to support flexibility, capacity building, and sustainability for day-to-day operational needs within their organizations.
#BlackTechFutures Research Institute, $200,000 over two years for their work in building a national network of city-based researchers and practitioners conducting research on sustainable local black tech ecosystems. The outcomes of this work are actionable policy recommendations and a national public data archive.
Detroit Community Tech Project, $750,000 over three years to use and create technology rooted in community needs that strengthens neighbors’ connection to each other and the planet.
Digital Equity and Opportunity Initiative, $500,000 over two years for their work to jumpstart building a lasting civic infrastructure. DEOI will provide core funding support to state broadband coalitions with broad-based community engagement that have the mobilization capacity to maximize the opportunity and drive equitable outcomes in digital access.
Generation Justice, $200,000 over two years for their work as New Mexico’s premier youth media project to raise underrepresented voices, heal from internalized wounds, and lift narratives of hope and inspiration that build pathways to equity and leadership.
Independence Public Media Foundation, $200,000 over two years for their work transforming the Greater Philadelphia region into a hub for community-owned media by expanding community internet that is collectively owned and managed by local communities, and strengthening community organizing for digital equity.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance (Tribal Broadband Bootcamp), $250,000 over two years for their work toward thriving, diverse, equitable communities by building local power to fight corporate control through research, advocacy, and partnerships nationwide.
People’s Tech Project, $600,000 over three years for their work in Pennsylvania to win a future where technology builds dignity, justice, and liberation rather than exacerbating oppression and harm in the hands of big corporations and the state.
Petty Propolis, $200,000 over two years for their work on policy literacy and advocacy, data and digital privacy education, and racial justice and equity.
ProgressNow New Mexico Education Fund, $300,000 over two years for their work to center justice for systemically excluded communities through partnerships, trusted digital communications, and issue-based and civic engagement campaigns.
How Democracy Fund Drives Support for Digital Equity
In addition to these state and local grants, we have made a series of multi-year investments in national leaders working to advance rights and reparations in media and technology.
We are committed to investing in organizations, leaders, and movements that promote changes in digital media and technology. These changes should be sustainable, transformative, and make digital spaces safer and more inclusive.
To guide our grantmaking, we will deepen our conversations with grant recipients and their communities. We will also build funding relationships in new regions, particularly in the South. Lastly, we will continue to invite peer funders to help us create a stronger field that values and protects everyone’s digital experiences and rights.
*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.
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’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.
Newsrooms that center people of color are at the forefront of reinventing journalism. Support for these newsrooms is a core piece of Democracy Fund’s Equitable Journalism strategy, which seeks to ensure that all communities see their needs, concerns, and dreams reflected in the public square.
We pair support for newsrooms with resources for the coalitions, networks, ecosystems, and organizations that are transforming what journalism looks like and how our nation supports it. We believe this networked and multi-layered approach will lead to a reimagined local news and information landscape and a more just public square.
Trailblazing leaders — within and outside newsrooms — who are deeply involved with the communities they serve are inventing new visionary models to realize these goals. They need long-term general operating funding to make their work possible.
The Newsroom Grantees
In support of these leaders, Democracy Fund is investing $4 million in multi-year grants to support flexibility, capacity building, and general operating sustainability for eleven newsrooms that center communities of color.
The newsrooms were chosen for their community-first and community-centered reporting, collaborative spirit within the field, and leadership in the journalism transformation space.
“While the journalism industry has evolved, there is still much we need to accomplish. We’re honored to continue building upon our efforts and putting our learnings into action,” says Lea Trusty, Senior Program Associate at Democracy Fund.
“These newsrooms inspire us and countless others with community-centered reporting and a focus on well-being for their organization and staff,” says Christine Schmidt, Senior Program Associate at Democracy Fund.
Newsrooms selected for three-year grants of $450,000 total per newsroom include:
Baltimore Beat, for their work as a Black-led and focused newsroom that intentionally, creatively, and innovatively serves a majority Black city.
City Bureau, for their work as a leading Chicago newsroom dedicated to modeling equitable journalism practices both locally and nationally through their Documenters network.
Conecta Arizona, for their work as a trusted information source for the Spanish-speaking, migrant, border community in Arizona and the Sonora border region.
Documented NY, for their work informing New York City’s immigration population on questions of migrant and labor rights, visas, and more.
El Tímpano, for their work as community builders, organizers, and information distributors to Spanish- and Mam-speaking immigrant communities in Oakland and the wider Bay Area of Northern California.
Outlier Media, for their work as a national model and organizer of equitable engagement while breaking down barriers to information sharing in Detroit and beyond.
Prism, for their work as a BIPOC-led newsroom reporting across several issue areas to disrupt harmful narratives and inform movements for justice.
Resolve Philly, for their work reshaping the culture of reporting in Philadelphia with a focus on transforming the way that traditionally marginalized communities are represented and treated in journalism.
Scalawag, for their work as a catalyst for change in solidarity with oppressed communities in the South.
Newsrooms selected from a special director’s fund for one-year grants of $150,000 per newsroom include:
TransLash Media, for their work as a Black, trans-led organization dedicated to telling trans stories to save trans lives while building power and centering the humanity of trans people.
Charlottesville Tomorrow, for their work as they continue developing an anti-racist and anti-authoritarian model of local news with a project to bring more inclusive stories to local media in Charlottesville.
We are honored to be a small part of the transformative work of these newsrooms and organizations. As we support their missions, we will continue seeking opportunities to advance and invest in our vision of an inclusive, multi-racial democracy that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy.
How Democracy Fund Drives Additional Support for Newsrooms Through Collaborative Funding
In addition to our direct newsroom investments, we partner with local leaders, journalists, community builders, and philanthropists to support equitable journalism around the country. Through these partnerships, we’ve developed and joined many pooled efforts to expand our impact and support for newsrooms beyond what we could alone. That has included multi-year grants to efforts like the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, NewsMatch, American Journalism Project, The Pivot Fund, and URL Media. Our collaborative funding also continues in local ecosystems around the country, as well as to national organizations that catalyze local news transformation.
We aim to bring this spirit of collaboration and learning into any future Press Forward investments. These newsrooms and collaborative funding opportunities are closely aligned with one of Press Forward’s investment priorities to strengthen local newsrooms that have the trust of local communities. For clarity, all grants in this announcement are from our core budget and not from additional Press Forward funding.
This resulted from a call to action from our grantees and grew from our support of the open letter to the Pulitzer Prize awards regarding demographic data transparency. More importantly, this change supports our belief that measuring diversity in newsrooms is crucial to improving diversity in the journalism industry. This requirement is added to our existing ethical guidelines with newsroom grantees, including ensuring that Democracy Fund will not discuss or review newsroom reporting before publication.
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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