Grants Database

Democracy Fund collaborates with our grantees, donors, and other partners to strengthen and expand the movement for an inclusive, multiracial democracy. We are proud to have supported more than 400 organizations doing this work.

Program Areas
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Elections and Voting
General and Field Building
Governance
Just and Inclusive Society
President's Office
Public Square
Strategies
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Civil & Human Rights Online
Constructive Politics
Digital Democracy
Ecosystem News
Empowering Congress
Engaged Journalism
Equitable Civic Infrastructure
General
Investigative Journalism
Journalism & Power Building
News & Information Ecosystems
Oversight and Accountability
Power Building in Marginalized Communities
Press Freedom
Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power
Previous Strategy
Pro-Voter Reform
Representative Institutions
Representative Leadership
Resilient Elections
Rights and Dignity
Roadmap for American Democracy
State and Local Accountability
Trust in Elections
Voter-Centric Election Administration
Voting Power
Organization Name (A-Z) Grant Amount Type Program Area Year
  • Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
  • $70,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2016

The purpose of this grant is to further develop Maynard’s strategic plan and to support reporting on diversity in journalism. This will help them further build out from their priorities developed following Knight’s support for a human centered design work.

Project:

Strategic Planning Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Dec 2016 to Nov 2017

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
  • $260,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2016

This grant provides MIJE resources to relaunch programs and advocacy around diversity in journalism. MIJE is fresh off a round of strategic planning where they worked with over a dozen journalism professionals to identify needs within the field and devise ways to build on those opportunities for change. The purpose of this grant is to help the organization reestablish itself so that it can begin to take on the roles outlined from their human centered design strategic planning process.  

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Dec 2016 to May 2018

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Rock the Vote
  • $300,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2014

Organizational grant for Rock the Vote over 2 years.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voter Education, Registration, and Turnout, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Election Administration

Grant Length:

Oct 2014 to Sep 2016

Strategy:

Voter-Centric Election Administration
  • Rockefeller Family Fund Inc
  • $600,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2023

The Democracy & Power Innovation Fund (DPI Fund), hosted at the Rockefeller Family Fund, is a community of state-based organizing groups, social science researchers, and aligned funders who have come together to support learning and innovative programs that explore the connections between organizing, civic engagement, and building progressive power.

Project:

Democracy & Power Innovation Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting, Civic Participation

Grant Length:

Oct 2023 to Sep 2026

Strategy:

General
  • Rockefeller Family Fund Inc
  • $100,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2021

The Democracy & Power Innovation Fund at the Rockefeller Family Fund creates research and learning partnerships with funders, researchers, and organizing groups to improve practices in the field.

Project:

Democracy & Power Innovation Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting, Civic Participation

Grant Length:

Dec 2021 to Dec 2022

Strategy:

General
  • Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Inc.
  • $100,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2022

Dignity.US seeks to address the crisis of hate-fueled violence in America. Dignity.US is a citizens’ initiative to address the crisis of hate-fueled violence in America, led by a bipartisan collaborative of former Domestic Policy Council chairs from the Obama, Bush, and Trump Administrations.

Project:

Dignity.US

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership

Grant Length:

Nov 2022 to Oct 2023

Strategy:

General
  • Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project Inc.
  • $150,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2021

The Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project is an independent nonprofit investigative reporting and research organization. They are producing the workshop series Building a Community of Practice: Reporting on Extremism for Small Newsrooms and Independent Journalists.

Project:

Reporting on Extremism

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Aug 2021 to Jul 2022

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project Inc.
  • $115,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2022

Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project’s is creating a workshop series: Building a Community of Practice: Reporting on Extremism for Small Newsrooms and Independent Journalists, and working on post-production for a feature length documentary on the radicalization of youth online.

Project:

Reporting on Extremism

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Nov 2022 to Oct 2023

Strategy:

Journalism & Power Building
  • Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project Inc.
  • $150,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2022

The Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project (RDYR) is an independent nonprofit investigative reporting and research organization that advances public understanding of the unique risks that America’s rural youth face online. They convene stakeholders including researchers, journalists, technologists, parents, educators, religious leaders, and mental health providers.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Civic Participation/Issue-based Participation, Other

Grant Length:

Nov 2022 to Oct 2023

Strategy:

General
  • Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project Inc.
  • $1,160,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2023

The Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project (RDYR) is an independent nonprofit investigative reporting and research organization that advances public understanding of the unique risks that America’s rural youth face online. They convene stakeholders including researchers, journalists, technologists, parents, educators, religious leaders, and mental health providers.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Media, Other

Grant Length:

Nov 2023 to Oct 2026

Strategy:

General
  • Rural Digital Youth Resiliency Project Inc.
  • $100,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2021

Rural Digital Youth Resiliency conducts data collection and analysis to document and analyze the networks and strategies used to expose, recruit, and radicalize white youth in the Appalachian region in order to determine opportunities for intervention.

Project:

Researching Radicalization of White Youth in Appalachia

Foundation Center Topic:

Other

Grant Length:

Nov 2021 to Oct 2022

Strategy:

General
  • Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
  • $274,745.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2014

The News Measures Research Project will provide a foundation for the Democracy Fund and the field in general to assess the state of national and local journalism content, audience needs at a local level and the state of the local news media infrastructure.

Project:

Support News Measures Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Aug 2014 to Sep 2016

Strategy:

Ecosystem News
  • Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
  • $59,208.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2018

To support research and writing on the topic of platform accountability at the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law.

Project:

Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law Staffing and Support for Digital Democracy Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy

Grant Length:

Dec 2018 to May 2020

Strategy:

Digital Democracy
  • Safe Voting Fund
  • $1,000,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2020

The Safe Voting Fund, a fiscally sponsored project of New Venture Fund, centralizes and shares resources on issues such as educational efforts for policymakers on the importance of updates to voting systems in a COVID-environment and funding state-specific implementation programs.

Project:

Safe Voting Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting, Civic Participation, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voter Education, Registration, and Turnout, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voting Access

Grant Length:

Jul 2020 to Dec 2020

Strategy:

Pro-Voter Reform
  • Santa Fe Community Foundation
  • $975,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2023

The New Mexico Local News Fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation is working to create a healthy news and information ecosystem that serves the news and information needs of all New Mexicans.

Project:

New Mexico Local News Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Nov 2023 to Oct 2026

Strategy:

News & Information Ecosystems
  • Santa Fe Community Foundation
  • $1,250,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2020

The New Mexico Local News Fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation is working to create a healthy news and information ecosystem that serves the news and information needs of all New Mexicans.

Project:

New Mexico Local News Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Dec 2020 to Oct 2023

Strategy:

Ecosystem News
  • Santa Fe Community Foundation
  • $10,000.00
  • Project
  • President's Office
  • 2022

The New Mexico Local News Fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation is working to create a healthy news and information ecosystem that serves the news and information needs of all New Mexicans.

Project:

Investing in Staff Wellbeing

Foundation Center Topic:

Grant Length:

Oct 2022 to Sep 2023

Strategy:

General
  • Santa Fe Community Foundation
  • $475,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2019

To support the New Mexico local news ecosystem in collaboration with local funding partners through the New Mexico Local News Fund, which focuses on building more healthy news ecosystems as a vital part of just communities and a healthy democracy.

Project:

New Mexico Local News Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Dec 2019 to Nov 2020

Strategy:

Ecosystem News
  • Santa Fe Community Foundation
  • $400,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2018

The purpose of this grant is to catalyze the support of the New Mexico local news ecosystem in collaboration with local funding partners. The grant will set up a local news and information fund at the Santa Fe Community Foundation — the New Mexico Local News Lab Fund — that will focus on building more healthy news ecosystems as a vital part of just communities and a healthy democracy.

Project:

New Mexico Local News Lab Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training, Media/Journalism, Media

Grant Length:

Nov 2018 to Nov 2019

Strategy:

Ecosystem News
  • Scalawag
  • $100,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2022

Through journalism and storytelling, Scalawag works in solidarity with oppressed communities in the South to disrupt and shift the narratives that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Oct 2022 to Sep 2023

Strategy:

Ecosystem News
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