Ideas

Grants Database

Democracy Fund champions the leaders and organizations who defend democracy and challenge it to be more open and just. We are proud to have supported more than 200 organizations doing this work.

Array
(
    [0] => facet
    [1] => grants_search
)
Array
(
    [0] => facet
    [1] => program_areas
)
Array
(
    [0] => facet
    [1] => grant_status
)
Array
(
    [0] => template
    [1] => grants_template
)
  • Issue One
  • $1,480,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Governance
  • 2019

General operating support to Issue One.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance, Government/Legislative Branch Performance, Government/Open Government and Transparency

Grant Length:

June 2019 to December 2023

Strategy:

Oversight and Accountability
  • Issue One
  • $400,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2014

To provide general support to Issue One (formerly Fund for the Republic).

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance

Grant Length:

December 2014 to December 2016

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • Issue One
  • $250,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2020

The Rebuild Congress Initiative (RCI), a project of Issue One, seeks to better understand congressional dysfunction and aims to build bipartisan coalitions in support of congressional reform measures⁠ — especially efforts to increase congressional capacity⁠.

Project:

The Rebuild Congress Initiative

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance

Grant Length:

July 2020 to July 2023

Strategy:

Empowering Congress
  • John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Inc.
  • $250,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2015

This grant will provide additional award money for the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge. The Knight News Challenge accelerates media innovation by funding breakthrough ideas in news and information. Winners receive a share of $3 million in funding – and support from Knight’s network of influential peers and advisors to help advance their ideas. Innovators from all industries […]

Project:

Knight News Challenge

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Election Administration

Grant Length:

June 2015 to September 2017

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Inc.
  • $300,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2017

Democracy Fund will support The Joint Center’s efforts to identify, screen, and counsel African-American candidates for jobs in the U.S. Congress.

Project:

The Joint Center Black Talent Initiative

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance, Government/Executive Branch Performance

Grant Length:

July 2017 to June 2019

Strategy:

Constructive Politics
  • Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Inc.
  • $1,175,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Governance
  • 2019

This grant will provide General Operating Support to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Project:

General operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership, Government/Legislative Branch Performance

Grant Length:

November 2019 to September 2024

Strategy:

Constructive Politics
  • Journalism & Women Symposium
  • $120,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2018

The first $80,000 installment is to support Grantee’s general charitable, educational, and/or scientific purposes as described in Grantee’s charter documents. The second $40,000 installment is to empower the Grantee to increase and improve its organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion practices through various activities, including but not limited to collecting demographical and attitudinal data, a series […]

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training, Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

October 2018 to September 2020

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Journalism & Women Symposium
  • $100,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2020

The Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS) is expanding their regional programming and diversifying their membership to support their mission to empower and grow the number of women in journalism.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

July 2020 to June 2022

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Journalism & Women Symposium
  • $150,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2022

The Journalism and Women Symposium (JAWS) is expanding their regional programming and diversifying their membership to support their mission to empower and grow the number of women in journalism.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

July 2022 to December 2023

Strategy:

Journalism & Power Building
  • JustFund.Us
  • $1,824,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2023

JustFund is a revolutionary nonprofit grantmaking solution that provides philanthropy with a new way to give through a B2B SaaS (business-to-business software-as-a-service) platform with growing B2C (business-to-consumer) offerings. JustFund eliminates bottlenecks and barriers to giving and centers equity in a traditionally inequitable process.

Project:

Building Power Cohort

Foundation Center Topic:

Other

Grant Length:

December 2023 to November 2025

Strategy:

Voting Power
  • Justice Work
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2021

22nd Century Initiative is a project of Justice Work, a fiscally sponsored project of the National Center for Civic Innovation. The Initiative addresses the expansion and mainstreaming of white nationalism and other far right movements in the U.S. by developing strategies, networks, research, and actions that protect the integrity of our democracy.

Project:

22nd Century Initiative

Foundation Center Topic:

Other

Grant Length:

October 2021 to September 2022

Strategy:

General
  • Justice Work
  • $10,000.00
  • Project
  • President's Office
  • 2022

Justice Work is a think tank/action lab that incubates path-breaking and creative initiatives to advance social justice. They center marginalized voices to challenge conventional priorities and strategies. They develop long-term partnerships with front-line organizations and academic institutions to strengthen social justice movements and break down siloed spaces.

Project:

Investing in Staff Wellbeing

Grant Length:

October 2022 to September 2023

Strategy:

General
  • Kairos Fellowship Inc.
  • $1,050,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2023

Kairos works toward an inclusive, multi-racial democracy by changing how pro-justice organizations see, use, and imagine the future of the internet. Kairos recognizes that understanding the internet as a place, and reshaping governance of the internet as a public square, are essential to strengthening democracy and building a healthier digital media ecosystem.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy

Grant Length:

November 2023 to September 2026

Strategy:

Civil & Human Rights Online
  • Kairos Fellowship Inc.
  • $215,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2022

Kairos Fellowship, a fiscally sponsored project of Allied Media Projects Inc., trains fellows in digital-first campaigning who are placed at state and national power-building organizations.

Project:

Kairos Fellowship

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy

Grant Length:

October 2022 to September 2023

Strategy:

Equitable Civic Infrastructure
  • Kanu Hawaii
  • $85,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2019

To provide Kanu, a Hawaii based volunteer organization, with capacity to engage volunteers to raise awareness about nonpartisan civic engagement and empowerment in the state. Kanu will work with other organizations and nonprofits to promote greater Hawaiian participation in voting and public engagement.

Project:

Volunteerism and Civic Engagement-Hawaii

Foundation Center Topic:

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

Grant Length:

December 2019 to November 2020

Strategy:

Pro-Voter Reform
  • Kartemquin Educational Films
  • $20,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2018

To support production and outreach for the documentary Represent, which followed a bipartisan group of female candidates during their 2018 election bids to different positions across the country.

Project:

Support for Represent Documentary

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Public Participation, Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership

Grant Length:

December 2018 to November 2019

Strategy:

Constructive Politics
  • Keep Our Republic Charitable Fund
  • $300,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2023

Keep Our Republic is a non-partisan civic education organization dedicated to protecting a republic of laws and strengthening the checks and balances of our democratic electoral system. We aim to discover, highlight, and help prevent an array of extraordinary threats to American democracy, strengthen democratic guardrails, and educate the public before it is too late.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership

Grant Length:

October 2023 to March 2025

Strategy:

Resilient Elections
  • Kennesaw State University Research and Service Foundation, Inc.
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2017

This grant will support the Georgia News Lab. The News Lab’s mission is threefold: To make the vital work of investigative reporting affordable for news organizations, to increase diversity in newsrooms, and to help news outlets better serve their communities by increasing the flow of trustworthy public interest journalism.

Project:

Georgia News Lab

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

October 2017 to June 2020

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Keseb
  • $300,000.00
  • Project
  • General and Field Building
  • 2023

Keseb, a fiscally sponsored project of the Fund for Constitutional Government, is a nonpartisan, pro-democracy nonprofit organization building transnational alliances between democracy activists and entrepreneurs to fight authoritarian ideology, demagogic political leaders, and xenophobic movements.

Project:

Support for Keseb

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership, Other

Grant Length:

November 2023 to October 2025

Strategy:

General
  • Latino Community Fund Inc
  • $195,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2023

Latino Community Fund Georgia (LCF Georgia) supports Latinx-serving and Latinx-led nonprofit organizations that are advancing democracy, protecting and building community, and facilitating economic opportunities for all.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting, Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership, Civic Participation

Grant Length:

November 2023 to April 2025

Strategy:

Voting Power
Democracy Fund
1200 17th Street NW Suite 300,
Washington, DC 20036