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
  • The Pew Charitable Trusts
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2015

Programatic support for the Pew Safe Spaces Project to create a regular, bipartisan convening of House Chiefs of Staff to allow for diverse perspectives to be shared on effective management practices and encourage bipartisan lawmaking on the staff level.

Project:

Pew Safe Spaces Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance

Grant Length:

Oct 2015 to Dec 2017

Strategy:

Empowering Congress
  • The Campaign Finance Institute
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2016

The Campaign Finance Institute will support scholarship to assess the current conditions and features of campaign finance systems and determine and investigate the most important research questions associated with those systems. Answers to those questions can help inform the field of campaign finance reform with the respected nonpartisan information and analysis. 

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance

Grant Length:

Aug 2016 to Jul 2018

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • National Security Archive Fund Inc
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Governance
  • 2017

This grant will provide general operating support for the National Security Archive Fund that will allow them to increase their over-all capacity as an organization. The Archive has launched ten new openness and accountability initiatives to challenge the new administration. To accommodate this increased scale of work, the Archive must hire a full-time in-house litigator.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Open Government and Transparency

Grant Length:

Apr 2017 to Apr 2019

Strategy:

Oversight and Accountability
  • The Niskanen Center Inc.
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Governance
  • 2017

General operating support provided by this grant will help to expand the Niskanen Center’s operations. Ultimately, the center seeks to drive and shape a public conversation on the importance of democracy and the best way to defend it through a series of published works by leading thinkers. With the support provided by this grant, the center will be expanding existing initiatives and creating new ones.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Open Government and Transparency, Government/Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Government

Grant Length:

Jul 2017 to Jun 2019

Strategy:

Oversight and Accountability
  • Civic Culture Coalition
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2019

To support the efforts of the Civic Culture Coalition’s I Am A Voter campaign, fiscally sponsored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation, in organizing a meeting of major media leaders and increasing the number of artists and influencers participating in the campaign. 

Project:

Support for I Am A Voter campaign activities

Foundation Center Topic:

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

Grant Length:

Aug 2019 to Jan 2021

Strategy:

Pro-Voter Reform
  • The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2016

This is a renewal grant to CJR’s United States Project to support experimentation in building local journalism capacity in the areas of collaboration, innovation, impact, and funding in target states. 

Project:

US States Project Renewal

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Sep 2016 to Dec 2017

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Inc.
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2017

In response to an alarming rise of divisive rhetoric aimed at Muslims in the United States, this grant supports outreach efforts by Congressional leaders to their Muslim constituents. To build greater understanding between Muslim-Americans and non-Muslim neighbors, an earned media campaign will be used to amplify the outreach activities.

Project:

Outreach to Muslim-American Communities

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Public Participation, Civic Participation/Naturalization and Immigrant Civic Integration, Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership, Media/Media Access and Policy, Media, Government/Legislative Branch Performance

Grant Length:

Jun 2017 to May 2018

Strategy:

Constructive Politics
  • Mozilla Foundation
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2018

To support the Coral Project in the development and implementation of tools and platforms that encourage a culture of audience-driven storytelling in newsrooms. The grant will largely focus on expanding adoption of Coral Project’s tools in newsrooms, which will consist of training, outreach, and work around shifting culture inside newsrooms to be more transparent.

Project:

Coral Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Aug 2018 to Jul 2019

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • NAHJ Association
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2019

This is a general operating grant to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists that will increase their support of members through trainings, networking, and scholarship opportunities, while holding the media accountable in their portrayals of the diverse and evolving Hispanic community in the United States.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism Education and Training, Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

May 2019 to Apr 2020

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Center for Civic Design
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2016

The purpose of this grant is to provide general operating capacity for Center for Civic Design, a key (and overlooked) player in the elections field. Center for Civic Design supports many of our grantees and other organizations we work with. It needs assistance to expand its work this election year, which includes designing election materials, experimentation, and usability testing.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Election Administration

Grant Length:

Jun 2016 to May 2018

Strategy:

Voter-Centric Election Administration
  • American Journalism Project
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • President's Office
  • 2018

To support the American Journalism Project, a fiscally sponsored project of the Institute for Nonprofit News, in their efforts to develop a $50 million fund to accelerate the growth of the nonprofit journalism sector.

Project:

AJP Operating Funds

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Dec 2018 to Nov 2019

Strategy:

Investigative Journalism
  • TPF Special Assets Fund, DBA The Lenfest Institute for Journalism
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2017

This grant will help establish The Community Listening and Engagement Fund at the The Lenfest Institute. The Fund will subsidize the costs of adopting new community engagement tools for newsrooms who want to deepen their connections to their audience. By making engagement tools more accessible to a broader array of newsrooms the Fund will help accelerate the adoption of journalism practices and models that make newsrooms more responsive to their communities.  

Project:

The Community Listening and Engagement Fund

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Dec 2017 to Jun 2019

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • National Governors Association Center for Best Practices
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2018

The purpose of this grant is to support the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Homeland Security & Public Safety Division, in their efforts to expand the participation of state executives in the dialogue around election security. The primary way this will occur is through the execution of a year-long cybersecurity policy academy with a cohort of five to seven states.

Project:

Implementing Election Security Governance

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting

Grant Length:

Dec 2018 to Jan 2020

Strategy:

Trust in Elections
  • Georgetown University
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2018

To support the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection’s (ICAP) litigation, public education, and efforts in support of vulnerable communities. 

Project:

Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center

Foundation Center Topic:

Other

Grant Length:

Nov 2018 to Oct 2019

Strategy:

General
  • The Campaign Finance Institute
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2014

The Campaign Finance Institute serves to provide balanced, thoughtful policy analysis related to solving some of the challenges associate with money in our political system.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance

Grant Length:

Jul 2014 to Jul 2016

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • The Campaign Finance Institute
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2012

The Campaign Finance Institute will convene a nationally prominent group of scholars to assess what is known about the campaign finance system and determine what are the most important research questions that should be investigated to insure that future policy reforms are informed by the best available nonpartisan information and analysis.

Project:

Research Agenda for Campaign Finance Policy

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance

Grant Length:

Aug 2012 to Sep 2013

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • NALEO Educational Fund
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2017

Democracy Fund will support NALEO Educational Fund’s efforts to identify, recruit, and train Latino candidates for positions in the federal government, with a particular focus on staffing Congressional offices. Additionally, Democracy Fund will support NALEO’s efforts to provide increased training on civility and bipartisanship to their membership. 

Project:

Promoting Civility and Ensuring Diversity in Congressional Staff

Foundation Center Topic:

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

Grant Length:

Jul 2017 to Jun 2019

Strategy:

Constructive Politics
  • Social Science Research Council
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2018

The purpose of this grant is to support the Digital Disinformation Research and Mapping Project, which will track and aggregate ongoing research, facilitate the alignment of research with relevant policy efforts, and build a diverse and multidisciplinary scholarly network.

Project:

Digital Disinformation Research and Mapping Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy

Grant Length:

Sep 2018 to Aug 2021

Strategy:

Digital Democracy
  • City Bureau NFP
  • $200,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2018

The purpose of this grant is to support City Bureau, an innovative local news organization in Chicago, that is leading efforts in community engagement, ecosystem building, business models. This grant will enable City Bureau to continue and expand their core programs, including Documenters, Civic Reporting Fellowships, and Public Newsrooms.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Journalism, Media/Journalism Education and Training

Grant Length:

Dec 2018 to May 2020

Strategy:

Ecosystem News
  • Asian Law Caucus
  • $200,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2018

To support direct litigation and legal services work, and to strengthen and expand multilingual know your rights materials that can be delivered to MASA and immigrant communities.  

Project:

Litigation, legal services, and know your rights

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Civic Participation/Naturalization and Immigrant Civic Integration, Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership

Grant Length:

Nov 2018 to Oct 2019

Strategy:

General
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