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
  • We the Veterans Foundation
  • $350,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2024

We the Veterans Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization created by veterans and military family members. They empower the veteran and military family community to strengthen American democracy.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership

Grant Length:

Oct 2024 to Sep 2026

Strategy:

General
  • MuckRock Foundation, Inc.
  • $350,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Public Square
  • 2019

This grant is to provide general operating support for MuckRock, whose work connects community engagement, freedom of information and journalism collaboration to ensure that newsrooms and citizens can access critical informaiton about their government. 

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy

Grant Length:

Sep 2019 to Aug 2022

Strategy:

Press Freedom
  • ACCESS
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2023

The National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC), an institution of ACCESS, builds the capacity of Arab American community organizations. NNAAC’s capacity building program will help its member organizations though trainings, technical assistance, workshops, convenings, and peer-to-peer learnings.

Project:

National Network for Arab American Communities

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation/Civic Education and Leadership, Civic Participation, Government/Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, Civic Participation/Issue-based Participation, Media, Civic Participation/Public Participation, Other, Government/Budgeting, Civic Participation/Naturalization and Immigrant Civic Integration, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voter Education, Registration, and Turnout, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voting Access

Grant Length:

Nov 2023 to Oct 2026

Strategy:

Power Building in Marginalized Communities
  • Sightline Institute
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2023

Sightline Institute’s nonpartisan Democracy and Elections program advances solutions for Cascadia’s electoral systems, including stifling extreme partisanship through open primaries, allowing voters more freedom to express their preferences through ranked choice voting and proportional representation, and expanding and protecting voting access for all.

Project:

Program support for Democracy & Elections Program

Foundation Center Topic:

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

Grant Length:

Dec 2023 to Dec 2025

Strategy:

Representative Institutions
  • NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2020

The NAACP-Legal Defense Fund’s (“LDF”) Police Reform Campaign employs litigation, research, technology, and data strategies to advance police reforms at the local, state, and national levels.

Project:

Policing Reform Campaign

Foundation Center Topic:

Civic Participation, Government/Civil Liberties and Rule of Law

Grant Length:

Jun 2020 to May 2022

Strategy:

General
  • Accountable.US
  • $350,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Governance
  • 2023

Accountable.US (A.US) is a nonpartisan, 501(c)3 organization that shines a light on special interests that too often wield unchecked power and influence in Washington and beyond. They conduct in-depth investigations to expose conflicts of interest and then share their findings with the media, public, policymakers, and allies in real-time.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Civil Liberties and Rule of Law

Grant Length:

Nov 2023 to Oct 2025

Strategy:

Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power
  • William J. Brennan, Jr. Center for Justice, Inc.
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2023

The Brennan Center’s Emergency Powers Project works to fix the legal framework for emergency powers by bolstering checks on the use of emergency powers through legal research, developing reforms that limit emergency powers, and educating the public about specific emergency powers, such as the Insurrection Act, which delegates a dangerous amount of discretion to the president.

Project:

Emergency Powers Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Executive Branch Performance, Government/Open Government and Transparency

Grant Length:

Nov 2023 to Oct 2025

Strategy:

Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power
  • Democracy 21 Education Fund
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • President's Office
  • 2022

The Democracy Legal Strike Force project at Democracy 21 Education Fund provides rapid-response legal work with the objective of protecting the system of democratically elected representative government, challenging anti-democracy efforts, and advancing the foundational American principle that no one is above the law.

Project:

Democracy Legal Strike Force Project

Foundation Center Topic:

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

Grant Length:

Dec 2022 to Nov 2023

Strategy:

General
  • Common Cause Education Fund
  • $350,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2016

Common Cause Education Fund is a major organization supporting civic reform in the U.S., working for improvements in both election administration and campaign finance. At the national level, they are a major player in shaping conversations around voting and participation rights. Their strong state chapters continue to build local coalitions for many of the reforms that the Democracy Fund believes can strengthen our democracy. 

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Redistricting, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voting Access, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Election Administration

Grant Length:

Dec 2016 to Nov 2017

Strategy:

Voter-Centric Election Administration
  • Millennial Action Project
  • $350,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Governance
  • 2016

This grant will allow Millennial Action Project to build on work to increase civil dialog and strengthen its own organization through collaborations with like-minded organizations while focusing on a key strategic constituency identified in our emerging strategy/map — younger Americans. 

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance

Grant Length:

Dec 2016 to Nov 2018

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2017

The purpose of this grant is to provide funding for enhanced staffing dedicated to pro bono and technological enhancement.

Project:

Pro Bono Project Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Other

Grant Length:

Sep 2017 to Aug 2018

Strategy:

General
  • Voice of the People
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2015

Building on the infrastructure established in the first phase of the project, we propose to carry out Citizen Cabinet surveys on seven new policy topics in an expanded number of states as well as with a national sample and to more broadly promote the idea of the Citizen Cabinet to Congress, the media and the public. This grant will also work to help VOP find a new long-term home for this project with more robust institutional resources.

Project:

Citizen Cabinet Pilot Project Renewal

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance, Civic Participation/Public Participation

Grant Length:

Nov 2015 to Apr 2017

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • Civic Nation
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Just and Inclusive Society
  • 2017

The Purpose of the Grant is to allow Civic Nation to build out a strategy and recruit additional support around positive communications placement that increases the likelihood of culture change around how the public discusses and views the American Muslim community.

Project:

Protecting Vulnerable Communities and Anti-Hate Initiative

Foundation Center Topic:

Other, Media

Grant Length:

Jun 2017 to May 2018

Strategy:

General
  • Issue One
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2017

Issue One’s Ethics and Accountability Project conducts research and investigations of ethics and accountability issues, watchdog efforts to hold public officials accountable, and the development of white papers, narratives, and other deliverables for use in congressional hearings and media reports.

Project:

Issue One Ethics and Accountability Project

Foundation Center Topic:

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

Grant Length:

Apr 2017 to Apr 2019

Strategy:

Oversight and Accountability
  • VotingWorks
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2019

The Voting Works Risk Limiting Audit (RLA) tool helps election officials calculate the number of ballots needed to conduct an RLA based on the risk limit they have set for a contest. Post-election auditing is one important way that election officials can prove the accuracy of election outcomes and inspire greater public confidence in the voting process.

Project:

Risk Limiting Audit Tool Development

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Election Administration

Grant Length:

Dec 2019 to Dec 2020

Strategy:

Trust in Elections
  • Next Century Cities
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Public Square
  • 2015

To support a process to develop a competition between communities with access to next-generation networks (i.e. up to at least a gig to some premises) to leverage their internet capacity to promote stronger democratic processes and increase civic engagement. In short, Democracy on a Gig.

Project:

Democracy on a Gig

Foundation Center Topic:

Media/Media Access and Policy, Media/Journalism

Grant Length:

Aug 2015 to Jul 2017

Strategy:

Engaged Journalism
  • Public Rights Project
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2023

Public Rights Project’s Voting Rights and State Abuse of Power program is a rapid response litigation hub supporting a corps of 200 election officials across 12+ states. They provide training, technical assistance and legal backup to election administrators to enable them to quickly and effectively respond to election threats.

Project:

Voting Rights and State Abuse of Power Program Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting

Grant Length:

Dec 2023 to Nov 2025

Strategy:

Resilient Elections
  • Voice of the People
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2013

Demonstrate how a Citizen Cabinet could provide federal policy makers with a new resource for understanding the views of their constituents by piloting the process in a small number of districts.

Project:

Citizen Cabinet Pilot Project

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance, Civic Participation/Public Participation

Grant Length:

Oct 2013 to Apr 2015

Strategy:

Previous Strategy
  • The Aspen Institute Inc
  • $350,000.00
  • Project
  • Governance
  • 2015

The Aspen Institute-Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership identifies and brings together promising young political leaders to explore the underlying values and principles of western democracy, the relationship between individuals and their community, and the responsibilities of public leadership.

Project:

Rodel Fellowship Expansion

Foundation Center Topic:

Government/Legislative Branch Performance

Grant Length:

Nov 2015 to Aug 2017

Strategy:

Constructive Politics
  • Common Cause Education Fund
  • $350,000.00
  • General Operating Support
  • Elections and Voting
  • 2015

Common Cause Education Fund is an major organization supporting civic reform in the U.S., working for improvements in both election administration and campaign finance. At the national level, they are major player in shaping conversations around voting and participation rights. Their strong state chapters continue to build local coalitions for many of the reforms that the Democracy Fund believes strengthen our democracy.

Project:

General Operating Support

Foundation Center Topic:

Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Voting Access, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Redistricting, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Election Administration, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting/Campaign Finance

Grant Length:

Dec 2015 to Nov 2016

Strategy:

Voter-Centric Election Administration
Democracy Fund
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Washington, DC 20036