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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) will define and explain existing funding structures used for running fair, efficient and accurate elections and will seek out additional funding concepts for comparison.

General Operating Support

As a partner to the Participatory Budgeting Project, Public Agenda will play a lead role in the development of participatory budgeting  through surfacing local evaluation research, performing independent research and communicating research results to key constituencies.

Provide project support to the Participatory Budgeting Project to foster increased use of participatory budgeting in the US.

The William J. Brennan Center for Justice is preparing for the possible invocation of emergency authorities and the threat they would pose to democracy and to the constitutional order. This grant will support the Liberty and National Security Program’s Emergency Powers Project. The project involves legal and empirical research, a bipartisan working group of academic experts and former government officials to identify scenarios and interventions, and implementation of intervention strategies.