The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a national research and advocacy organization that partners with allies across the country to build an American economy driven by local priorities, accountable to people and the planet.

By engaging elected officials, faith-based leaders, media, community activists, educators, childcare providers, healthcare professionals and other advocacy partners, the Mississippi Center for Justice dismantles the policies that keep Mississippi at the bottom of nearly every indicator of human well-being and deny African-American and lower-income Mississippians opportunities.

El Tímpano, a fiscally sponsored project of Independent Arts & Media, works in collaboration with residents and community partners to create empowering, two-way channels of information that inform and engage the Bay Area’s Latino and Mayan immigrants.

Cybersecurity for Democracy is researching and iterating on Ad Observer and the Ad Observatory, as well as exploring the creation of new tools to better help researchers, advocates, and journalists track digital disinformation.

Conecta Arizona (CA) started as an experiment to respond to misinformation about Covid with accurate and timely information in Spanish. Using the community-based approach they developed over the past three years, they are expanding their focus to include more deeply reported stories.

Oficina Legal Del Pueblo Unido Inc., dba Texas Civil Rights Project protects the civil rights of Texans through their work on economic justice, voting rights, and criminal justice.

The School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University will host a colloquium and public event on renewing American conservatism that will feature top academics, activists, and political scientists from around the country. Participants will discuss the future of the conservative movement in the United States resulting in dozens of essays on “the way forward” for the conservative movement and a conference in year 2. 

Encourage the replication of the CIR in states outside of Oregon

The Center for Public Integrity will launch an anti-deception initiative, called Consider the Source, that aims to uncover how campaigns and consultants manipulate the public using a flood of secret money.

The Polling Place of the Future Project at MIT brings election officials, political scientists and tech experts together to refine and build free-access tech tools to allow election officials to run elections better.

To support the Defending Digital Democracy Project (D3P) at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to help election administrators and other government officials better protect election systems through a variety of trainings and tools.

Take Back Our Republic (TBOR) focuses on giving concerned conservatives a voice on campaign finance reform issues. Their activities include: research, education, and advocacy to return political power to individuals.

American Oversight is building a centralized hub for oversight of the government’s response to the public and economic crisis created by COVID-19. Using information detailed in FOIA requests, news articles, public reports, Inspectors General reports, and congressional investigations, they will support oversight and investigative activities of the watchdog community.

General Operating Support

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Congress Project fosters congressional reform ideas, with a particular focus on the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. The Congress Project will also organize recurring bipartisan programming for Members of Congress and their staff.

The purpose of this grant is to provide general operating support to Student Press Law Center to expand and defend the rights of student journalists and their advisors.

The Partnership for Public Service, believes that the future and democracy depend on our ability to solve big problems—and that an effective federal government is needed to do so. They serve as a bridge between administrations, across the political aisle, and from the public to the private sector to develop forward-thinking solutions that improve the way the government works.

The Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) works to strengthen the role of science within the federal civil service sector. They will develop recommendations for better hiring practices, science program leadership, and performance accountability within the federal government to help it better serve the public interest.

Baltimore Beat’s mission is to pursue journalism that serves the Baltimore local news ecosystem in the tradition of the Black press, focusing on community, questioning power structures, and prioritizing thoughtful engagement with the community.

To support OpenNews, a fiscally sponsored project of Community Partners, which works to create and support a diverse community of peers working, learning, and solving problems in technology and data. For this project, OpenNews will continue to create spaces in-person and online that support and connect changemakers and local journalists in newsrooms outside of the NY/DC corridor.