Page 25 – Democracy Fund

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Announcing a New Fund to Fight Misinformation

Tom Glaisyer

March 12, 2017

Misinformation, hoaxes, and propaganda are nothing new, but the internet and new technology have made it easier than ever to create and share viral deceptions. The spread of fake information and false stories erodes trust in our democratic institutions and fans the flames of hyper-partisanship.

However, those same tools also give us new opportunities to combat and debunk bad information, and help deliver accurate and trustworthy journalism to more people than ever.

That is why today a coalition of foundations including Democracy Fund, Knight and Rita Allen Foundations are launching a joint fund to support creative ideas to address the question: how might we improve the flow of accurate information?

Democracy Fund is committed to supporting innovative people and ideas that help combat viral deception and reinvigorate trust in the press. We hope this prototype fund sparks creativity and collaboration to ensure our political system is able to deliver on its promise to the American people. We expect to award up to $1 million in grants with an average size of about $50,000. Each grant comes with a two-day training on building and evolving ideas through prototyping.

We understand that these are profoundly complex issues and that people negotiate trust, navigate information, and seek out context in very different ways. We don’t believe there is any one silver-bullet, but instead want to engage a diverse set of stakeholders around these problems. We welcome early stage projects from engineers and educators, librarians and lawyers, and reporters and researchers, and more. Good ideas can come from anywhere so we’ll be reaching out to communities and local newsrooms all across the country—in both rural and urban areas, through red states and blue states, on the coasts and from the middle of the country.

The deadline is April 3rd at 5pm ET. Click here to read a FAQ for more information or apply today.

In the press release today our partner foundations write: “The call is seeking diverse ideas on topics ranging from, but not limited to, the role of algorithms in news consumption, methods for separating facts from fiction, building bridges across ideological divides and strategies for ensuring journalism organizations are authentic to the communities they serve.”

Democracy Fund is particularly interested in ideas from diverse communities and local newsrooms around the country, where people are exploring how engagement, transparency, and context are helping sort fact from fiction. Those peddling in misinformation have used the Internet to their advantage, but everyday people show that the web can be a powerful tool for truth as well. It’s time to turn the tables.

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Civility on I-81: The #BipartisanRoadTrip

Betsy Wright Hawkings

March 16, 2017

Congressmen Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) and Will Hurd (R-TX) might not agree on every aspect of education or trade policy. But they have experienced life on the highway – together.

Faced with travel delays caused by a winter storm, Reps. O’Rourke and Hurd made the practical decision to rent a car and head north, a choice anyone who knows the two men could understand. Rep. O’Rourke, who started his own small business, and Rep. Hurd, who served in the CIA during the War on Terror, are “get the job done” kinds of guys.

Their shared work ethic and commitment to serve their Texan constituents helped them connect during their long ride back to Washington. As they cruised along Route 81, these bipartisan road trippers drank coffee, stopped for snacks, and took questions from Facebook Live viewers tuned into their trip.

They also did something even more unusual these days: They showed their constituents and an audience from around the country that Republicans and Democrats could get to know each other and even be friends.

Beto O'Rourke kicks off the road trip — Rep. Beto O’Rourke kicks off the road trip.

Long before social media (and regular flights to Peoria!) former Leader Bob Michel (R-IL), and former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-IL) famously drove back and forth to Illinois together on the weekends. This time, though, online followers of the #BipartisanRoadTrip saw firsthand how so many on the Internet coalesced around the two. In this age of hyperpartisan politics, there are few Facebook Live streams that friends from across the aisle join together to watch. However, Americans from coast to coast tuned in to watch this unlikely duo make the long trek from Texas to Washington together.

As Katie Mettler reported in The Washington Post, O’Rourke and Hurd made stops for coffee and donuts along their route, pausing to talk with fellow customers, some of whom were skeptical about their newfound friendship. “You’re buddies?” an older man asked the congressmen, to which O’Rourke responded: “We’re becoming buddies.”

These unlikely buddies aren’t the only Members working to bridge partisan divides. Rep. Hurd, co-chair of the Millennial Action Project’s bipartisan Congressional Future Caucus, and Rep. O’Rourke, who has participated in the Aspen Institute Congressional Program – both of which promote efforts to connect Members of Congress with colleagues across the aisle – are just two of several recent examples.

Just two weeks ago, 28 Republican and 18 Democratic Freshman Members — representing red and blue states from coast to coast — signed a Commitment to Civility and spoke on the House floor about why they made this commitment, what their constituents had sent them to Washington to accomplish, and how civility is essential to working together across the aisle to achieve those goals. In all, 46 of the 52 new members signed the commitment, which urges productive dialogue and rejects the idea that political rivals are enemies.

And last week, the Bipartisan Policy Center hosted Republican and Democratic presidents of the House Freshmen class to discuss efforts by their class to work across the aisle to find common ground. At the event, Reps. Val Demings (D-FL) and Jack Bergman (R-MI) spoke about the class’s shared commitment sustain this effort, not not just in their first months in Washington, but as long as they are elected to serve.

Asked, “How can we help?” the Representatives responded, “Keep encouraging events like this.”

The bipartisan road trippers take Facebook Live questions.

As road trippers Hurd and O’Rourke return to the Capitol and their caucuses with 1,900 more miles of common ground behind them, chances are each knows a whole lot more about how the other wants to do this job of “representative” – and that their constituents do, too.

Packing Members of different parties into rental cars for 24-hour drives may not be a feasible way to find common ground on every issue, but Reps. Hurd & O’Rourke are one example of how actions can bridge Washington’s hyperpartisan divide. And the more constituents encourage Members of Congress to work together, the more they will do so.

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Starting With Community: From Civic Journalism to Community Engagement

Paul Waters

November 7, 2016

This week in Chicago journalists from around the country will gather for the People-Powered Publishing Conference. The conference brings together innovators and pioneers who are connecting newsrooms and communities in new ways.

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program will be on hand at the event and is releasing a new paper, “How to Best Serve Communities: Reflections on Civic Journalism,” on the history of how newsrooms have partnered with their communities — from civic journalism to today’s engaged journalism.

This past August, our senior fellow Geneva Overholser wrote a blog post on the connections between civic journalism and engaged journalism. Geneva has expanded on this topic with a fuller reflection on the civic journalism movement in the ‘90s. In the paper she describes what civic journalism hoped to do and the lasting impact of ideas around engagement. We found this work to be very useful as we are in the beginning stages of developing a strategy to support engaged journalism.

In Geneva’s concluding thoughts she reflects that:

“Today’s engaged journalism, civic journalism’s replacement in this digital age, enjoys an utterly different environment from the one that confronted civic journalists — one in which disruption prevails, change is the new constant, and innovation is seen, almost universally, as essential. The contemporary movement is landing on far more fertile terrain.”

Engaged journalism repositions news and information as a service rooted in deep dialogue with the public rather than a product for them to consume. This kind of journalism understands that outlets can create better stories, stronger newsrooms, and more healthy communities by bringing people into the journalism process. Engagement generates feedback loops between audiences and outlets to improve relationships, representation, responsiveness, trust, and impact.

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program supports the practice of engaged journalism through research, relationships, convenings, and grants. Throughout this process, we will collect, share, and update learnings with the broader field to support a network of practitioners across the country. While this is a national trend, we’re especially interested to understand how it works on the local level.

Our belief is that this reorientation of local journalism towards engaged journalism is critical to fostering a thriving journalism landscape and a more engaged democracy. The people attending this week’s People-Powered Publishing Conference are on the front lines of this work and we look forward to learning from and with them. We hope that Geneva’s paper on civic journalism can provide the historical insight and direction to move forward in the context of financial collapse and technological disruption of traditional print and broadcast news.

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6 Things To Know On #GivingTuesday

Emma Thomson

November 29, 2016

As Americans head back to work with full hearts after Thanksgiving, we have an annual opportunity to support nonprofit organizations in the work they do year round. While there are plenty of reasons to give, here are six tips to keep in mind:

1. Think about today’s priorities

There’s no shortage of needs from which to choose – from education and advocacy to meeting basic needs, there are plenty of great options! We’re partial to democracy issues.

2. Check the charity rating on a resource like Charity Navigator

Before you give, confirm that the organization is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit and in good standing.

3. Donate directly through the charity

Eliminate the middle man! By contributing directly to the charity via its website or another way, you’re making sure the beneficiary gets the whole donation.

4. Earmark your contribution for a specific program or need

Passionate about a certain program or area in which a nonprofit works? You’ll be more invested in your donation if you know that it’s going to something you care about.

5. Take advantage of your workplace’s matching gifts benefit

Do your employee benefits include an opportunity for matching gifts? If so, make sure to report your giving to qualifying charities to double the impact.

6. Generosity is good!

In addition to benefits like better mental health and stress management, giving makes you feel good and is a great way to pay your good fortune forward.

The Democracy Fund is grateful to our grantees who are making a difference for the American people. We support them because we believe in their commitment to making Americans’ voices come first in our democracy. To learn more about their work, please visit our Impact page. This #GivingTuesday, we can all make a difference!

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Investing in an Independent, Robust Free Press

Tom Glaisyer

March 28, 2017

A healthy democracy cannot exist without a vibrant public square, including an independent, trusted, and robust free press. At a time when news organizations increasingly find themselves under attack, the Democracy Fund along with our partners at First Look Media are announcing major commitments of more than $12 million to support a robust free press – the largest grants either organization has made to date in support of journalism.

For years, the media industry has struggled against major economic threats that have severely undermined our fourth estate. In response, the Democracy Fund’s Public Square program has worked with journalists across the country to experiment with new models that can reinvigorate local media and ensure that newsrooms are able to fulfill their core responsibilities to a healthy democracy. But 2016 media trends were deeply alarming. Viral deceptions and bogus information sometimes seemed to overwhelm the facts and fact-checkers. Newsmedia coverage only partially reflected vast swathes of the country. And media institutions continued to struggle financially and with earning the public’s trust. In short, America’s lively and contentious public square stands to become choked, chilled, and full of claptrap.

However, sometimes the moments where challenges are revealed prove to be turning points. It’s not clear that this is the case, but we can say without doubt that this moment has provided a renewed focus on the critical role of our nation’s press. Many individuals and organizations who have been raising alarm bells about the future of media are newly energized.

It is in this moment that we all have an opportunity to act.

Standing With Those Who Seek the Truth

With that in mind, the Democracy Fund is announcing a number of new grants this week, and I wanted to take this opportunity to describe them within the longer arc of our work.

The bedrock of our press rests on a robust interpretation of the First Amendment. Free press advocates are battening down the hatches. Trends in digital and platform rhetoric may, if nothing else, spark violent speech and even violence towards journalists, chilling freedom of expression. Without robust defenders of the First Amendment, all American journalists will struggle. We hope that our support will enable the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to continue and expand on its work to provide legal resources and guidance for independent journalists, nonprofit news outlets, and partners in broadcast, print, and online news media. With public support for the news media dangerously low, we need a community of press freedom advocates that is able to engage with the public around these issues.

Supporting Bold Ideas for Big Investigations

The craft of journalism and, critically, the accountability journalism that larger non-profit outlets are well positioned to deliver without fear or favor, are an important asset to the field. Each of the following institutions is unique. In partnership with our colleagues at First Look Media we made five significant grants.

A grant to the Center for Investigative Reporting provides general operating support as they pioneer new models of investigative reporting rooted in collaboration, community engagement, and creativity. A grant to the Center for Public Integrity provides general operating support to expand their watchdog reporting and strengthen their ability to hold institutions accountable to the American people. And, with our additional support, ProPublica is positioned to expand its groundbreaking work that combines hard-hitting investigations and cutting edge data journalism in service to communities.

Finding New Partners and New Funding

Two other grants take a different approach, but are to us complementary pieces of the puzzle. We have to find the best way to flexibly deploy resources towards reporting. The Investigative Reporting Workshop (IRW) at American University achieves this through partnering with newsrooms and exploring new paths to engage others who previously might not have seen themselves as accountability experts. In contrast, a New York University grant will establish a laboratory for community-supported investigative journalism and focus on developing sustainable business models for U.S. newsrooms rooted in new membership structures and drawing on the lessons from a world leader in community-driven accountability journalism.

(As part of this announcement of our support, we want to underscore that Democracy Fund will never try to influence the journalism of our grantees, and explicitly ask grantees not to discuss their editorial strategy with us, or any stories they may or may not write.)

A New Fund for State and Local News

Sustainability is key at the local level, too, and through the announcement of a commitment of $1 million towards a new fund for state and local investigative journalism, we hope to serve as a beacon for those who want to support local and state news, investigative beats, and nonprofit news. Many of the dozens of nonprofit outlets that have sprung up over the last few years are maturing and looking to the future.

Let’s be clear: the degradation of trust in news media is real, and public support needs to be renewed if we are going to have a flourishing public square—an essential component of a healthy democracy.

At the Democracy Fund, we believe the practices that will build the truthful, trusted journalism that we need focus on the public. The public should know that the journalism being produced has fidelity to the facts. The public should be engaged and connected to journalists in a very real and not superficial way. The news media and journalists the public relies on must be diverse in sources, stories, and staff. For any of this to come to pass, journalists must be able to continue to practice hard-hitting accountability journalism without fear, represent diverse points of view, be relevant to the public, and be sustainable.

We hope that these new commitments will build effectively upon the $18 million in grants that the Democracy Fund’s Public Square program has made over the past five years to support efforts that help journalism to become more audience-centered, trusted, and resilient.

This is all very much a work in progress. But we believe there is a strong future for journalism and we look forward to continuing to work with our grantees, the wider community of those working in news and engagement, and the public towards this mission.

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Welcoming New Teammates to the Democracy Fund

Democracy Fund

April 11, 2017

The Democracy Fund team is a group of remarkably passionate and dedicated people from all walks of life and across the political spectrum. As we face new challenges and embrace new opportunities, we are proud to welcome three outstanding additions to our team. Spanning a wide range of experience and interests, we are confident that these individuals will bring the skills and diverse perspectives that are critical to our work to help strengthen democracy.

On the program side, please join us in welcoming Laura A. Maristany, the Democracy Fund’s new Associate Director for Constructive Politics in the Governance Program. A seasoned advocate with extensive Capitol Hill and legislative experience, Laura previously served as chief federal advocate and Director of the Washington, D.C. office for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Laura also served as Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). At both organizations, Laura played a key role in developing and implementing their respective legislative agendas and developing relations with Congress, the Administration, federal agencies, and other national organizations. At the Democracy Fund, Laura will lead the Governance Program’s efforts to strengthen the congressional political system by fostering more constructive political engagement and a healthy two-party system.

“We so grateful to have Laura join our team,” said Betsy Wright Hawkings, Director of the Democracy Fund’s Governance Program. “With her strong organizational skills, experience developing relationships with leaders on both sides of the congressional aisle and across the federal government, and proven ability to partner with other national organizations, Laura will be a tremendous asset in helping the Democracy Fund promote the ability of elected officials to cooperate and find common ground.”

Our Operations team has been growing as well. Bringing an extensive background in financial management, auditing, compliance, and operations management for nonprofit organizations, we are delighted to welcome our new Controller, Robin Thompson, to the team. Robin will plan and oversee the Democracy Fund’s financial resources, including implementing and managing new, more efficient systems for our complex and growing organization.

We are also happy to welcome Lorna Kerr, our new Human Resources Associate. Focusing specifically on diversity and inclusion, performance management, learning and development, and a host of other human resource functions, Lorna will help us cultivate a values-driven culture at the Democracy Fund that brings out the best in our rapidly growing, diverse staff.

“Robin and Lorna both bring deep experience in their respective fields and a passion for motivating people and implementing best practices,” said Tony Bowen, Director of Grants Management and Operations. “We are very excited to have them join our growing organization and help us professionalize our internal operations so we can better serve our partners and support our teams as we work to make democracy better.”

To learn more about our staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/about-us. We will keep you updated as we continue recruit for several open positions at the Democracy Fund.

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Engaged Journalism: Putting Communities at the Center of Journalism

Teresa Gorman

April 26, 2017

This post was co-authored by Paul Waters

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square program is dedicated to supporting vibrant and thriving media through increasing engaged journalism practices in news outlets across the country. Two of the most common questions we hear about engaged journalism are: what is engaged journalism? And how (once you’ve figured out what it is) do you help the practice spread? To begin answering those questions, we commissioned two papers from Dot Connector Studio. Today, we are releasing those papers publicly for journalists, news organizations, funders, and any others that may find them useful.

The first is “Pathways to Engagement: Understanding How Newsrooms are Working with Communities.” In this paper, we have documented a broad spectrum of efforts that help position communities at the center of journalism by creating a taxonomy of engagement practices. Different approaches are outlined, along with useful examples from the field. We refer to the full spectrum of ideas presented here as “Engaged Journalism.” We undertook this effort primarily to clarify our own thinking, not to enforce a uniformity on others. We hope our taxonomy will be of use to the field, but we also see the value in continuing to push and pull on the meanings behind the words we use.

The second paper is “Communities of Practice: Lessons for the Journalism Field.” Organizations in the field need new solutions and ways to spread, compare, replicate, scale, and evaluate engaged journalism. Communities of practice (CoP) are one way to accomplish that for engaged journalism, and also for other groups. This paper examines the theory and evolution of CoPs and explores in greater detail some CoPs that are developing with those working in engaged journalism. The appendix provides a checklist for building and expanding CoPs for any type of group.

We hope that these lessons and examples—drawn from leaders and practitioners—will challenge and inspire both journalists and those who fund them. These papers are designed to share with your colleagues, newsroom leaders, and even community members. We hope that the paper on Communities of Practice will prove useful not only for those seeking to organize CoPs around engaged and local journalism, but for other funders and organizers in the space aiming to coalesce around other crucial responses to disruption in news.

We welcome your feedback on these ideas and look forward to hearing more from you about how engaged journalism and communities of practice are being adopted in your newsrooms and communities. Please send feedback to localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

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Welcoming Tammy Patrick to Democracy Fund’s Elections Program

Democracy Fund

May 12, 2017

This week the Democracy Fund is excited to welcome Tammy Patrick as a new Senior Advisor for the Elections program. A widely-respected leader in the election administration space, Tammy brings with her a strong background in using data, best practices, and practical approaches to make voting easier. In this new role, Tammy will help lead the Democracy Fund’s efforts to foster a voter-centric elections system and work to provide election officials across the country with the tools and knowledge they need to best serve their voters.

Tammy joins us from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), where she worked to promote the recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA). BPC has had major successes working in states across the country to advance the PCEA’s recommendations, as identified in our recent progress report, available here. Tammy is also a former Commissioner of the PCEA, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013. As a Commissioner, Tammy was an active contributor to the work that lead to a series of unanimous, bipartisan recommendations on how to improve elections in the United States.

Tammy spent 11 years working to infuse data and innovation in local election practices as a federal compliance officer for the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona, where she served over 1.9 million registered voters in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Her long list of accomplishments also includes the U.S. Postal Service’s Mailer’s Technical Advisory Committee, where she works on important issues related to the role the United States Postal Service place in our elections.

In addition to her work with the Democracy Fund, Tammy serves on the steering committee for National Voter Registration Day as well as the board of advisors for the Center for Technology in Civic Life and the MIT Election Data Science Lab. She also teaches Data Analysis for Election Administration for the Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota, which provides a certificate in public administration for election officials.

“We are thrilled to welcome Tammy to our team,” said Adam Ambrogi, Director of the Democracy Fund’s Elections Program. “With her unrivaled expertise on the challenges and nuances of elections administration in the United States and a proven ability to develop relationships with election officials, policy experts, academics, advocates from across the political spectrum, Tammy will be a tremendous asset in helping the Democracy Fund seek new ways to support election officials and improve the voting experience for all voters.”

To learn more about our staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/who-we-are. We will keep you updated as we continue recruit for several open positions at the Democracy Fund.

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Press Release

Voter Study Group Releases New Poll of 5,000 Voters on First Six Months of the Trump Administration

Democracy Fund

September 6, 2017

Longitudinal survey finds the highest regret among Obama-to-Trump voters, strong opposition to two top Trump priorities, and sharp partisan shifts in views about the nation’s direction

Washington, D.C. – September 6, 2017 – The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a research collaboration comprised of leading analysts and scholars from across the political spectrum, has released initial findings from its July survey, which tested how Americans are reacting to President Donald Trump’s first six months in office. Notably, most voters do not regret the decision they made in the 2016 election. However, Obama-to-Trump voters are the most likely to regret the choice they made last November and are more likely than other Trump voters to disapprove of the President’s performance.

The data also illuminate how voting Americans are strongly opposed to two hallmarks of President Trump’s campaign. Both repealing the Affordable Care Act and building a wall along the border of Mexico have greater opposition than support among the 5,000 voters polled, while other Trump campaign promises included in the poll continue to enjoy support.

These and other findings are described in a new memo, “The First Six Months: How Americans are Reacting to the Trump Administration,” authored by Robert Griffin, a member of the Voter Study Group and Director of Quantitative Analysis at the Center for American Progress.

“Voters’ opinions have been incredibly stable considering the tumultuous nature of this Administration’s early months,” said Griffin. “Trump has mostly held onto the support of those who voted for him in November. The one exception has been the much-discussed Obama-to-Trump voters – more than one in five now disapprove of the President.”

“Our results show how public opinion remains supportive of some of the President’s key campaign promises,” said Karlyn Bowman, a Voter Study Group editor and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “But as the immigration debate and budget negotiations heat up, building a wall remains especially unpopular, and as NAFTA negotiations get underway, the data show attitudes toward trade becoming more positive.”

Further findings relevant to the President’s agenda and detailed in “The First Six Months” include:

Trump voters still support the President, but support is weaker among Obama-Trump voters: Eighty-eight percent of Trump voters still approve of the President while just nine percent disapprove. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Clinton voters (96 percent) disapprove of Trump. Among Obama-Trump voters, 70 percent approve, but 22 percent disapprove – a rate twice as high as that of all Trump voters.
Few voters regret the choices they made in 2016, but Obama-Trump voters are unusually likely to regret their vote: Sixteen percent of Obama-Trump voters regret voting for Trump—the highest of any group examined.
Democrats have an early edge in the 2018 midterms because of uncertainty and defection among Trump voters: In line with other July polls, the Democrat Party has a seven-point lead over Republicans in the “generic ballot” question – 43 percent to 36 percent. This lead is largely created by the nearly unanimous support of Clinton voters for Democrats combined with about 20 percent of Trump voters who say they will vote for a third-party candidate, are uncertain of their vote, or will not vote.
Strong opposition outweighs strong support on two of the President’s highest campaign priorities: Of the campaign promises included in the survey, there are two where strong opposition outweighs strong support, and they happen to be two of the President’s top priorities: ACA repeal and building the border wall. On every other campaign promise polled, strong support is higher than the opposition.
Despite a tumultuous six months, many other attitudes remain stable—with two exceptions: Of the topics included in the poll, there are only two issues where opinion appears to have changed significantly from December 2016 to July 2017: First, there was a 13-point increase in the percentage of respondents who favored increasing trade with other nations. Second, support for a temporary Muslim immigration ban increased from 44 percent to 47 percent.
Americans’ views about the direction of the country and its prospects have shifted sharply along partisan lines: Clinton voters generally felt worse about their quality of life as well as the nation’s economic and political standing. At the same time, Trump voters have become much more optimistic across six measures.
Americans generally have a negative opinion of Vladimir Putin, but dislike the person they didn’t vote for even more: Americans now dislike the opposing 2016 presidential candidate more than an authoritarian leader widely-believed to have meddled in the election. Both Clinton and Trump voters dislike the candidate they didn’t vote for more than they do Putin.

More data on these findings, along with accompanying infographics, are available here.

In the coming weeks and months, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group will be releasing a number of in-depth reports exploring trends across the longitudinal surveys, which polled a panel of Americans in 2011, 2012, 2016, and now 2017. Coming analysis will cover evolving public opinion on health care, trade, immigration, democracy, and millennials, among other topics.

The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group is a politically-diverse group of conservative, progressive, and independent experts who came together in 2016 to study the American electorate. The research of the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group is designed to help policy makers and thought leaders listen more closely, and respond more powerfully, to the views of American voters.

The 2016 and 2017 VOTER Surveys and reports were made possible by a grant from Democracy Fund to the Ethics and Public Policy Center to conduct new research about changing trends among the American electorate.

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VOTER Survey Methodology Summary

In partnership with the survey firm YouGov, the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group commissioned the 2016 VOTER Survey (Views of the Electorate Research Survey) of 8,000 adults who had participated in similar surveys in 2011 and 2012. The Voter Study Group then interviewed 5,000 of the same respondents between July 13-24, 2017 to explore how voters’ opinions may have changed—or how they did not change at all. A complete 2017 survey methodology is available here.

About the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC)

Founded in 1976 by Dr. Ernest W. Lefever, the Ethics and Public Policy Center is Washington, D.C.’s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy. From the Cold War to the war on terrorism, from disputes over the role of religion in public life to battles over the nature of the family, EPPC and its scholars have consistently sought to defend and promote our nation’s founding principles—respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, individual freedom and responsibility, justice, the rule of law, and limited government.

About the Democracy Fund

The Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation created by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that our political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Since 2011, Democracy Fund has invested more than $60 million in support of a healthy democracy, including modern elections, effective governance, and a vibrant public square.

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Brief

How To Best Serve Communities: Reflections on Civic Journalism

Geneva Overholser

November 5, 2016

At the Democracy Fund, we believe that creating a stronger future for local news requires us to focus on transforming the relationship between news consumers and news producers. As we develop a new program to support and expand “Engaged Journalism,” we have sought to ensure that our new efforts are informed by the successes and struggles of the past — especially the civic journalism movement of the 1990s. This paper was commissioned for the purposes of understanding that history and what has changed since, so that we will be more likely to succeed today.