Page 31 – Democracy Fund

Blog

Long Lines: How I learned to stop worrying and love queueing theory

Natalie Adona

January 7, 2016

After seeing reports of would-be voters waiting for hours in long lines to cast a ballot, in 2012 President Obama called for a new effort to improve the quality of voting in the United States. As we’ve identified in prior posts, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) helped renew the growing election science movement. Election science can be tremendously helpful to hard working local election officials, who must serve the needs of voters with limited resources. As it turns out, improper allocation of available resources negatively impacts the ability to keep long lines from forming. Local officials need the capacity to anticipate long lines before Election Day and, in turn, improve the voter experience.

Fortunately, the Voting Technology Project (VTP), a collaboration between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a Democracy Fund grantee), has built free, easy-to-use tools that can help election administrators run elections more smoothly, serve voters, and save time and money with little effort. Adam Ambrogi and Paul DeGregorio briefly mentioned these tools in a recent Democracy Fund blog post. Here, I’d like to take a more detailed look at the VTP election management tools and show how they’re helpful for election officials.

After extensive research and testing in the field during the 2014 election cycle, the VTP discovered (unsurprisingly) that long lines form when arrivals at the polling place outpace available resources—in other words, lots of voters coming in at once and not enough capacity to process them in a timely way. This is based on the concept of “queueing theory” or the study of how lines form. Featured in a recent report written by VTP co-director Charles Stewart, the tools developed by Mark Pelczarski, Stephen Graves, and Rong Yuan help optimize the use of resources at polling places and have the potential to significantly mitigate the impact of long lines on the voter experience.

Did I mention they’re free and easy-to-use?

The Graves and Yuan tool analyzes and makes recommendations on the data points that many election officials may already be collecting, including:

Arrival rates
Average time for check-in at registration table
Number of check-in stations
Maximum wait (the PCEA strongly recommended voters wait no longer than 30 minutes to vote)
Percentage of people who will be served within the maximum wait time (“Service level”)

Here’s how it works (follow along at home): Plug in your data using the “add precinct” icon at the top right of the screen. In the example provided here and mimicking the example provided in the VTP report, (fictitious) Precinct #0001 has 115 voters arriving per hour (calculated by assuming that a precinct will expect 1500 voters over a 13-hour period that the polls are open), there’s an average of 30 seconds to check-in, one check-in station, and 95 percent of people will wait a maximum of 30 minutes. Then, click “calculate.”

As you can see, the tool provides an analysis and a recommendation. Here, voters in Precinct #0001 will wait in line about 11 minutes on average and almost 8 percent will wait longer than 30 minutes. To meet the 95 percent service level, the tool recommends adding a check-in station.

Similarly, the Pelczarski tool analyzes “what if” scenarios, based in part on anticipated peak hours and other data points. In addition to the data identified earlier, you will also need to know:

Number of expected voters
Number of voting stations (aka, booths)
Average minutes to actually vote (for the average voter—not the ideal voter)

It’s also helpful to know the arrival pattern and other information, which you can see at the bottom of the screen. I created a comma separated values (.CSV) file using fictitious precinct and county data, uploaded it (at the top of the screen where it says “Load Precinct Data”), and toggled the arrival pattern to “Early morning peak” and got the following results:

As you can see, based on the data I provided in my .CSV file, the tool tracks average wait times throughout the day in this precinct in County #001. That precinct will experience wait times of over 30 minutes starting at about 9:30 am and will dwindle as the day progresses (at 3:30 pm, for example, the wait is only 6 minutes). I substantially reduced the wait time after I asked the tool to project how many folks might walk off—here, 28 people will potentially turn away from the polls at this precinct. Based on this data, I might have to consider adding another poll worker, e-poll book, or otherwise re-evaluate the average minutes spent at the check-in table.

The ability to potentially project the number of people who will leave the line is an incredibly important predictive tool.

Gathering all this data can be time-consuming, but this is an investment that will pay off in the short- and long-term. For some election officials, adding another poll worker to the check-in table or adding an e-poll book requires money that doesn’t exist. These tools have the potential to help officials make the case for increased funding by using hard data to justify budget increases.

Try them out! It’s free, so it can’t hurt. Can’t find that link? Click here.

To access the full report, written by Charles Stewart, click here; to see the executive summary, click here. (Democracy Fund is proud to support Dr. Stewart’s “Polling Place of the Future” project.)

For detailed training on how to use the VTP tools, consider contacting The Center for Technology and Civic Life.

Back to Ideas

Blog

Cranking up the Truth-O-Meter: Giving a boost to Truth in Politics

Tom Glaisyer

January 13, 2016

As PoltiFact’s Angie Holan’s December 2015 op-ed in The New York Times, explains, even in the midst of a campaign season full of falsehoods and misstatements, she sees reason for optimism about the efficacy of fact-checking work:

“Some politicians have responded to fact-checking journalism by vetting their prepared comments more carefully and giving their campaign ads extra scrutiny… Accurate information is becoming more available and easier for voters to find… Today’s TV journalists—anchors like Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos—have picked up the torch of fact-checking and now grill candidates on issues of accuracy during live interviews… In fact, journalists regularly tell me their media organizations have started highlighting fact-checking in their reporting because so many people click on fact-checking stories after a debate or high-profile news event.”

We do too, and in this context, Democracy Fund is pleased to announce our support (via a grant to The Times Publishing Company) for PolitiFact, an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on bringing the public the truth in politics. PolitiFact’s staff of independent reporters and editors fact-check statements from the White House, the president, cabinet secretaries, Congress, state legislators, governors, mayors, lobbyists, people who testify before Congress, and anyone else who speaks up in American politics—rating their claims for accuracy on their “Truth-O-Meter.” Every fact-check includes analysis of the claim, an explanation of reasoning, and a list of links to sources. A well established and esteemed fact-checking team now led by Angie Holan, won the Pulitzer Prize for its fact-checking of the presidential election in 2008.

PolitiFact is a division of The Tampa Bay Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, which is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, a 501(c)(3) journalism school in St. Petersburg, Florida. Democracy Fund has previously supported PunditFact, a project that fact-checks talking heads and opinion leaders, through funding from the Poynter Institute. We decided to provide additional dollars because we see this as an invaluable service for democratic accountability. The support we’re providing will allow PolitiFact to grow its franchise, extending factchecking across states during 2016 and subsequently.

PolitiFact has already been expanding its reach across the country, establishing editions in 15 states already (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin). This growth is great to see, and we hope it will continue.

Our Commitment to Editorial Independence

As part of this announcement of our support, we want to underscore that the Democracy Fund will not have any knowledge of the claims being checked, nor will we have any discussions with PolitiFact on editorial questions whatsoever.

Prior to finalizing the grant, we committed that Democracy Fund staff will not discuss with PolitiFact staff the editorial content of factchecks, nor will we discuss ratings of future factchecks, or future subjects of factchecks. At the same time, PolitiFact committed not to share any factchecks it is researching with Democracy Fund staff prior to publication.

We wanted to share this commitment as a part of our ongoing efforts to be transparent about the work we do and our approach. Editorial independence has always been crucial to journalism and democracy and as the field enters a new era where it seems likely funding will come from a range of sources, we need to ensure that it is not compromised.

The Democracy Fund is committed to fighting deception and disinformation that prevents voters from making informed decisions at the ballot box. PolitiFact and its state-level affiliates will hold individuals and organizations accountable for the exaggerations and falsehoods that are often found in political speech. We expect their work will continue to demonstrate the valuable role fact-checking can play in holding politicians, pundits and policy advocates accountable, and will influence other media organizations to adopt similar practices, and we are delighted to support them in this endeavor.

Back to Ideas

Blog

New ‘Healthy Congress’ Report Shows Signs of Hope

Betsy Wright Hawkings

February 2, 2016

Just over 18 months ago, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) published recommendations by its Commission on Political Reform (CPR) to address the hyper-partisanship characterizing American politics.

BPC initiated its Healthy Congress Index last year to measure progress on several key issues, including the number of days Congress spends in session; the openness of the Senate debate and amendment process; and the strength of “regular order” in the congressional committee process, floor debate, and conference committees.

This week—on the heels of the Republican congressional retreat designed to outline priorities and issues for the remainder of the 114th Congress—BPC released its latest quarterly assessment of Congress’s ability to effectively govern.

The diagnosis? There are signs of hope, but still too little function in the system.

Based on the metrics of the Index, even with the upheaval of a new Speaker, the 114th Congress has made some progress. The ability of committees to make policy and resolve differences has improved.

The number of days the House and Senate were in session fell short of the CPR’s recommendations and House Rules still allowed for fewer amendments to be offered, but the Senate spent more days working in Washington.

The Senate also considered many more amendments compared with recent years—bearing out Majority Leader McConnell’s stated desire to return to “regular order.”

At the recent GOP retreat, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Leader McConnell outlined their respective plans for the year. These included a more ambitious policy agenda on Ryan’s part, and a shared commitment by the two leaders to return to a more functional Congress—one that exercises its power of the purse on time in the annual appropriations process, conducts more effective oversight, and produces agreements on key legislation. These are also positive signs.

Time will tell whether they will be able to deliver—and whether we will continue to see progress in BPC’s “Healthy Congress” assessment—in the coming election year.

Back to Ideas

Blog

The 5 Principles of Integrity in Elections

Paul DeGregorio

February 29, 2016

With Super Tuesday upon us, we’re reminded that the intensity of a presidential-election year brings increased scrutiny for the nation’s election administrators. Presidential primaries, state primaries and the general election in November will beget a sharp focus on those whose job it is to make our democracy work. Their efforts will be watched closely by political campaigns, advocates, voters, the media and even conspiracy theorists.

In most cases, election administrators work hard to be fair and transparent and to promote integrity. But a large percentage of election officials are elected to their offices on a partisan ticket or appointed on partisan basis. This can lead some to believe that these officials will favor one political party over another in their decisions.

Even the best-written laws, regulations, policies or standards will pale in comparison to the personal ethics of an election administrator and the cultures of the offices they run. It’s imperative that election administrators ask themselves if they and their offices can withstand enormous scrutiny. This mandates trustworthy personnel and clear ethics policies.

Overall, ethics in elections includes five elements: independence, transparency, integrity, competence and fairness…

This was originally published via Governing Magazine. To read the full piece, click here.

Back to Ideas

Statement

Democracy Fund Announces Bipartisan National Advisory Committee

Democracy Fund

March 29, 2016

UPDATE (October 2016): Mindy Finn has stepped down from the Democracy Fund’s National Advisory Committee. We are grateful for her thoughtful contributions and partnership.

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Democracy Fund announced the formation of its bipartisan National Advisory Committee, which will provide advice on organizational initiatives and assess strategic opportunities to advance the Fund’s work to ensure the American people come first in our political system. Advisors include former White House and elected officials, as well as esteemed leaders from government, academia, and advocacy – reflecting significant political and demographic diversity.

The Democracy Fund’s inaugural National Advisory Committee includes:

Hon. Robin Carnahan, Senior Advisor and Head of the State and Local Practice at 18F and former Secretary of State of Missouri.
Hon. Tom Davis, former U.S. Representative from the state of Virginia, former Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, and former Chair of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
Mindy Finn, a veteran digital and technology strategist, Senior Advisor to IMGE, and founder and president of Empowered Women, has operated at the intersection of media, politics and tech for some of the world’s most well-known public figures and brands including President George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican Governor’s Association, Twitter, and Google.
Juleanna Glover, Senior Advisor at Teneo Intelligence who has served on the senior staffs of then President-elect George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, presidential candidates Steve Forbes and John McCain, and then Senator John Ashcroft.
Hon. Charles Gonzalez, former U.S. Representative from the state of Texas who served as Chairman of Latinos for Obama and as the National Co-Chair of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Professor of Communication and the Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and award-winning author of over 100 works, many of which primarily focus on campaign criticism and the discourse of the presidency.
Brett Loper, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for American Express and former Deputy Chief of Staff to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).
Spencer Overton, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, tenured professor of law at George Washington University, and the author of the book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression.
Hon. Deborah Pryce, former U.S. Representative from the state of Ohio and the highest-ranking Republican woman in the history of the House. She currently serves as a Senior Political Advisor at Ice Miller Whiteboard LLC.
Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org, the world’s largest platform for social change with over 125 million users, one of TIME’s “100 Most Influential People in the World,” and a thought leader on the intersection of technology, business, and social change.
Arturo Vargas, Executive Director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), a national membership organization of Latino policymakers and their supporters, and former Vice President for Community Education and Public Policy of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).
Ernie Wilson, an American scholar and Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He has served in several senior policy positions in the public and private sector including as Director of International Programs and Resources on the White House National Security Council and Director of the Policy and Planning Unit, Office of the Director, U.S. Information Agency.

Members of the National Advisory Committee serve a two-year term. The Committee meets twice a year, and its next meeting is in August 2016 in Washington, D.C.

Joe Goldman, President of the Democracy Fund, said:

“Our advisors have the independence to tell us what we need to hear—not just what we want to hear. We expect them to hold different points of view and understand that they are unlikely to agree with all positions taken by the organization. But we don’t have all the answers to these issues, and we believe that considering a variety of opinions and perspectives will only help make our efforts more impactful in the long-term.”

About the Democracy Fund

The Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that the American people come first in our democracy. Today, modern challenges—such as hyper partisanship, money in politics, and struggling media—threaten the health of American Democracy. Since its creation, the Democracy Fund has committed more than $30 million in grants to ensure our political system is able to withstand these new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people.

The Democracy Fund invests in change makers who advocate for solutions that can bring lasting improvements to our political system and build bridges that help people come together to serve our nation. Grants include projects to find workable solutions to the challenges facing our elections system, local media ecosystems, and Congress’ ability to solve problems in the face of hyper-partisanship. Learn more by visiting democracyfund.org.

Back to Ideas

Blog

Designing Ballots for Tomorrow

Natalie Adona

June 6, 2016

The Elections Program at Democracy Fund proudly welcomes the Center for Civic Design as its newest grantee.

By virtue of its ultimate goal – “ensuring voter intent through design” – the Center for Civic Design seeks to improve the voter experience by designing election materials that are understandable to an electorate with diverse educational, personal, and cultural backgrounds and learning styles. Its expert leaders, Whitney Quesenbery and Dana Chisnell, not only improve voting through usability testing and applied design research but also develop tools and best practices for use by local election officials.

You might, however, be asking yourself, “why is the design of election materials important?” The most obvious answer can be summarized in two words: butterfly ballot. Okay, how about “Florida 2000?” “Bush v. Gore?” (Does the “v” count as a third word?)

When a voter accidentally skips or misreads a piece of important information, that oversight can quickly lead to a missed opportunity to cast a vote or have that vote count. Even with the growing trend toward digitizing some aspects of election administration (notably, the move to online voter registration and the adoption of e-poll books), let’s face it: most election processes still use paper forms that have a lot of required information packed into them. The likelihood of a voter skipping essential data fields is very high when presented on a paper form – especially when instructions look like a hodgepodge of technocratic mumbo-jumbo squished into irregularly-shaped boxes all seemingly sewn together WITH LONG STRINGS OF INSTRUCTIONS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS.

I think you get the idea. When I was a poll worker trainer in California, a supervisor of mine once described the election process as “a big paperwork party.” Her point was two-fold:

1) On the administrative side, local election officials are required to distribute and process thousands of paper forms to and from voters (and poll workers – but that’s a story for another day). Every piece of paper received from voters helps officials determine important details like who’s eligible to receive which ballot, how many voters could show up to vote per precinct, or how many resources need to be allocated to polling places.

Here’s an example of information that must be communicated to voters from election officials in Minnesota. The Center for Civic Design and a team of volunteer experts around the country worked with the Secretary of State’s office to refresh its absentee balloting instructions after the 2008 election. As you can see, the difference is remarkable.

Minnesota Voting Instructions: BEFORE

Minnesota Voting Instructions: AFTER

2) From the point of view of citizens, most will receive and cast paper ballots. Those ballots can have several contests on them and come with a lot of instructions that voters need to see and understand in order to properly cast their ballot. Voters also encounter important materials like voter registration applications, envelopes containing official election materials, and voter information pamphlets.

One type of form that voters in most states must complete is the voter registration application. As you can see from the example below, the Center for Civic Design, working closely with collaborator OxideDesign Co., redesigned Pennsylvania’s voter registration form. Pennsylvania recently implemented online voter registration, but many of its voters still rely on the paper form to register. The paper form is designed to coordinate with the online form, letting voters choose the way of registering that works best for them. Which do you think is easier to read?

Pennsylvania Voter Registration: BEFORE

Pennsylvania Voter Registration: AFTER

The Center for Civic Design works with election officials, government and nonprofit organizations, and the public to achieve its ultimate goal of accurately capturing voter intent. Its leaders’ painstaking research and collaborative projects to improve the voter experience make the Center for Civic Design a fantastic addition to our portfolio. Welcome to the Democracy Fund team!

Back to Ideas

Blog

Welcoming Aboard Srik Gopal

Joe Goldman

June 28, 2016

This week we are excited to announce the newest addition to the Democracy Fund team – Srik Gopal, Vice President of Strategy, Learning, and Impact. In this new role, Srik will help lead the Democracy Fund’s systematic approach to making democracy work better. His extensive background and leadership in strategy and evaluation make him the perfect addition to our team.

Before joining us, Srik was Managing Director at social impact consulting firm FSG and co-led the firm’s Strategic Learning and Evaluation practice. At FSG, Srik worked with a variety of clients including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Omidyar Network, the National Academies, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, and the city of San Francisco. He has specific expertise implementing strategy, learning, and evaluation from a systems and complexity orientation.

Prior to FSG, Srik spent a decade in leadership roles in the social sector, primarily in education. As Chief Impact and Learning Officer at New Teacher Center, a national education nonprofit, Srik worked to set up frameworks for impact measurement as well as systems and processes for data-driven learning and improvement. He previously worked on supporting whole systems change in education in his role as Director of Evaluation for the Ball Foundation.

Srik’s articles have been featured in Foundation Review and Organizational Development Practitioner, and he has blogged for sites including Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Guardian, Forbes India, and Markets for Good. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross Business School and a Certification in Advanced Evaluation Study from Claremont Graduate University. Srik has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Our team is looking forward to working with Srik on expanding our strategy and achieving positive impact for our American democracy. Welcome aboard, Srik!

Back to Ideas

Blog

Civic Journalism, Engaged Journalism: Tracing the Connections

Geneva Overholser

August 3, 2016

“Want to attract more readers? Try listening to them.” That’s the headline on Liz Spayd’s debut as the New York Times’ new public editor. That she devoted her first column to the need to pay attention to readers’ views shows how central the idea of engagement has become for journalists.

She is building on an emerging trend. Mediashift recently published a series of articles called “Redefining Engagement,” inspired by a conference in Portland last October. (They provide a rich trove for anyone seeking to understand the movement.)

Consider also the ONA London 2016 engagement conference in April. A book by Jake Batsell called Engaged Journalism: Connecting with Digitally Empowered News Audiences. An Engaging News Project at the University of Texas, and the Agora Journalism Center at Oregon.

A Reuters Institute report looked at engagement and the 2015 UK elections. The Coral Project creates tools for engagement. An Engagement Summit in Macon, Georgia, in January that I attended produced this manifesto. And more and more newsrooms are naming engagement editors, as Elia Powers describes.

The Democracy Fund sees public engagement as a key element of its work to support vibrant media and the public square. And among the questions it has considered as it thinks about today’s engaged journalism is this: How is it different from civic journalism?

Many will remember—some with a touch of heat—the 1990’s movement known as civic (or public) journalism, which called for a rethinking of newsrooms’ relationships with their communities. Is today’s engaged journalism a new chapter of that movement? As someone who edited a newspaper during those earlier years, and who is now working as a senior fellow and consultant with the Democracy Fund, I’d say the short answer is yes – but: Engaged journalism is a much-evolved descendant, born into a radically changed landscape.

Civic journalism’s proponents felt that journalism was failing our democracy in important ways. Detachment from community was part of the reason. A working relationship with the community to help shape local journalism was key to the solution.

Wikipedia has a richly helpful entry on what it calls this “idea of integrating journalism into the democratic process.” It continues, “The media not only informs the public, but it also works towards engaging citizens and creating public debate.” The movement’s intellectual founding father, Jay Rosen, wrote that “public journalism tries to place the journalist within the political community as a responsible member with a full stake in public life.” The now dormant Pew Center for Civic Journalism said the practice “is both a philosophy and a set of values supported by some evolving techniques to reflect both of those in journalism. At its heart is a belief that journalism has an obligation to public life – an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts. The way we do our journalism affects the way public life goes.”

One of the most important truths about civic journalism is that it came into being at a time when newsrooms were confident (many would say arrogant) in their top-down role as society’s primary sources of news. Moreover, their organizations were enjoying robust economic success. There was little thirst for prescriptions for improvement, however well intentioned.

More specifically, the movement’s opponents resisted it as a threat to journalism’s essential ethic of independence, and as a challenge to its time-honored allegiance to objectivity. (Not to mention the plain old comfort of operating by familiar patterns and enjoying a sense that it was newsrooms, not the critics, who understood what the public needed.) For whatever mix of reasons, by 1997, a survey of Associated Press Managing Editors found that only 7 percent of respondents strongly agreed that civic journalism was “an important way for many news organizations to reconnect with their alienated communities.”

And yet, there is this interesting truth: Within the two decades between then and now, the most basic principle of civic journalism has come into widespread usage. Virtually every newsroom has a richer conversation with its readers, viewers, listeners (or, in Rosen’s memorable phrasing, “the people formerly known as the audience”). In this way, civic journalism prevailed after all.

What changed over those two decades? Almost everything in the journalism world. Advertising became disconnected from news, leaving news organizations bereft of their principal means of support. Technology fractured journalism’s audiences. It also radically redefined roles, opening remarkable opportunities for the public as providers and creators of information. Trust in media continued to plummet. News organizations that once seemed to print money began to pile up debt. Newsrooms that had been averse to change began desperately looking for answers.

What did not change is concern about the health of our democracy. That concern, if anything, has deepened since the ‘90s, when it served as a primary motivation for civic journalism.

And so to 2016’s buzzword, “engagement.” What questions (or answers) does the experience of civic journalism offer its young relative? It would be a mistake to be too definitive about this. Engaged journalism is very much a concept in formation. Still, some fruitful points for examination present themselves:

Civic journalism was, by design, loosely defined. (Rosen himself called it everything from an argument to a debate, an adventure to an experiment.) It was a continual work in progress, repeatedly being invented in different ways by different partners. However intentional, the vagueness did at least lend a hand to those who chose to dismiss it.

It’s probably important for engaged journalism, too, to keep its parameters flexible enough to allow for different methods of practice among varied practitioners in diverse communities. Still, some clarity as to its primary goals and baseline practices seems essential in order to spread its message, create a vibrant cohort of practitioners, and gauge its impact.

If stubbornness and blitheness were a part of journalists’ resistance to civic journalism, so was the substantial question of how to be responsive while retaining independence. With a clear-eyed understanding of this valid concern, engagement enthusiasts will be better prepared to help newsrooms find ways to ensure that community-mindedness can coexist with, for example, investigative zeal. This fine Mediashift piece is a good place to start.
Civic journalism was presented to journalists largely as a recommendation for change in their behavior in relation to the community. Newsrooms today are far from the dominant force they were, and the position of the public has changed dramatically. The former “audience” has in its own hands the tools to shape the flow of information in the public interest. This new public role—along with new technologies and transparency and social-media tools, as well as growing interest from community partners such as libraries – means that engagement now holds the promise of something much broader than a change in newsroom practices.
Civic journalism asserted that journalism thrives only if community thrives – an implicit promise regarding the future health of journalism, yes, but not specifically about its business model. Today, engagement is offered by some proponents as precisely a business model. Indeed, in some applications it seems indistinguishable from audience development; a matter simply of building a user base. How well engagement can serve both goals remains to be seen. (While Philadelphia’s news outlet Billy Penn is not yet profitable, its engagement practices seem promising in that regard. In 2015, events accounted for about 80 percent of revenue.)
Civic journalism was no doubt weakened by the fact that newsrooms largely failed to reflect the demographics of their communities. This remains woefully true today, and engagement efforts that ignore this will surely be undermined. The proliferation of new startups and the ability of previously under-attended voices to be heard in social media offer promise.
Civic journalism bemoaned journalism’s “view from nowhere,” to use another of Rosen’s apt terms. Now, partly because of a growing emphasis on consumers’ appreciation of “voice,” partly because of critiques about false equivalency and about journalists’ failure to share all they know, journalists have gotten better at not being that voice from nowhere. It is clearer now that they are not disinterested observers. On its face, this offers promise for connection. But if journalists have gotten better at claiming their own voice, their talent and taste for listening to public voices seems less thoroughly developed. Taking advantage of the new tools of engagement will be essential.

Civic journalism was a reconsideration of journalism’s practice: Don’t stand off and deliver; ask the community to help shape your work. Engaged journalism, too, reconsiders journalism’s practice but, at its best, considers the new potential for not just journalists, but all citizens to collaborate in bringing about a more informed public. Journalists no longer have a lock on information. Members of the public are now their partners. As a consequence, greater attention is paid to the impact of journalism, to what about it attracts readers or drives them away, to how it affects people’s actions. Businesses, nonprofits and politicians can reach the public directly. Transparency is increasing, and accountability along with it. This could be a promising moment for a melding of legacy journalism’s best strengths, civic journalism’s commitment to community and the new culture of participation.

Back to Ideas

Blog

Introducing the new Local News Lab

Tom Glaisyer

February 10, 2017

We don’t know what the future of media and journalism holds, but we do know that no matter what technological, economic, or cultural shifts occur, a vibrant and resilient press is central to a healthy democracy. This is a priority of our work at the Democracy Fund. As we pursue efforts to strengthen local news and participation we want to share what we learn, provide an opportunity to highlight the work of our grantees, and engage with the community of people working on these issues.

In that spirit, today we are re-launching the Local News Lab as a testing ground for the future of journalism. The site will be managed by our Public Square Program as a resource for those working at the intersection of media and democracy. It will be a site of inquiry, experimentation, and learning where the Democracy Fund and its grantees and partners will explore new models, tools, and practices for creating a robust and diverse public square. Through the Local News Lab we will share what we learn, invite your input, and shine a spotlight on the people helping make journalism more sustainable, collaborative and engaged with its community.

The Local News Lab was originally developed by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation through a grant from the Knight Foundation. The Democracy Fund was also an early supporter of the Dodge Foundation’s work. We look forward to building on their pioneering work developing an ecosystem approach to transforming the landscape of local news in New Jersey and continuing to work with them as partners on this site.

As an introduction to the work of the Local News Lab, check out these featured posts and research:

Read the latest from the Lab: dive into a topic of your choice from community engagement to business models to philanthropy.
Let the Lab guide you: our new detailed guides offer advice on how to help newsrooms develop new revenue models.
Learn from the Lab: don’t miss this report on lessons learned in the first 18 months of experiments undertaken by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

You can still expect to find information about the Democracy Fund’s grantmaking around journalism, civic information, and participation here on our main website. The Local News Lab will focus, not on how to get a grant from Democracy Fund, but rather on what our grantees and partners are doing and learning in the world. As a systems change organization we are committed to learning, iterating, and partnering in ways that strengthen both our work and the field at large.

We understand that the challenges we face will take patience, and persistent and deep partnership. We see this as a chance to invite people into our work and be transparent about what we are trying and how it is working. Want to talk to us more about the Lab? Email us at localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

Back to Ideas

Press Release

NewsMatch Raises $4.8 Million for Nonprofit News

Democracy Fund

February 14, 2017

Record-breaking year for individual giving to nonprofit newsrooms in 2017

Washington, D.C. — NewsMatch 2017 raised more than $4.8 million from individual donors and a coalition of foundations to support more than 100 local and investigative nonprofit news organizations. This makes NewsMatch 2017 the largest-ever grassroots fundraising campaign to support local nonprofit and investigative news, during a record-breaking year overall for charitable giving to journalism.

Data from NewsMatch also reveals the growing strength of news nonprofits’ year-end fundraising campaigns, a critical indicator of financial success. More people than ever before stepped up to donate to nonprofit journalism, investing in trustworthy local news from coast to coast.

Year-End Giving by the Numbers:
Year-end giving numbers include all gifts from individual donors to NewsMatch participating organizations, not just those eligible for matching funds.

In total, more than 202,000 individual donors contributed $33 million to nonprofit news in October, November and December
The average year-end donor gave $163
43,000 donors gave to a nonprofit news organization for the first time in Q4 2017
25 local and national foundations and donors offered year-end matching grants

“With the support of NewsMatch we had a record setting year, more than doubling the donations we received in past years,” said Lauren Fuhrmann of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. “NewsMatch provided the roadmap, tech support and national exposure that we needed to have our most successful year-end fundraising drive ever.”

The NewsMatch campaign equipped nonprofit newsrooms with professional fundraising tools, technology and training to cultivate new donors through the Institute for Nonprofit News and the News Revenue Hub. Additionally, a national marketing campaign educated the public on the importance of nonprofit journalism becoming a core part of charitable year-end giving. NewsMatch’s impact will be felt throughout the year by communities who rely on these newly resilient, critical news organizations.

“A robust, independent press is essential to fostering an informed and engaged public and vital for a healthy democracy,” said Josh Stearns of Democracy Fund. “By working collaboratively with newsrooms and philanthropic partners, NewsMatch was an innovative local-to-national campaign that brought thousands of new donors into supporting local and investigative journalism.”

“The growth of NewsMatch is a testament to the critical role of local news and investigative journalism in our country right now,” said Jennifer Preston, vice president for journalism at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Knight launched the first NewsMatch in 2016, helping 57 nonprofit news organizations raise more than $1.2 million in match donations.

NewsMatch 2017 involved more than 25 funders around the country. It was established as a partnership between the Democracy Fund, Knight Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and managed by The Miami Foundation. Over the course of the fall, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the News Integrity Initiative, the Wyncote Foundation, The Gates Family Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation all joined NewsMatch as partners creating double and triple matches for some organizations. Finally, local newsrooms worked with donors and local funders to set up parallel matching campaigns in their communities.

NewsMatch elevated nonprofit news through #GivingNewsDay which saw journalists, celebrities and politicians on both sides of the aisle talking about the importance of donating to nonprofit news. Mark Ruffalo, Michael Kelly, Cara Mund (Miss America), Greta Van Susteren and others joined the effort. Facebook donated $100,000 in free advertising to publicize NewsMatch and drive donors to local and investigative newsrooms.

“One of the most important things we can do is increase awareness about the need for and benefits of nonprofit journalism. That is, to add to the usual American philanthropic checklist of schools, hospitals, churches and cultural institutions the possibility of donating to journalism. NewsMatch helped enormously in that effort,” said Richard Tofel, president of Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit news organization ProPublica.

“We are so grateful to NewsMatch for its support of local media. NewsMatch.org provided a very rich donor experience and it was a great way for us to start our end-of-year fundraising campaign,” said Phayvanh Luekhamhan of VTDigger. “Thanks to NewsMatch we were able to raise over $350,000 from October through December. This means that in the coming year we can continue to grow our revenue streams, hire reporters and publish the kind of in-depth and daily reporting that Vermonters need.”

All news organizations participating in NewsMatch are members in good standing of the Institute for Nonprofit News. Visit newsmatch.org for more information.

# # #

About the Institute for Nonprofit News:
The Institute for Nonprofit News is an incubator and support network for nonprofit newsrooms, strengthening the sources of independent, public service information and investigative journalism for thousands of communities across the U.S. INN is the only organization in the U.S. specifically focused on supporting the emerging nonprofit news sector. For more, visit INN.org.

About Democracy Fund:
The Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established 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 effective governance, modern elections, and a vibrant public square. For more, visit democracyfund.org.

About the News Revenue Hub:
The News Revenue Hub helps news organizations build the trust and financial support of their audiences by providing customized technology tools and proven strategies to create and sustain successful digital membership programs. For more, visit fundjournalism.org.

About the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation:
Founded by Edith Kinney Gaylord, Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation’s mission is to invest in the future of journalism by building the ethics, skills and opportunities needed to advance principled, probing news and information. For more, visit journalismfoundation.org.

About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation:
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

About the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation:
The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets that truly significant progress is possible on some of the world’s most pressing social challenges, including over-incarceration, global climate change, nuclear risk, and significantly increasing financial capital for the social sector. In addition to the MacArthur Fellows Program, the Foundation continues its historic commitments to the role of journalism in a responsible and responsive democracy, as well as the strength and vitality of our headquarters city, Chicago. More information is available at macfound.org.

About The Miami Foundation:
Since 1967, The Miami Foundation has used civic leadership, community investment and philanthropy to improve the quality of life for everyone who calls Greater Miami home. We partner with individuals, families and corporations who have created more than 1,000 personalized, philanthropic Funds. Thanks to them, we have awarded over $250 million in grants and currently manage more than $300 million in assets to build a better Miami. As the Foundation marks our 50th anniversary, we are celebrating great Miamians who have championed what matters to them, encouraging all residents to share their Miami stories and unite around the causes they care about. For more, visit miamifoundation.org.