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A Letter of Gratitude to Democracy Champions

Lara Flint, Sanjiv Rao & Lauren Strayer

October 29, 2024

We are seven days away from the 2024 election. You can feel the combination of excitement, anxiety, and fatigue in the air. In any given moment, many of us are experiencing some version of those feelings simultaneously. We want to take this moment to express our enormous gratitude for the work of every organization and individual that is working to build the inclusive, multi-racial democracy that our country needs.

This work is made harder and more necessary by the challenges our democracy is facing at this moment. Political violence is worsening, efforts to disenfranchise communities of color continue, and major newspaper owners are censoring their editorial boards. While our country has made great progress over the past 250 years — anchored by demands for change by systematically oppressed communities — progress is often met with resistance. Simply put, pro-democracy work is hard, complicated, and can feel like an endless cycle of two steps forward, one step back. We appreciate the work our grantees and partners are doing every day, even outside the spotlight of an election year, and acknowledge that philanthropy needs to do a better job of offering consistent, meaningful support.

This year’s election is rightly on our minds as we see and hear candidates up and down ballots across the country make their cases for how they will represent their constituents’ interests. Our commitment is to building a multiracial democracy where people are treated fairly, feel they belong, and have long-term power — and where our political system is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy.

We remain committed to helping sustain the fields and grantees doing this work every day and every year, and we commit to stepping up in the days, months and years ahead to ensure the pro-democracy field has the resources it needs to continue this important work year round.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks, we are humbled by the tireless work of pro-democracy civil society organizations and leaders to ensure our elections are free, fair, and representative. Many organizations have tightened their budgets and made it work to continue to build power in the marginalized communities that have been historically targeted and scapegoated during election cycles time and again. They are safeguarding the progress the pro-democracy field has made over the years, and continue to lay the foundation to respond to the opportunities and challenges to come.

We know the work toward creating an inclusive, multi-racial democracy continues beyond Election Day, and Democracy Fund remains committed to that work in responsive partnership with others in philanthropy and with our grantees — on Election Day, and every day.

In deep and sincere gratitude,

Lara Flint – Managing Director, Elections and Institutions

Sanjiv Rao – Managing Director, Movements and Media

Lauren Strayer – Managing Director, Communications and Network

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Building Resilience to Political Violence

Tom Glaisyer, Democracy Fund; Michelle Barsa, Omidyar Network; Melanie Greenberg, Humanity United

October 24, 2024

The 2024 election cycle, marked by disinformation and the spread of authoritarian rhetoric, has exposed the deep polarization in American society. While the divisions in our country are not new, the strain on society is increasingly clear. We see this with public officials, civil servants, and everyday Americans who are feeling the impacts of threats, harassment, and rising political violence.

Though it may not be realistic to eliminate the threat of political violence immediately, we can build up our country’s resilience to it and slow its spread. We are not the first country to experience and overcome this challenge, which means there are best practices we can emulate and learn from.

Humanity United Senior Fellow, Dr. John Paul Lederach, Emeritus Professor of International Peacebuilding at Notre Dame, writes in his new book, “The Pocket Guide for Facing Down a Civil War”:

“While our legacy of American exceptionalism mostly scoffs at international comparisons, this does not exempt us from the patterns and dynamics that unleash what none of us wants for our children – the curse of widespread violence.”

Dr. Lederach further points out that building resilience to political violence requires an interconnected network of pro-democracy, peacebuilding, and social justice organizations, along with responsive donors open to supporting systems and networks. As a result of this strong web of allies, organizations on the ground can quickly and efficiently access the resources they need to prevent and mitigate political violence.

In an attempt to consolidate and translate this learning, our three foundations – Democracy Fund, Humanity United, and Omidyar Network – have collaborated to more powerfully address the risks of hate-fueled political violence.

Risk Factors For Political Violence

The guiding star for our joint project has been a healthier society marked by an inclusive, multi-racial democracy that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy — one that addresses the risks of political violence.

Two organizations with their pulse on this issue, Over Zero and New America — both grantees of our foundations — shared an important analysis in 2019 for how to build resilience to political violence in the U.S., identifying four primary risk factors: elite factionalization, societal polarization, a rise in hate speech and rhetoric, and weakening institutions. We continue to draw on their work, as well as the work of the Trusted Elections Fund and others highlighted in this piece on political violence by Democracy Fund’s President Joe Goldman.

Dr. Lederach’s recently published book also provides important wisdom and guidance. He observes that societies at risk of widespread violence tend to display an increase in:

the dehumanization of others;
exertions of fear and control over local populations via performative violence;
the intentional diminishment of trust in and capacity of political and other institutions to solve problems; and
the stoking of grievances that drive wedges between populations, patterns that are too often only recognized in retrospect after they have become entrenched in society.

After undertaking additional research and reviewing the research of our partners, we have prioritized three risks of political violence that we are using to guide our work. They are:

distrust of democratic institutions;
increasing authoritarian sentiment and mobilization; and
toxic polarization and targeted dehumanization campaigns.

Here’s what we found when we looked at each of these risk factors closely:

Distrust of Democratic Institutions. There is growing concern among Americans about whether our democratic institutions are truly free and fair. When communities do not trust public institutions to equitably and effectively protect the populace, there is an increased likelihood of support for the arming of non-state actors. Fear-inducing rhetoric advanced by a factionalized elite has left many in the public uncertain that our democratic processes can be relied upon, and heightens the likelihood of violence. Failure of those institutions in the face of violence would be extremely damaging.
Increasing Authoritarian Sentiment and Mobilization. Far-right actors are increasingly organizing across their racial, religious, economic, and political resentments. They organize together to promote the ideas of white/Christian nationalism, anti-immigration, sovereign citizenship, and armed defense. This organizing coincides with high rates of gun ownership, increasing normalization of political violence, organized militia activity, and white supremacist influence among military and law enforcement. Under these conditions, it is possible that the just and peaceful transition of power could be contested in a violent manner.
Toxic Polarization and Targeted Dehumanization Campaigns. Troubling trends of dehumanization and identity-based polarization continue to rise as social trust declines. There is a widespread sentiment of non-belonging in American life, and increasingly vitriolic public dehumanization campaigns target immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities, in particular. Both narratives are amplified by increasingly politicized media outlets and social media algorithms, which stoke moral outrage and inflate beliefs about intergroup hostility.

In our international research, this level of dehumanization is often a driving force behind the justification and encouragement of violence.

Focusing on these three factors has allowed us to prioritize where we have made commitments. We will continue to deepen our understanding of the root causes of political violence through our discussions with grantees and others.

Building Resilience

In a strong, interconnected network of allies addressing the threats of political violence, we must include bridge builders and conflict mediators, alongside social and racial justice movements. We must also include LGBTQIA+ activists, democracy advocates, and supporters of pluralism in adjacent fields. Our foundations are already providing support for a number of organizations in these spaces; in particular, the Trusted Elections Fund is already playing a crucial role in the elections space. In addition, in 2024, we have increased our support in four areas:

1. Strengthening relational infrastructure through building networks of key stakeholders across fields and at the local, state, and national levels. Crucially, these investments will help build the network of individuals who can deploy their resources and skills together to de-escalate crises when and where they occur. Over the longer term, these networks can address the root causes of political violence, while also strengthening democracy and encouraging belonging. The network is strongest when it weaves together partners with diverse skills, including but not limited to:

monitoring and analysis specialists;
pro-democracy law enforcement and public safety officials;
cultural influencers and religious actors;
election officials;
mediation experts;
peacebuilding organizations; and
pro-democracy activists.

2. Informing action so that predictions and responses to violence are quicker, smarter, and more strategic. Through our investments, we aim to increase capacity for threat monitoring and de-escalation. Accurate information is essential for enabling an informed and effective response. These efforts might include engaging community members to support with violence prevention and response and/or strategically engaging law enforcement, via trusted partners.

3. Tending to the health and safety of those who are in harm’s way in order to support resilient movements in the face of threats and persistent harassment. Philanthropy will need to grapple with the attacks both in the immediate and in the aftermath. We must protect and support grantees, as well as their partners. This level of support will enable grantees and their partners to take care of their teams’ wellbeing while dealing with extreme stress.

4. Protecting the LGBTQIA+ community and, in particular, providing support to the transgender community against the current onslaught of targeted othering, dehumanization, and violence. We stand against all efforts that are intended to scapegoat the community, which only serve to consolidate and focus authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning tendencies. Here we have made commitments to joint funds and organizations that support organizations led by and serving or in allyship with the LGBTQIA+ community. As funders,we seek to bring together the philanthropic communities that support the gender non-conforming community as well as democracy strengthening efforts.

Over the past 18 months, we have consulted extensively with the field and have made commitments of approximately $2M in 2024 towards the priorities identified above. We intend to continue to adapt this approach as we learn from our partners on the ground, researchers, our partners in philanthropy, and others focusing on political violence.

Working Together

As we seek to strengthen our interconnected network even further, we encourage foundations, pro-democracy organizations, and wider civil society to join us in this work. The election season is placing significant stress on our societal bonds and, while it will take time to address drivers of political violence, there is still much we can do now to prevent the contagion of political violence.

This will require extensive efforts across philanthropy and the wider infrastructure of peacebuilding, social justice and democracy. We have learned from our grantees and partners within the U.S. and abroad that it is only through these concerted and broad-reaching coalitions that we can address the root causes of political violence, reduce toxic polarization, and build resilience in the face of complex threats.

To learn more about our approach to funding efforts to prevent and respond to political violence, please reach out to us.

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Election Day to Every Day: Ending the Boom-and-Bust Cycle of Election-Year Giving

October 14, 2024

Our grantees are in for the long haul. So are we.

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New Research Explores Connection Between Democracy and Local News

Teresa Gorman

October 15, 2024

Studies have long demonstrated that strong local journalism can encourage higher voter turnout, counter polarizing narratives, expose corruption, and lead to people feeling a strong sense of community.

We’ve seen much of this show up anecdotally in the local news ecosystems that Democracy Fund supports. We define a news ecosystem as the network of institutions, collaborations, and people that local communities rely on for news, information, and engagement. This approach puts people and places squarely at the center of our goals and vision.

When we launched our new Equitable Journalism strategy in 2023, we wanted to learn even more about how journalism is strengthening democracy. We recently partnered with Impact Architects (IA) to revisit the Healthy News & Information Ecosystem framework. This framework was initially built in 2020 in partnership with Impact Architects, Knight Foundation, and Google News Initiative to share models for understanding the health and evolution of local news ecosystems with other funders who were considering funding local news. The graphic below illustrates the four layers of data that our updated model uses to understand local news ecosystems:

This new “Democracy Indicators” layer provides a deeper understanding of how Democracy Fund’s vision of an inclusive multiracial democracy is coming to life, community by community. Some examples of data we’re taking into consideration include:

the availability of legal resources for local journalists;
the relative difficulty of voting for residents in different states;
and the percentage of residents who have recently contacted a public official, attended a political demonstration, and/or donated to a political candidate or organization.

Through these indicators we want to understand how expanding access to local news and information can result in deeper engagement with our democracy. We can then pair this layer of research with even deeper dives in ecosystems that include more community listening and collaboration.

How Democracy Fund Thinks About Local News Ecosystems

At Democracy Fund, we’ve invested over $15.75 million in local news ecosystems across the US since 2016. If our work is successful, then communities will have access to news and information that advances justice, confronts racism and inequality, and equips people to make change and thrive, wherever they live.

Over the years, we’ve seen exciting signs of progress:

In New Jersey, the state has allocated millions of dollars to bolster community media, building on years of community-informed organizing.
In North Carolina, media makers from the western mountains to the eastern coast are receiving recognition and resources for their work.
In New Mexico, more people have more opportunities to get involved in news gathering and reporting, including a fellowship program to help recent grads stay in-state.
The local news ecosystem funding model is also growing. Press Forward, a national coalition investing more than $500 million to strengthen local journalism, launched the Press Forward Local network modeled on this news ecosystem approach, which quickly grew to 25 chapters of local funder coalitions in its first year.

Findings from the Latest Research

While we purposefully didn’t rank the ten ecosystems that Democracy Fund explored overall because of their variety and diversity, the latest research shows there are still many promising themes that can be found across them, especially when we consider the ecosystems in different stages of their development.

Strong ecosystems (Chicago, Michigan, and New Jersey)

Strong ecosystems generally have higher than average indicators across most if not all of the four categories in the graphic above. There is evidence of a relationship among information providers, community, and civic engagement and democracy. These strong ecosystems demonstrate more consistency across the entire ecosystem. For example, this could be more equal access to information across various racial, ethnic, and/or linguistic groups.

Emergent ecosystems (Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and North Carolina)

Emergent ecosystems generally score higher than average across many of the indicators and/or groups of indicators and show evidence of gathering momentum. However, they still have gaps in information providers and/or access for significant segments of the population. Impact Architects also found less evidence of connection among information providers, community, and civic engagement in these ecosystems.

Ecosystems ripe with opportunity (Arizona, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C.)

These ecosystems score lower than average across many indicators or categories of indicators. They demonstrate significant need and opportunity with respect to information providers and support for community and civic engagement. In each ecosystem, there are examples of bright spots across an uneven landscape. For example, this could be one strong region within a larger ecosystem or one prominent organization that is helping local news thrive.

Under-resourced ecosystems

Under-resourced ecosystems score lower than average across some indicators and/or categories of indicators and demonstrate significant need across information providers. These ecosystems have information gaps in communities and uneven and/or low levels of civic engagement. Impact Architects did not identify any under-resourced ecosystems in this assessment. However, these local news ecosystems are large and complex and there are likely under-resourced areas within many of the identified ecosystems.

How We’re Using What We’ve Learned

We believe that this framework can support conversations, including our own at Democracy Fund, about how we can take a more nuanced approach to learning about communities’ news and information ecosystem health. We have invested in this space for nearly a decade, and there is a lot we can learn from the changes over time. One of the most powerful things equitable local news can do is build powerful relationships between people that help them make change in their lives — and that is hard to track. We hope to revisit this data in the coming years to understand more of the changes taking place.

There are many organizations and projects taking on this challenge that we are grateful to continue learning with on this journey. We hope this framework serves as a resource for the field and this cohort of organizations, and welcome further ideas, collaboration, and feedback on the themes and ideas within it.

This work would not have been possible without the many folks who contributed time to share thoughts and feedback on their ecosystems. Thank you for all you do in Arizona, Chicago, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington, D.C., and beyond.

Please reach out to learn more about Democracy Fund’s work with local news ecosystems.

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Democracy Fund Invests in the Promise of Representative Institutions

October 10, 2024

Americans have witnessed our democracy lurch from crisis to crisis in recent years. The stakes have become higher in each election, and our country remains stuck in an outdated political system that fails to reflect the will of most Americans. We need to reimagine our election system and governing institutions so we can fulfill the promise of a democracy where all voices carry equal weight and have real representation at all levels of power.

Currently, our institutions — including the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral College — are set up to privilege the interests of a small minority. At the same time, our “winner-take-all” election system has given outsized power to extremists, leaving voters frustrated by the lack of options on the ballot. These interrelated issues have caused many Americans to question the integrity of our governing institutions.

It’s time to shift power to the people and communities that have been excluded for far too long.

Over the past year, Democracy Fund has advanced its new Representative Institutions strategy, working toward long-term, transformational changes to our institutions and election systems at the local, state, and federal levels. By looking beyond incremental reforms, we are confronting the anti-majoritarian practices embedded in our democracy’s foundation and moving closer to achieving the principle of “one person, one vote.”

To achieve this vision, we have developed a field-building strategy that supports organizations developing critical networks, resources, and infrastructure to advance structural changes to our democracy. We define these changes as improvements that lead to fairer representation and better governing institutions.

Our strategy prioritizes support for organizations that include community perspectives and engage diverse audiences. Far too often, these voices have been under-represented in reform efforts, and important considerations — such as racial and gender justice — have been overlooked in structural change efforts.

One organization we support, Democracy Rising, launched in 2020 with a mission to engage communities in reimagining and transforming our democracy. It helps voters, leaders of color, and election administrators adapt to new election systems such as proportional representation. This work is building a foundation for structural change and the community power required to achieve it.

Important work is also occurring to bring these leaders together with others in civil society. The George Washington University Law School’s Multiracial Democracy Project convenes legal scholars, civil rights leaders, and democracy reformers to examine the harms of our current system and explore new forms of representation that better serve communities of color. These improvements could provide the foundation for a new voting rights consensus — one that more closely reflects an increasingly multiracial and multicultural United States.

“These organizations are laying the groundwork for institutional changes that may not be fully realized in this generation, but must move forward today. Our democracy’s future depends on their efforts to shift the power of the vote back to the majority,” says Sean Raymond, Governance Senior Program Associate at Democracy Fund.

In 2024, Democracy Fund invested nearly $4 million to support organizations and changemakers advancing transformational shifts in our governing and electoral institutions.

“While we must respond to urgent threats facing our democracy, these investments allow us to simultaneously work toward reimagining our institutions and making our political system fairer,” says Winny Chen, Associate Director of Governance at Democracy Fund.

2024 Representative Institutions Grantees

Democracy Fund is proud to announce the 2024 Representative Institutions grantees, who all share a commitment to building a democracy in which all voters have meaningful representation and a stake in governing.

The 2024 Representative Institutions grantees include:

Boston Review, to support its forum on fusion voting and multi-party democracy.
Center for American Progress, Democracy & Elections Program, to bring together the progressive community to combat countermajoritarian features in our federal government and encourage adoption of election systems reforms.
Center for Effective Government at the University of Chicago, to launch a series of research primers and events that make cutting-edge scholarship on structural democracy accessible to those who can use it.
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, to convene legal scholars, civil rights leaders, and advocates to study, identify, and recommend electoral systems reforms that increase representation for all voters, particularly historically underrepresented voters of color, as part of its Guinier Project on Strengthening a Diverse Democracy.
Cornell University, Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group Lab, to produce critical research and leading-edge modeling that will inform communities’ selection of election systems reform, while building a deeper evidence base for the field of structural democracy.
Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, to support its symposium on proportional representation and various implications of the reform, including effects on gerrymandering and ramifications for racial representation.
Democracy Revival Center, to bring the next generation of social and economic justice leaders, working across issue siloes, into the long-term fight to transform our political and governing institutions.
Democracy Rising, to provide effective, community-centered support for implementation of structural reforms that enable proportional representation and build stronger support infrastructure for women of color in public service.
FairVote, to advance better election systems in the United States through research, advocacy, and coalition-building.
Future of the Senate Project (Brookings Institution), to convene leading experts and practitioners to examine modern-day challenges to the Senate, such as the filibuster, malapportionment, and the need for modernization.
George Washington University Law School, Multiracial Democracy Project, to convene and build the capacity of prominent civil rights organizations to help shape the structural democracy movement.
New America, Political Reform Program, to build the research and intellectual architecture for electoral systems reforms, such as fusion voting, ranked choice voting, and proportional representation.
RepresentWomen, to advance systems-level structural solutions that increase and improve women’s political representation.
Sightline Institute, Democracy Program, to build momentum toward pro-voter structural reforms in the Cascadia region through research, education, and implementation support.

This portfolio of grantees represents just a portion of the investments needed to transform our political system. Democracy Fund’s work complements the efforts supported by our partner organization Democracy Fund Voice, a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) that empowers organizations and communities to express their political voice through lobbying, advocacy, ballot initiatives, and campaigns at the federal, state, and local levels. Democracy Fund Voice’s grantees marshal the collective power of communities to advocate for changes to achieve a multi-party, proportional representation system and to enact overdue reforms to institutions like the Senate and the Supreme Court.

In the coming months, look out for more updates and news about Democracy Fund Voice’s investments.

Through the combined support of Democracy Fund, Democracy Fund Voice, and many other critical philanthropic partners, a new field is emerging to advance much needed, transformational changes in our democracy. Collaboration with partners and grantees is essential to achieve our vision of an inclusive, multiracial democracy — one where our political system is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. We invite you to join us and learn more about our work.

Please Note: Democracy Fund does not accept unsolicited business plans, proposals, or personal requests. For more information on our work and grantees, sign up for updates. For general inquiries, contact info@democracyfund.org. To view a complete list of grantees, visit our grants database.

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How (and Why) Democracy Fund is Experimenting with Grantee Reporting Models

October 3, 2024

In 2020, our Digital Democracy portfolio (DDP) wanted to find a way to learn more about our grantees’ challenges while also being mindful of their limited time during a turbulent year. We decided to hold learning conversations with our grantees instead of commissioning formal evaluations, so that we could quickly extend support. Our learning and evaluation partner, ORS Impact, led these conversations by hosting 90-minute small group discussions with grantees, focusing on their work ensuring tech, telecom and media serves communities of color, trends they were seeing across the digital rights movement, and challenges they faced. After a couple of iterations of these yearly learning conversations, we adapted them to count as narrative grant reports, providing the option to replace the traditional, often time-consuming annual narrative reports written by each DDP grantee.

ORS Impact currently conducts these sessions on an annual basis and prepares a final report, which we submit internally to meet the grant reporting requirement. This method of reporting and evaluation is an efficient way to get all the information we need to explore how grantees’ actions lead to outcomes in the aggregate. It also helps us adjust our strategies and activities to best support grantees and the field. Note: Initially, Democracy Fund staff attended the small group sessions. We no longer participate in the sessions because we know our presence creates power imbalances and may alter results.

This new method is just one way that Democracy Fund is experimenting with different forms of reporting that are inclusive, add value to the field, and embrace complexity (tenets of our Strategy, Impact and Learning values).

While the learning cohorts are a unique practice of DDP, Democracy Fund has been using other forms of reporting, like one-on-one verbal reporting, in addition to traditional narrative reports. Most Democracy Fund grantees have the choice between verbal reports or narrative reports, which so far, caters to each grantee’s preferences and reduces the burden on their time and energy.

What we’ve learned from this new model

Over the past four years of experimenting with this method of reporting, DDP grantees have had in-depth discussions on topics ranging from field infrastructure, coordination and networks, and strategies connecting research and advocacy. We have been able to learn a lot from our grantees on these topics, with a richness of findings that is only possible through group conversations.

The small group dynamic has many advantages:

Facilitating real-time learning for us and our grantees. This allows us to spot more connections and patterns across our portfolio, which a traditional one-off narrative report doesn’t do.
Ensuring our grantees have access to the same learnings we do. We share the final report back to grantees and share it with other partners, making our learnings known to the field.
Building relationships and more coordination between grantees.
Reducing grantees’ time spent on reporting.

Most importantly, this approach de-centers the funder and ensures that learning isn’t happening in a vacuum.

There two disadvantages worth noting:

Unlike with written grant reports, the findings from group discussions are aggregated and anonymous so there is less specificity and consistency year over year.
This method, along with verbal reporting, caters to verbal processors, and not everyone prefers learning this way.

Because of our learning philosophy to embrace complexity and conduct learning activities that are inclusive and add value to the field, these disadvantages do not outweigh the benefits of this reporting method. We value our grantees’ time and expertise, and strive to help build more opportunities for coordination.

What we learned from DDP grantees in 2024

This year’s findings have produced valuable insights for the DDP team and our grantees. We asked our grantees about field coordination, philanthropy’s impact on the field, infrastructure support, and how to support local organizing work. These topics, among others, were best discussed without Democracy Fund in the room, to promote candor and provide a safe space. The grantees raised that funder-driven shifts create disruption, loss of strategic agency, and competition and instability. When shifts happen, funders should provide transparency and transition support, and connections to other funders.

Another finding worth noting from this year’s conversations was about supporting local organizing. Our grantees who do local organizing around tech justice talked about the importance of trusted relationships between organizations, community visioning processes, and national policy organizations taking direction from community organizing. The grantees were able to riff on each other’s ideas, and find commonalities across locales. This discussion was less likely to have been as rich or honest if it had happened in a one-on-one conversation.

More findings from the 2024 learning cohorts, such as what grantees surfaced as infrastructure needs and inhibitors to local organizing can be found in our 2024 summary report.

Funders need to consider the impact of their reporting models

As trust-based philanthropy takes hold across the field, more and more funders are looking for methods to learn alongside their grantees and track changes within the field without creating an overwhelming burden on grantees. As a result of Democracy Fund’s recent Grantee Perception Survey, we are committed to finding more ways to share what we are learning. We encourage other funders to do the same, and avoid reporting requirements that put funders’ needs above those of grantees.

Here are some resources, organizations, and individuals that informed shifts in our internal reporting requirements:

Please reach out to learn more about Democracy Fund’s learning processes.

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Our Work is Not Done After Election Day

Joe Goldman

October 9, 2024

Our grantees are on the frontlines of the 2024 election, doing everything they can to ensure free, fair, and representative elections for our country. We know their work will not be done on Election Day — yet many of these nonpartisan organizations typically experience a sudden dropoff in funding after November.

This withdrawal of support threatens their ability to resist the authoritarian playbook, fuel a pro-democracy governing agenda, and build durable power to support an inclusive, multi-racial democracy. Anti-democracy forces don’t defund their infrastructure after every election cycle, forcing groups to downsize and lose momentum — and we shouldn’t either.

That’s why we’re launching a new campaign called Election Day to Every Day. Following on the success of this year’s All by April campaign, we’re inviting the philanthropic community to join us in ensuring the pro-democracy movement can be sustainable and resilient not just leading into Election Day, but every day that follows.

The boom and bust cycle of election-year giving is toxic. Unless we change our behavior as donors, our grantees will not be able to make progress toward the inclusive multiracial democracy that is so vital for everything we care about.

“People’s Action Institute is working together with networks and organizers across the country to scale up the movement for social justice. We can’t maintain the momentum we need to defeat authoritarianism when funding across the field drops off after every election. But with consistent support, we can strengthen our communities to create a vibrant, multiracial democracy that works for all of us.” – Sulma Arias, Executive Director, People’s Action Institute

With the Election Day to Every Day campaign, we are trying to do things differently. Together, philanthropy will continue our support for building an inclusive multiracial democracy. As a community, we commit to:

Start Planning Our 2025 Giving Now: We lose vital time when we fail to plan ahead and consider alternative scenarios for the future. Donors need to consider how our changing context could impact our strategy and priorities, so that we and our grantees can respond quickly to new needs on the ground. Anti-democracy forces are well-resourced and ready for multiple governing scenarios. We need to prepare for the same. Now is the time to start planning – not next year.
Provide a Bridge into Next Year: Many grantees come out of a hard fought election exhausted and with real gaps in funding. It’s not uncommon for leadership transitions to take place – further complicating the situation. Moving up grant decisions to the first quarter of 2025 or providing bridge funding allows grantees to avoid having to lay off staff and eases the pressure as they pivot to respond to new challenges.
Commit to Multi-Year Support: The single most important thing that donors can do for the health of our grantees is to provide multi-year support. Doing so allows them to plan, build infrastructure, and deploy longer-range strategies. This longer-term view makes our grantees more resilient to a changing environment.
Support Safety and Security: Grantees are facing evolving safety and security threats leading up to and following Election Day. Many are encountering cyber attacks and threats of physical violence. All of them have staff who are experiencing burn-out and trauma. If we want our grantees to sustain themselves past Election Day, we need to provide for their safety and well-being.

Individual donors, foundations, donor advisors, and other philanthropic organizations are all invited to join this critical campaign to change the culture of philanthropy. You can join by becoming an “Election Day to Every Day” signatory and by spreading the word within your networks.

Together, we can ensure the pro-democracy field is ready for the future. We came together powerfully earlier this year under the All by April banner, which mobilized at least $155 million to ensure our grantees had the resources they needed early in an important election year. Now we must keep our foot on the gas and make sure our democracy field partners know that we have their backs not just on Election Day, but Every Day.

Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

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What We Learned from All by April

Heather Creek

October 4, 2024

Earlier this year, Democracy Fund joined with funders from across the philanthropic community to commit to making their election-related grants by the end of April. The All by April campaign attracted 174 signers — including foundations, donor networks, advisors, and individual donors — who committed to move funds earlier in the year, simplify grant processes, and encourage their peers to do the same.

By providing early financial support, All by April aimed to empower nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations to plan and execute their election strategies more effectively, build out programs at lower costs, and engage voters earlier in the election cycle. We are proud to share the results from this campaign and outline how funders can carry forward the lessons into their ongoing election-related grantmaking.

The Success of All by April

To understand the impact of the All by April campaign, Democracy Fund collaborated with Grassroots Solutions on an evaluation. Our topline findings include:

1. The campaign mobilized at least $155 million.

Of the 174 signers of the campaign, 60 percent were direct grant makers and 40 percent were groups that work with funders like donor advisors, intermediaries, and funder affinity groups. Forty-seven of the funders and individual donors provided data on their giving between January and April of 2024. They reported making $79 million in new 501(c)(3) grants for election-related work and moving up $61 million in scheduled grant payments so that grantees would have access to funds earlier in the year. The campaign’s message also reached groups that were not able to sign onto the campaign (often due to their organization’s policy on signing public commitments). Entities that didn’t sign the campaign but reported that it still influenced their giving reported $13.7 million in new grants and $3.25 million in payments moved up to the first four months of 2024. In total, the campaign mobilized at least $155 million in election-related support.

“AbA inspired us to make additional gifts — in addition to the 2024 and multi-year funding we had already provided — and to do so before the end of April.”
— All by April Participant (Grantmaker)

2. The majority of All by April signers reported that they changed their plans for giving in 2024 because of the campaign.

The campaign’s deadlines and structure created the motivation that moved signers to action – especially among those who were newer to election-related giving. Among direct grantmakers in the survey, 57 percent gave between 76-100 percent of their funding for elections work by April. Those who did not change their giving based on All by April reported that they had already planned to move their funds early or faced internal barriers that prevented them from doing so.

“Once we had our list of grantees, we might have spent more time obsessing over allocation amounts. Having taken the pledge helped inspire us to stop worrying and get the money moving.”
— All by April Participant (Grantmaker)

3. The campaign changed expectations about how philanthropy can support election-related work.

Nearly all of the campaign signers (98%) reported that they were already aware of the benefits of early money for election-related work before the campaign began, but they lacked the motivation and urgency to respond to the field’s need. Signers who were not direct grantmakers, but who advise donors or convene donor networks, reported that the campaign created a “movement wide” framing that gave them the language to encourage earlier giving among their clients and members.

“It allowed me to have conversations with peer funders about the importance of moving early. It created a very helpful (even if somewhat artificial) deadline.”
— All by April Participant (Donor Advisor)

“We used the All by April frame to push our entire donor community for larger, earlier giving, and to make the case for c4 money also. it was helpful to have “movement wide” framing, coordination and momentum to support the work we would have done.”
— All by April participant (Philanthropic Network)

We are grateful to all of the campaign signers who committed to meet the urgent needs of the field when the funds would be most useful. We are especially grateful to the signers who participated in the evaluation and shared their funding data. This transparency allows us all to learn together and continue to improve the way we support free, fair, and representative elections.

Exploring Practices to Move Money Faster

The All by April campaign evaluation revealed that some funders need to make intentional changes to their practices to meet the needs of the field. Funders reported needing to move their timeline for considering new grants or shift other internal processes — like grant amendment requirements — in order to move up payments.

At Democracy Fund and amongst survey respondents, we noted several practices that helped funders move funds quickly:

Streamlining the grant amendment process. Funders cut internal red tape and asked that grantees only submit an updated budget to process an amendment.
Adopting a shorter renewal application. A shorter application helped to avoid asking grantees to send information their current funders already had.

Starting in 2025, planning to default to making payments for election-related grants in Q1 of each year.

Funders may also consider other established time-saving practices like accepting applications that grantees have prepared for other funders or funding intermediaries who may have existing grantee relationships and can regrant money into state and local groups.

Looking Ahead: Funders Need to Sustain the Field Between Elections

Our grantees are on the frontlines of the 2024 election, doing everything they can to ensure it is free, fair, and representative. But we know their work is not over on Election Day. Anti-democracy forces don’t defund their infrastructure after every election cycle, forcing groups to downsize and lose momentum — and we shouldn’t either.

Yet many grantees see a financial cliff after November. This sudden dropoff in funding threatens their ability to resist the authoritarian playbook, fuel a governing agenda, and build durable power in service of creating a more inclusive, multi-racial democracy.

To ensure we are meeting these needs, we will be announcing a new campaign next week, called “Election Day to Every Day” to ensure our pro-democracy field is ready for any and all scenarios that lie ahead in the post-election period. We must keep our foot on the gas and make sure our field partners know that we have their backs not only on Election Day, but Every Day that follows.

Back to Ideas

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Javier H. Valdés and Winny Chen

September 24, 2024

Not only are people from the U.S. territories unable to vote or access government benefits, they’re also largely ignored by grant makers.

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Political Violence, Threats to Civic Society, and a Game Plan for Philanthropy

Joe Goldman

July 19, 2024

This op-ed was written by Democracy Fund president Joe Goldman; read the full article on the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Increasing attacks on pro-democracy advocates show that politicians like former President Trump aren’t the only ones at risk from violent political rhetoric.

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Building Resilience

​​​​​Working Together

How Democracy Fund Thinks About Local News Ecosystems

Findings from the Latest Research

Strong ecosystems (Chicago, Michigan, and New Jersey)

Emergent ecosystems (Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and North Carolina)

Ecosystems ripe with opportunity (Arizona, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C.)

Under-resourced ecosystems

How We’re Using What We’ve Learned

2024 Representative Institutions Grantees

The Success of All by April

1. The campaign mobilized at least $155 million.

2. The majority of All by April signers reported that they changed their plans for giving in 2024 because of the campaign.

3. The campaign changed expectations about how philanthropy can support election-related work.

Exploring Practices to Move Money Faster

Looking Ahead: Funders Need to Sustain the Field Between Elections

Working Together