The Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) marks a defining and deeply disappointing moment for American democracy. The VRA ended Jim Crow. Since that moment, the VRA has been one of our nation’s most effective safeguards for equal access to the ballot — especially for Black and brown communities who have long faced systemic exclusion from full participation in civic life.
That protection has now been ripped away. And the consequences will be felt in communities, and limit our ability to have free and fair elections.
Today, philanthropy faces a clear choice: to either meet this moment with urgency and boldness or allow the decay of our democratic freedoms. Free and fair elections depend on strong infrastructure, trusted community organizations, and sustained investment particularly in the South, where the legacy and reality of voter disenfranchisement remain most acute.
Over the past three years, Democracy Fund has invested over $20 million into community-based organizations serving Black and brown communities to strengthen our multiracial democracy and ensure equal access to the ballot box. These investments have supported voting rights litigation, community organizing to expand the freedom to vote, and nonpartisan voter education. But our investment isn’t enough. We call on every foundation and donor across the country to act now. An investment in these organizing groups will ensure that those most affected by this decision have the resources to respond now and build for the long-term.
What happens next in our country will depend, in part, on whether philanthropy is willing to meet the scale of this challenge.
This is not a moment for business-as-usual philanthropy. It is a moment to align our analysis and our action.