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How Democracy Fund is Rising to the Challenge of COVID-19

Joe Goldman

April 3, 2020

Last week, Democracy Fund joined with over 400 other grant makers to sign the Council on Foundations’ Pledge: “Philanthropy’s Commitment During COVID-19.” The pledge calls on foundations to respond to this extraordinary moment with extraordinary measures — both in providing resources to new priorities laid bare by the crisis, and by providing new and different support to current grantees.

In what was already a crucial year for our democracy, the pandemic has brought with it new and unique challenges for our institutions and systems of government. We must ensure the election can proceed safely in this new era of social distancing and that legislators can continue to do their work. At a time when myriad abuses of the public’s trust are possible, we must protect civil rights and ensure robust government accountability and oversight, including of the extraordinary funds provided through government stimulus package. To do so, we must also ensure a fragile news media ecosystem can navigate the coming economic downturn. We are rising to the challenge and working to raise and deploy resources to these numerous new, important priorities.

But our efforts to help our community of grantees navigate the current environment are just as pressing. Nonprofits are adjusting to social distancing protocols and remote work. They are navigating uncertain economic waters as a likely recession endangers philanthropic endowments and other revenue streams. And, they bear the weight of supporting their own staff, while, in many cases, lifting up communities at risk in this pandemic.

In this rapidly shifting landscape, Democracy Fund has appreciated hearing from many of our grantees and peers about how best to support our community. Based on your input – and best practices that are already beginning to emerge across philanthropy – Democracy Fund will be taking two immediate steps:

1. Increasing Flexibility Within Current Grant Agreements

In order to increase stability for our grantees and lessen the burden on them at a challenging time, Democracy Fund staff will be working with each grantee to determine the best way to shift the terms of current grant agreements. For grantees who already have a disbursement from Democracy Fund scheduled for later this year, we will accelerate payments to help organizations maintain continuity of operations. We will adjust requirements to postpone, waive, or amend reporting expectations. And, we strive to provide increased flexibility to as many of grantees receiving project grants as possible by converting restricted grants to general operating support or otherwise loosening project restrictions.

2. Rapid Response Funding for Operational Continuity

In addition to providing flexibility within current grant agreements, this week, we launched a rapid response fund of approximately $550,000 to support our smaller grantees who often have the least flexibility in their budgets to respond to unexpected events. These funds will help smaller grantees adjust to remote work needs, maintain operational continuity, and cover other expenses related to adapting to the current public health crisis. With rare exception, all grantees with 2019 organizational operating budgets of less than $1.5M will each receive $10,000. All eligible grantees have been contacted and the funds are already on their way to our partners. We’ve also shared information and resources with grantees about applying to access funds through the Small Business Administration’s Payroll Protection Program.

Preparing For What’s Next

We’re grateful to be able to quickly adjust to support our grantees, but we know the real needs of our partners and of the field are more than Democracy Fund can address alone. In the coming weeks and months, we look forward to continuing to partner with our colleagues at other foundations and throughout philanthropy to explore other ways to support our grantees and the field.

To help protect and energize the field of organizations working to strengthen and defend our political system, Democracy Fund is working closely with current partners to safeguard the economic stability of our shared grantees, as well as leveraging our philanthropic partnerships efforts to encourage new donors to support democracy funding.

While it’s easy to feel that everything has changed in this tumultuous time, we must remain grounded in our shared mission to protect and defend our democracy. It is clearer than ever that we depend on a robust, effective, and accountable system of government. Communities need their elected officials to act with integrity and with the public interest at heart. They require trustworthy, fact-based journalism to inform their choices. And, they must be able to shape their shared future through a safe and legitimate election, no matter the conditions of this pandemic in November. Our grantees and partners are charging ahead with their important work, and Democracy Fund is committed to doing all we can to support them. We hope you will too.

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From Strangers to Neighbors: Creating a More Inclusive America

Laura A. Maristany

March 17, 2020

Last week, schools closed and many of us transitioned to a work-from-home schedule. In the same week, I celebrated my three-year anniversary at Democracy Fund, where I lead the Constructive Politics portfolio. It felt ironic that while I was celebrating three years of supporting an approach to building a more inclusive America, one where everyone can feel like they belong and has a seat at the table, the country was asked to practice extreme levels of social distancing to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Now, more than ever, I am sure many of us realize that feeling a sense of belonging requires a certain level of human interaction and connection. In fact, building connections with each other — through listening and learning in communities across the country — is the fundamental goal of the Constructive Politics portfolio. And even though we find ourselves in unusual times, Democracy Fund’s Constructive Politics grantees will continue to focus on developing long-term strategies that support opportunities for connecting, building, listening and work on creating more welcoming spaces to explore what unites us and help change the narrative of our national dialogue. We believe that long-term strategies to help foster an inclusive, multiethnic, multi-perspective democracy are key to defending and strengthening our political system. This couldn’t have been better exemplified by the current controversy around the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus emergency.

While I believe our government has a key role to play, I have always believed that a heathy skepticism of institutional capacity to solve problems can be a good thing. Today, as I watch many Americans—including many of my friends—express skepticism about the government’s ability to respond effectively to this crisis, I feel somewhat validated in that belief. However, when healthy skepticism gives way to the deep distrust and polarization we see today, addressing division proactively is critical if we want to come up with effective solutions. This is as true for this crisis as it is for our work to mitigate polarization nationwide. From local politics to the highest levels of government, our inability to see our voices represented in our communities, policies, and institutions, fuels the distrust and polarization that is splitting our country apart. And this predicament is especially true for communities that have historically been underrepresented or outright excluded from participating in our system of government.

In late 2018, as former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was finishing his last month in Congress, he shared some of his concerns about the extent to which polarization was weakening America’s institutions. In his 2018 analysis, Ryan asked: “How do you make inclusive, aspirational politics … strategically valuable? How do you make it so this is the winning thing, this is how you win elections?” Winning elections is certainly a powerful, perhaps the most powerful, incentive to embrace more inclusive politics, but the implications of his question reach beyond electoral politics.

Achieving the inclusive politics Ryan talks about requires a long-term commitment to building a truly inclusive democracy. In order to mitigate divisiveness and polarization, we must find ways to build bridges with our political leaders and institutions, as well as with each other. I’ve shared how elevating constructive voices, celebrating civility, and ensuring Congress looks more like America are important keys to achieving this goal. But trust is a very fragile construct. It takes time to develop and is very delicate to maintain. Strategies that aim to develop trust will take a long time, require experimentation, and will be equally difficult to scale. In part, this means that these strategies are high risk, full of uncertainty, and even after implementation they could take a long time to take root.

In spite of this uncertainty, at Democracy Fund, we’ve chosen to continue experimenting with approaches that tackle long-term challenges. We continue to believe that informed dialogue and principled compromise are essential to governing a large, diverse, and complex society like America. The COVID-19 pandemic plus the current climate of hyper-polarization continue to force us to focus on reactive strategies. Fortunately, we have partnered with social entrepreneurs who are rising to the challenge and experimenting with new ways to mitigate drivers of division over the long term. We have also chosen to partner across the political spectrum and especially with those on the right in this effort to create a more inclusive democracy.

The American Project on the Future of Conservatism at Pepperdine University, a multi-year program that brings together conservative leaders and scholars, has spent the last three years trying to assess divisions across the conservative movement with the goal of imagining its healthy future. The Project was one of the first Democracy Fund grantees to draw the connection between loneliness and polarization, calling for a renewed “Conservatism of Connection.” Conversations with conservative-leaning thought leaders since early 2017 have focused on how issues of loneliness, isolation, and lack of belonging appeared as the deeper engines of division within the conservative movement. These led to the development of the project’s Way Forward document and recommendations, and the creation of spaces for conservatives to continue to engage on issues around the future of the movement.

Since 2016, a growing number of organizations and movements are recalibrating their approaches to adopt new paths to consensus building. What these organizations have come to realize is that for people to feel like they belong, they must see themselves as co-creators of what the future of America will be. To this end, we are seeing organizations like The Inclusive Republic Series, an Aspen Socrates Program, and our Faith in Democracy cohort increasingly asking themselves how they can help build more inclusive policy making processes in the communities they work with.

Building meaningful connections across different communities is a necessary condition to reduce polarization, but this alone won’t be enough to solve the many policy challenges our country faces. From stopping the spread of Covid-19 to addressing climate change, Americans disagree profoundly on how to tackle these challenges. And even when there’s agreement, and decision makers buy into the proposed solutions, change is still hard. To tackle this challenge, organizations like Welcoming America are using the power of networks to identify more ways to create truly inclusive paths towards consensus building. Through innovative leadership development programs, Welcoming America leads a strategy aimed at making communities more prosperous by reinforcing their members’ sense of belonging.

Connecting with individuals who hold dramatically different views from the ones we are comfortable with requires a commitment to diversity of opinion, and, most importantly, a willingness to practice how to disagree constructively. The Better Arguments Project at the Aspen Institute was created to encourage Americans to engage with each other in better, more productive debates about core American ideals. In an era of deep divisions, the Better Arguments Project is based on the premise that American civic life doesn’t need fewer arguments; it needs better arguments.

Another grantee, Millennial Action Project, has been able to leverage their network of state legislators to create spaces for conversations among diverse community members with a spectrum of different perspectives through their Red and Blue Dialogues program. Along with members of their local State Future Caucuses, they’re bridging the divide to discuss the issues most important to young people across the country.

In addition, in an attempt to put the Constructive Politics Pluralism approach into practice, Democracy Fund has partnered with Welcoming America and the Better Arguments Project to bring together thought leaders interested in addressing root causes of polarization. We were able to co-create a space for collegial conversation that helped seed new ideas, relationships, and opportunities to address some of the complexities and challenges that we face in bridge building work. At the event last January, almost fifty grant makers representing different viewpoints came together under the auspices that creating a greater sense of we starts with us.

Make no mistake, this is hard work that requires a proactive long-term vision. One conversation at a time, our grantees are proving that making belonging everyone’s business inspires lasting change. By creating more welcoming spaces to explore what unites us, our grantees are working to change the nature of our national dialogue into a more inclusive one. I am grateful for their commitment to helping build a more inclusive America and a stronger democracy.

In this time of deep uncertainty, I’m reminded of what the future of a healthy democracy can look like if we build stronger bridges between people. As Eric Liu said recently, “the coronavirus may require us now to practice ‘social distancing’— but only in a physical, embodied sense. When it comes to the heart, the spirit, and the mind, coronavirus requires us more than ever before to practice civic love.”

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An Open Letter to Our Grantees About COVID-19

Joe Goldman

March 13, 2020

Dear Colleagues:

We know this is an unsettling time as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to progress around the world and throughout the U.S. The health and safety of all of our grantees, partners, and the communities we serve are top concerns for all of us at Democracy Fund. Now more than ever, our country needs champions for a more open and just democracy. We’re committed to doing what we can to continue to support you and your organization during these uncertain times.

We know many of you are facing difficult decisions about canceling or participating in events, transitioning your staff to remote work, and addressing new challenges to our democracy created by this public health crisis. As your partner, we want to assure you that we will be as flexible and helpful as possible as you make these adjustments in the coming weeks and months. Grantees will not be penalized in any way for cancelling events or travel related to grant deliverables, shifting in-person events to online forums, or making other changes to planned work to protect the health and safety of your staff and communities. We also recognize that none of us yet fully understand the ramifications that COVID-19 will have on our collective work. As you continue to evaluate the situation and modify your organization’s strategy, we invite you to reach out to your program officer to discuss any broader shifts to your goals and objectives that may be necessary.

On our end, grant payments will continue to go out as planned and we will be flexible with respect to deadlines around grants proposals and reports to free up your time to focus on your organization’s critical short-term needs. If your organization needs additional assistance as you navigate the uncertainty around the spread of COVID-19 and the accompanying economic challenges, please reach out to us. In the immediate term, we are exploring what technology and tools we could make available to grantees to help them better manage working remotely. If your organization is interested or has other ideas of ways we can be helpful, please let your program officer know.

Thank you for your continued commitment to the important work of strengthening our democracy and for your commitment to the safety and health of your staff, partners, and the communities you serve.

Sincerely,

Joe Goldman
President
Democracy Fund

Additional Resources:

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Brief

What We Should Talk About When We Talk About Risk

Liz Ruedy

February 3, 2020

Whether you’re in the for-profit or the nonprofit world, we all seem to be talking about risk. No one wants to “play it safe” or “hedge their bets.” Instead, we’re launching moonshots and embracing failure. The problems we face are so big and complex, the thinking goes, that the only way to tackle them is to put everything on the line and fully commit. But this “risk is good” mantra glosses over the fact that some risky decisions are just bad decisions.

So how should philanthropic organizations leverage risk in a more sophisticated way to achieve the kind of change we seek? The first step may be to acknowledge that much of our most consequential decision making happens in information-poor and ambiguous contexts, and risk taking is simply a strategy for managing this uncertainty. After all, when we describe a decision as “risky,” what we are actually saying is, “I am not sure what will happen if we decide to do X.”

The idea for this paper began with a conversation at Democracy Fund about how we, as a foundation, could take more and better risks. As we got further into this work, however, we realized that the conversation about risk was really rooted in the nature of decision making itself — in particular, what it means to make a good decision in a low-information/high-uncertainty context.

This document lays out the philosophical foundations of the approach we intend to take and what we think it means broadly for Democracy Fund’s work. We hope that by looking at risk taking through a broader lens of decision making, we can open up the conversation both internally and externally about what it means to be an organization that takes smart risks. This approach also provides an opportunity to look more critically at all of our internal processes to see whether they support good decision-making habits and how we might refine these processes to better leverage and mitigate risk to maximize our impact. In the coming months, we’ll be taking a deeper look at these processes — from the decisions we make about the systems we work in and what strategies will lead to the impact we hope to see, to what investments we make, to how we use evaluation and learning to assess and revisit those decisions, and everything in between.

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I’m Risk-Averse, But That Doesn’t Mean I Have To Like It

Liz Ruedy

February 3, 2020

I have a confession to make. It’s taken me months to write this blog. On my desktop right now are probably about 10 different Word docs, all named various versions of “decision-making blog.” The irony is not lost on me. I’m writing a blog about decision-making, but when left to my own devices I often struggle with making any. My particular problem is procrastination brought on by risk aversion — when I have to chart a way forward through a complex set of variables, or determine the best choice among a multitude of options, my inclination is to delay. I wait for more information, I’ll second guess myself, I’ll seek out second (and third, and fourth…) opinions.

In some ways, this is what makes me good at my job. As a strategy, evaluation and learning specialist, I’m trained in a certain style of decision-making that includes consulting the relevant evidence base, triangulating my analysis, and deliberately surfacing any potential biases and assumptions. I try to make sure my decisions are thoughtful, informed, and focused on achieving the best possible outcome. But often, this means that my decisions are also not what I’d describe as bold. So while I’m often the one advising people to be more deliberate and methodical in their decision-making, I’m secretly a little envious of people who seem so ready to take those big leaps of faith.

Because the truth is that in the fast-changing spaces in which social change organizations work, my approach to decision-making actually might not be ideal: the evidence might not be sufficient, the outcomes may not be predictable, and the window to act might be too narrow to allow for much analysis and consultation. I’ve long wondered: what does it take to make bolder choices? What does good decision-making look like in uncertain contexts? In such fast-changing and turbulent times, is it okay to say “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I still think we should do X?” What does it really mean to be more comfortable with risk?

About a year ago, I started working with Ian David Moss on a project about risk-taking, in part to try to answer some of these questions. We wanted to examine some common assumptions about risk-taking and how we can differentiate between “good” and “bad” risk, particularly in uncertain contexts. We ended up writing a paper called “What We Should Talk About When We Talk About Risk,” which explores some ideas for navigating scenarios where the traditional rules of evidence-based decision-making may not apply. Based on the paper, Ian and I identified seven “principles” for decision-making in risky or uncertain contexts:

Be intentional: give proper weight to the decisions that really matter.
Frame decisions: be explicit about what decision is being made, and why.
Recognize complexity: invest in understanding the system to help you improve your predictions.
Navigate uncertainty: be clear about whether new information would change your mind.
Use information: prioritize information that would help you reduce uncertainty.
Right-size analysis: be realistic about the degree to which information will help you reduce uncertainty or change your decision.
Focus on the future: use forecasting to identify potential outcomes, and be explicit about their likelihood.

Of course, none of these principles are a silver bullet for making the right decision, and there are inherent tensions between the principles that calls for balance and calibration depending on the type of decision being made. As we note in the paper, “getting it right” is going to remain an elusive goal – but we can’t let fear of making a bad decision keep us from making the right one, or even any one.

I’ve found myself thinking about these principles a lot when I’m facing a big decision, particularly when I catch myself falling into old habits that delay, but don’t necessarily improve, the decisions I make. Meanwhile, Ian and I have been actively exploring what this means for Democracy Fund’s strategy, impact, and learning practice – and specifically how our decision-making processes can build in more room for complexity, uncertainty, and multiple futures. I hope you find some helpful insights from this paper, and that it might spark some interesting conversations. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking when it comes to good decision-making. Please check out the SSIR webinar that Ian and I are doing on this topic on February 12, or reach out to me on Twitter, @lizruedy.

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Improving Motor Voter Registration: A Colorado Case Study

Lisa Danetz

January 9, 2020

Over the past few years, I’ve traveled across the United States working to understand and improve state motor voter registration services, as yet another step towards ensuring all eligible individuals have the opportunity to register to vote in the United States. My goal has been to learn from each state’s experience, share its findings with others, and encourage strong connections between the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officials – who, through the motor voter process, are now the source of 45% of the nation’s voter registration activity – and the election officials who administer the elections.

Colorado, in particular, has stood out as a state that has implemented one of the more modern, collaborative, and user-friendly motor voter registration systems in the country.

In five years, Colorado implemented motor voter registration upgrades including updated policies and technology, and successfully transformed an inefficient multi-step paper-based system into a modern streamlined electronic automatic voter registration system that complies with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). These changes led to a decrease in DMV transaction time by 20 to 30 seconds, contributed (along with a larger DMV IT system modernization) to a four-minute reduction in the DMV’s initial wait time, and increased access and usage of motor voter registration opportunities.

HOW COLORADO MADE THIS HAPPEN

While each state has its own set of obstacles to navigate – like differing agency priorities, resource shortages, bureaucratic resistance, and technology challenges – Colorado’s story of success can serve as a guide to overcoming these obstacles to serve a state’s citizens and ultimately improve the strength of our democracy. Most notably:

1. Relationship Development

In Colorado, relationship development was key. Both Elections Director Judd Choate and DMV Senior Director Mike Dixon recognized and prioritized relationship-building and communication between their offices to address and upgrade the state’s motor voter registration processes. Over several years, the development of a strong and trusted relationship between their teams allowed process upgrades to come to fruition. The initiation of the state’s NVRA Working Group was especially significant, bringing all stakeholders together to provide input and buy-in, and to recognize the potential of the DMV IT system modernization project.

2. Internal Advocacy

Differing missions and priorities between agencies do not need to be a roadblock. In particular, while voter registration is one of the core concerns of elections agencies like the Colorado Department of State (CDOS), it is simply one of many responsibilities handled by the DMV—and one for which they often do not receive direct funding. That can make it difficult for an entity like a DMV to prioritize process changes when what’s in place seems to work. The legal memos and explanatory presentations that CDOS prepared for CDOR helped move along the understanding of the need to make process fixes—and the resulting benefits.

3. Investment of Resources

More frequently than not, process changes involve the investment of significant resources – both time and money – and these process changes were no different. Fortunately, the Colorado DMV was already planning an IT modernization of its driver’s license system. Including motor-voter registration modifications was a cost-effective method to improve that system as well. The costs for the motor voter changes were easily absorbed into the project. In addition, for those upgrades that were not part of the original DMV system modernization, CDOS paid for the DMV motor voter registration technology upgrades and worked with the Colorado Department of Revenue (which houses the DMV) to write the requirements.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 2020

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from Colorado’s experience is that our systems must constantly adapt and evolve to fit the changing needs of our citizens and voters. In fact, the Colorado legislature recently passed a bill in May 2019 that requires the state to adopt and implement “Oregon style” automatic voter registration by July 2020. As the state prepares to implement this latest set of changes, it is the perfect time to examine the breadth of the already-implemented process upgrades and the robust data available about their impacts to date. While what works for one state is not a guarantee that it will work in another, Colorado’s efforts provide important lessons for policymakers to consider in devising their own motor voter registration upgrade plans.

To receive a copy of the Colorado case study, and to learn more about Democracy Fund’s work on motor voter registration and NVRA compliance, please contact elections@democracyfund.org.

Lisa Danetz conducts this work on behalf of Democracy Fund, and has worked in the voting rights, money in politics, and democracy field as a policy expert, advocate, and lawyer for 20 years. She has developed a particular expertise on voter registration through government agencies and, most recently, has been doing work within the AAMVA (DMV) community to provide information and support related to their voter registration and election responsibilities. In addition to her work with Democracy Fund, she has worked with Demos and the National Voting Rights Institute, among others. She received her B.S. from Yale University and her J.D. cum laude from New York University School of Law.

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2019 Reflections and the Journey Ahead

Joe Goldman

December 20, 2019

Traditionally, this season is one of reflection with time to process our progress and lessons learned. Somehow, this year feels different. Perhaps it’s because the usual moments of reflection and holiday cheer are drowned out by the blaring soundtrack of the impeachment process. Or that the newscycle has served as a constant reminder of the work still ahead. Coupled with the intensity and urgency of the current landscape, strategic reflection has been unusually difficult this time of year.

Still, we are barreling toward the end of 2019 and I am thinking about overarching goals for 2020 and all that comes in the years after. I am struck by the weight of the challenges we’ll face in the new year and the tone that it sets for the next decade. At the same time, I am eager to forge ahead with determination into one of the most important election seasons of our lifetimes.

Over the next 11 months, the American people will face a critical choice that will set the course for our country and for our democracy. The election will unfold amidst an unprecedented set of challenges — from an ongoing impeachment process and a vitriolic political environment, to the threat of election interference through misinformation, cyber-security attacks, fearmongering, and suppression. Despite these challenges, the American people remain energized and all signs point to record levels of participation and voter turnout.

If we have learned anything from the unprecedented turnout of the 2018 midterm elections, it is that Americans still believe in the power of their voice and in the importance of our democracy. With that in mind, those of us in the civic sector have a responsibility to do everything we can to ensure our democracy is able to live up to its fundamental ideals.

We must support election administrators to handle record turnout and ensure the integrity of our system. We must combat misinformation and fearmongering from influencing voters’ choices as they head to the polls. We must support efforts to increase voter turnout and protect voting rights to ensure that the electorate is representative of the country. We must stand with leaders dedicated to preserving the rule of law and civil rights, and support the moral courage of those willing to hold leaders accountable. And, we must continue the slow and steady work of rebuilding our government and civic infrastructure so that we are ready for opportunities for democratic renewal.

This, and so much more, is the work that Democracy Fund and our grantees have already engaged in throughout this past year. 2019 has seen numerous important victories and signs of progress that give me faith for the journey ahead. And I know we aren’t in this fight alone, we stand alongside countless others who are also working to ensure that our democracy delivers on its promise to the American people. As the year comes to a close, I want to share a few of Democracy Fund’s 2019 highlights with you.

Ensuring the Integrity of Our Elections

The proper function of our election system is the bedrock of a healthy democracy. That’s why Democracy Fund funds grantees are working to support election officials through training and technical assistance to improve election administration. Grantees in our Election Security portfolio have partnered with election administrators and the Department of Homeland Security to provide resources and train officials in more than 20 states to respond to cyber incidents. And Democracy Fund Voice, our affiliated 501(c)(4) organization, helped secure an additional $425 million in federal funding for election security while helping states and territories implement cyber security improvements.

Understanding the Electorate

For many, the results of the 2016 election demonstrated that the tools commonly used to understand the American electorate were insufficient. Building on the success of our Voter Study Group, Democracy Fund launched Nationscape, a new public opinion project done in partnership with researchers from UCLA. This innovative study is one of the largest public opinion projects ever conducted — interviewing more than 6,000 Americans weekly and roughly 500,000 over the course of the election. Its unparalleled size and unique experiments provide a distinctive window into Americans’ opinions and priorities — allowing us to track changes over time as well discover differences between demographic and geographic groups too small to analyze (and often go overlooked) with traditional surveys. You can expect to see its findings published regularly through USA Today — the project’s media partner — and on the Nationscape website. Nationscape goes beyond horse race polls in battleground states and gets to the real issues that are driving voters and their decisions.

Standing with Historically Marginalized Communities

Democracy Fund proudly supports grantees working to protect the rights of immigrants and to empower marginalized communities in the public square, particularly when our country’s commitment to pluralism appears increasingly up for debate. This year, the National Immigration Law Center represented plaintiffs before the Supreme Court to combat the elimination of DACA. Our grantees Protect Democracy and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center worked together to win a nationwide preliminary injunction barring the Department of Homeland Security from implementing rule changes that would make it more challenging for eligible lawful permanent residents to apply for citizenship and immigration benefits.

Improving Voting Access And Protecting Voting Rights

Over the past decade we’ve seen a resurgence in local and state-level policies and legislative tactics to curb voting access. The stakes of the 2020 election make such attacks on voting rights more likely. This year, the board of directors for Democracy Fund Voice committed nearly $3 million towards a special project to defend voting rights. Together with our ongoing commitment to promoting pro-voter reforms, this work represents a significant new investment to ensure all Americans, particularly historically disenfranchised communities, are assured their right to vote.

Grantees in this portfolio had significant wins this year in making our elections more accessible to all eligible Americans. As just one example, the Texas Civil Rights Project helped defeat Bill SB9, which would have made voting substantially harder for thousands of Texans — elevating the penalty for honest mistakes to a felony offense. Our grantee Common Cause Education Fund has been another leader in this space this year, as they led discovery and litigation emerging from the release of the Hofeller Files, a political consultant’s archives that explicitly demonstrate the illegal use of race to drive election policy. Their work will have far-reaching implications for the democracy reform and voting rights community for years to come.

Meanwhile, state-level reforms to provide voters with more options and ease in the process has also advanced with 11 states modernizing election systems through adopting Automatic Voter Registration, Online Voter Registration, and by joining the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) in 2019. Additionally, five states have increased their compliance with Motor Voter laws through strategic partnerships and litigation efforts supported by our grantees. As a result of AVR adoption and Motor Voter litigation, the percentage of voter registrations received nationwide at DMVs rose from 33 to 45 percent — or 35 million Americans — of total registrations between 2016 and 2018.

Protecting the Rule of Law

The health of our democracy relies on a government accountable to the Constitution, the law, and the people it represents. It depends on an understanding that government decisions are based on laws, rules, and the best interests of all Americans — not the political or personal advantage of those charged with executing them.

With the whiplash speed of each news cycle, it’s hard to believe it was only in April that the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election concluded its work. Throughout the investigation, many grantees including the Project On Government Oversight and Protect Democracy, worked tirelessly to protect its independence and ensure the special counsel investigation would be able to reach its conclusion. Once the report was released, grantees helped raise public awareness of its astonishing findings through creative and engaging mechanisms such as Lawfare’s top-rated podcast, “The Report.”

As the impeachment process has unfolded, the work of many of our grantees has helped ensure this historical process is carried out in a manner consistent with our Constitution, democratic values, and with full appreciation for justice and truth telling. In fact, the Government Accountability Project’s longstanding work to protect the rights of whistleblowers has been a mainstay well before the impeachment process. Specifically in this era when constitutional discourse tends to be politically polarized, many of our grantees offer vital education on the Constitution and its protections — like the proper use of emergency powers or the protection of government whistleblowers — and have deployed strategies in real time to ensure accuracy in public reporting.

Supporting Press Freedom

An increasing number of political attacks and strategic legal threats by those who want to silence the press continue to buffet journalists. From Twitter to town halls across America, our grantees are working to stand up for the First Amendment. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press launched a public awareness campaign to emphasize the importance of protecting press freedom. This year, we also worked closely with partner funders to launch a new fund to support First Amendment legal clinics who provide pro-bono legal capacity for local newsrooms. Through these and other tactics, we aim to rebuild the infrastructure for press freedom at a time when the media is increasingly in the cross-hairs of our political debate.

Rebuilding Government and Civic Infrastructure

While much of our portfolio responds to urgent needs relating to the 2020 election, we know resolving our democratic crisis is a long-term project. This work we’re supporting will help to create a more functional government and rebuild our civic infrastructure and fabric.

In particular, the collapse of commercial media has meant that many across the country are underserved by trustworthy news that accurately reflects their community. This year, Democracy Fund became a founding partner in several new efforts to rebuild local news. Borealis Philanthropy’s Racial Equity in Journalism Fund seeks to strengthen the capacity and sustainability of news organizations led by people of color and increase civic engagement for communities of color. We also provided funding to the American Journalism Project, a new, nonpartisan venture philanthropy organization dedicated to local news which announced its first grants to 11 nonprofits just a few weeks ago. And, we continued our successful NewsMatch campaign, which this year exceeded fundraising goals to provide matching funds to nearly 200 newsrooms in 44 states.

Efforts to rebuild are also bearing fruit in Congress despite the rancor of the impeachment process. In January, the new Congress established the first congressional reform committee in more than a quarter century after years of diligent effort by grantees funded by both Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice. The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, which issued nearly 30 recommendations to ensure Congress is an effective 21st Century workplace, has been supported by grantees like Bipartisan Policy Center, R Street Institute, Demand Progress Education Fund, Congressional Management Foundation, and many other organizations—providing regular technical expertise, testimony, and counsel to the committee throughout its deliberations. Together with new House rules, Legislative Branch appropriations bills, and other reforms, the Committee provides hope for a renewal of congressional function. We look forward to what lies ahead for the Committee’s continued work in 2020.

Combating Misinformation and Fearmongering

In 2020, we can expect to see the online misinformation tactics employed in 2016 to continue to evolve and spread in an attempt to influence how voters shape their decisions at the polls in 2020. Bold leadership from all social media platforms is necessary to strengthen our digital public square and preserve a healthy democracy. Moving forward, it is imperative that these companies exhibit more transparency, address misinformation, and end racially biased algorithms.

In 2019, Democracy Fund and its grantees, like Change the Terms, helped build and expand the coalitions of organizers, lawyers, and scholars needed to track these information campaigns and push back on platform inaction. Our efforts have and will continue to focus on the effects of targeted misinformation on women and people of color as well as studying political ads as a vector for efforts to harass and mislead.

Encouraging Others to Join the Fight

Finally, Democracy Fund increased our efforts to rally new philanthropic support towards a healthy democracy in 2019. Recognizing that the 2020 election may draw new philanthropic champions into the fight, our new team supporting these efforts will expand our efforts to build new capacity for the field through educational events, publications, and individual philanthropic advising.

As we look towards next year, philanthropy can do more to fight for the protection of our democracy by focusing on four priorities:

Ensure that the 2020 electorate represents the American people through voter education and mobilization, and by protecting the right to vote;
Ensure that our system is not compromised by supporting the smooth administration of our election and election security efforts;
Ensure that misinformation and fearmongering doesn’t sway voters and further divide this country; and
Continue to prepare for the opportunities and threats that may come next.

When Pierre Omidyar and I began thinking about how his philanthropy could be leveraged to strengthen our democracy, we had no idea American democracy would soon be entering this period of crisis — but I now realize Democracy Fund was built for this moment. Over the past five years, our strategies have responded to emerging threats, and we’ve invested more than $150 million towards improving the health of our democratic institutions and protecting the values we hold dear. As we enter 2020, we are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and give it everything we have so we can end the year with absolutely no regrets.

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New Guide: How to Get Started Funding Local News in Your Community

Teresa Gorman

November 5, 2019

Asking Questions and Listening are the First Step

By Teresa Gorman and Fiona Morgan

How do people in your community get news and information about what’s happening where they live? You might answer newspapers, TV, radio … but how about social media? Libraries? The community center bulletin board? The church bulletin? The neighborhood listserv? The neighborhood bar?

Our news and information ecosystems are complex and evolving as media and technology change, while at the same time local newspapers consolidate and disappear. They are important to learn about if you want to make a positive impact on your community. Whether your goal is raising awareness about clean water, improving community safety, increasing civic participation or any number of other goals, you won’t get far if your community lacks quality information and equitable ways to communicate and engage.

This week, we’re excited to share that we’re launching a new tool that can help you map your media ecosystem to help find and support this information and engagement.

Across the country, foundations and philanthropists are coming to realize that local news and civic information is a critical element of a healthy community and democracy, and that they have a role to play in its future. Local news organizations have faced a catastrophic economic downturn, as well as increasing questions about how well they do or do not serve the diverse communities that make up our country. This erosion in local news is tied to drops in civic engagement, weakened connections in communities, and escalating costs of government due to lack of accountability.

We’ve heard many funders, philanthropists, and community foundations who are familiar with the problems say that it can be challenging to figure out the solutions — how can they get started supporting the future of news and information in their communities?

That’s why we created “A Guide to Assessing Your Local News Ecosystem” — to help answer this question.

Dive in for Lessons From Across the Country

We’ve learned a lot through the assessments and funding choices we’ve undertaken in North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Colorado, Chicago, and beyond. Landscape analyses we commissioned in 2016 helped us decide where best to put our dollars, and have resulted in the establishment of the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund, the New Mexico Local News Fund, and the New Jersey Local News Lab Fund, as well as the support of the Colorado Media Project, the Field Foundation’s Media & Storytelling Program, Center for Cooperative Media, and more. Each of the places and organizations are working in unique and powerful ways to rebuild local news in their region.

The toolkit brings together some of this work we’ve done, along with the work of others we’ve learned from who are funding innovative and collaborative news efforts. We share case studies from funders we’ve learned from in Colorado, New Jersey, Detroit, and the Mountain West, and will share more in the months to come. This step-by-step guide will help you gather the information you need to take informed, effective action to improve your local news and information ecosystem, just like these funders have.

Undertaking this type of assessment is important because at Democracy Fund we know there isn’t one solution to figuring out the future of local news, but many solutions together. Funding with an ecosystem lens acknowledges that local news and information is interconnected and ever-changing. We don’t learn about our communities from any one source but from multiple sources and networks of trust. We learn valuable information from neighbors and listservs and community meetings as well as newspaper stories and radio programs. The makeup of those sources and networks depends on where we live.

When we keep people at the center of our thinking — not news organizations per se, not the journalism industry — we begin to see ways we can strengthen what already exists and determine which gaps need to be filled. Rather than grounding solutions in any one organization, Democracy Fund chooses to evaluate the big picture and find whether there’s possible infrastructure and supports to fund that can take on the task of supporting an entire news and information ecosystem.

Get Started Using the Guide

This guide can help you take a look at that big picture and chart a path forward. It starts with understanding what makes up a healthy news ecosystem, then walks through the ways you can get to know your community, including research and engagement methods you can tailor to your goals. Our “deep dive” section includes a trove of free and low-cost data sources as well as some simple scavenger hunt-style assignments to help you see what those sources have to offer. We talk through ways your organization can act on what you learn so that your assessment will inform collaboration and ongoing engagement. And since we know budgets and bandwidth vary, we offer ideas for ways to right-size your assessment to the resources you have.

Copyright: CivicStory. October 2018 meeting of CivicStory’s Board of Directors (and special guest, 12-week-old Ila) in Summit, NJ

We’ve also included four case studies to flesh out our how-to guidance with concrete examples. These case studies show that each community is different, so what works in one place may not always work in another. This guide will help you find what the people in your own community need and how to make the greatest impact with the resources you have.

“Putting the people first was the most important element to our work. We didn’t do this because we thought we could save newspapers or newsrooms. We found it important that people in small towns have access to information to help them become more engaged citizens, so they’re able to make more informed decisions and they’re connected with the national conversation, the regional conversation, and the local conversation.” – LaMonte Guillory of the LOR Foundation, on their work in the Rural Mountain West.

While this guide is primarily designed for philanthropic organizations, anyone interested in improving local news and information is invited to adapt it to suit their own research.

The story we often hear about local news is dire, but it doesn’t have to be. We can face the realities of what we’re losing and the impact on our democracy while also seeing the assets and opportunities that exist. By being thoughtful, informed, inclusive and by sharing what we learn, we can make local news more resilient and sustainable.

Subscribe to the Local Fix for even more useful resources and information about local news at tinyletter.com/LocalFix
Hear more from Molly de Aguiar of the Independence Public Media Foundation and LaMonte Guillory of the LOR Foundation about their experience mapping their foundations’ local news ecosystems in a webinar on November 22 at 1 pm ET.
Share your feedback, questions, and suggestions with us about the toolkit at localnewslab@democracyfund.org

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When the Evidence Isn’t Evident: Why Are Some Kinds of Impact So Hard to Measure?

Liz Ruedy

August 29, 2019

A few months ago, I proposed that a lot of work in the democracy sector, and social change in general, can be captured in six distinct “impact models.” At Democracy Fund, these models have lent new nuance to a perpetual question: how do we measure the impact of democracy work? We understand that there’s a big difference between impact and no impact, and that we shouldn’t hide behind “impact is hard to measure” to avoid admitting when we’re simply not achieving it. But while I wish there was a methodological silver bullet to measure democratic change, the truth is that it can be hard to measure some impacts using specific evidence within a specific period of time. In other words, for some types of impact, the evidence is less, well, evident.

Looking back on evaluations that I’ve done, I can think of a number of instances where there was clear, objective evidence of impact from a transformative model: a new law passed, voter turnout increased. But I’ve struggled to find evidence of impact from preventative models: government overreach that was constrained, or civil rights abuses that were prevented.

I think the reason for this is actually pretty simple: what differentiates the impact models from each other also affects how likely they will be to result in “evident” impact – that is, impact that can be measured with specific evidence and in a specified time period. When we decide how to intervene in a system, we make two basic choices. The first is whether we’re looking for short-term or long-term change: does the intervention address specific, emergent threats or opportunities, or are those threats and opportunities more long-term and/or evolving? The second choice is whether the strategy is intended to disrupt the system or to make it more resilient: is the intervention responding to a deficiency or inefficiency in the system that needs to be changed, or is the intervention seeking to protect a system from threats or decline?

These choices also have implications for how “evident” the resulting impact will be. Disruptive interventions are more likely to yield evidence of impact because it’s easier to pinpoint how and why things change than how and why they remain stable. And because they address timebound threats or opportunities, short-term interventions are more likely to yield evidence of impact in a specific timeframe. So it follows that short-term disruptive models would be most likely to yield evident impact, while long-term resilient models would be the least likely, and short-term resilient and long-term disruptive models would fall somewhere in the middle.

In the framework below, I have attempted to map the impact models across these two dimensions (type of change and timeframe). Based on where they are located on the map, I’d offer the following conclusions:

Transformative and proactive models that leverage sudden openings to disrupt systems, are most likely to yield evident impact.
Incremental transformative, palliative and preventative models that focus on long-term resilience of systems are least likely to do so.
Stabilizing and preventative models that defend against threats by focusing on short-term resilience may yield some evident impact, but the full scope of that impact (including threats that were contained or thwarted) may be less evident.
Opportunistic models that invest in long-term disruption to achieve systems change, may produce some evident impact, but that’s dependent on the timeframe for a breakthrough.

I realize that doesn’t really answer the question of how to measure the impact of these models, particularly when the models are on the less evident end of the spectrum. But I think it prompts a different, and perhaps more important, question: if we accept the premise that some models of democracy work can have impact even if that impact isn’t evident, can we still make sound, evidence-based decisions about them?

Navigating complex systems is rife with uncertainty, and collecting relevant and meaningful evidence is part of how we mitigate the risk of that uncertainty. So pursuing an impact model that will leave us flying blind due to a lack of evidence might seem unacceptably risky. For example, if we know that we’re working toward palliative or preventative impact through long-term resilience, how do we mitigate the risk of a “boiling frog” scenario, in which the system’s lack of progress and/or slow decline eventually becomes untenable? And how do we know whether we’re confusing the “strategic patience” required for a long-term, disruptive intervention with a “sunk cost bias” that makes us hold on to a losing proposition? And even if we’re able to observe the impact of a short-term, disruptive intervention, how do we make sure we’re also capturing evidence of unanticipated, negative results?

But if we stick with the “safer” models – those that promise clear evidence of impact in a defined period of time – we may be left with a false sense of certainty about whether we’re pursuing the most effective and relevant solutions, or avoid tackling the thornier, longer-term challenges altogether. So lately I’ve been focused less on “how can we measure the impact of democracy work” and more on “what evidence do we need to be confident in our strategic choices?” Because now more than ever, democracy work requires courage and creativity, and I want to build an evidence-based evaluation and learning practice here at Democracy Fund that recognizes that. Of course there’s a big difference between impact and no impact, and of course we shouldn’t hide behind “impact is hard to measure” to avoid admitting when we’re simply not achieving it. But we also need to acknowledge that there’s a big difference between the easy wins and the risky plays, and we can’t hide behind “the impact will be hard to measure” to avoid tackling the big challenges. Our current political moment demands no less.

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Announcing a New Fund for Investing in Faith in Democracy

Chris Crawford

June 3, 2019

Last year, I wrote a blog about Democracy Fund’s work to engage faith leaders and faith-based organizations in helping to strengthen our democracy. Since then, we continue to hunger for a more inclusive America in which our political system respects the dignity of every individual and serves the needs of the American people. To support this mission, we have continued to refine our approach and increase our investments in leaders and organizations across faith traditions that are promoting pluralism and reducing polarization in their communities.

Now, Democracy Fund is announcing an exciting new opportunity for organizations that are interested in exploring the ways that communities of faith can support democratic values and civic institutions, build bridges, and foster cooperation and civic engagement.

Democracy Fund and The Fetzer Institute have invested in a Faith In/And Democracy Pooled Fund that will be hosted and distributed by Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE).

PACE has issued a Request for Proposals for organizations from around the country to apply for grants to support their important work. Organizations selected for grants will be a part of a learning community that explores important questions facing our democracy:

How do communities of faith, religion, and/or spirituality prepare and train leaders to support democratic values and civic institutions?
What would it look like to have an effective multi-ethnic, religiously pluralistic democracy?
How can intra- and interfaith dialogue lead to actions that enhance civic life?
How do leaders reach “beyond the choir” to include participants who are not comfortable with or amenable to talking across difference?
How does faith intersect with other identifiers such as race, class, and gender, and how do those identities taken collectively influence participation in civic life?
What means, methods, and tools have faith, religious, or spiritual communities used successfully to bridge difference and foster cooperation and civic engagement?

This project is an important step in the development of the Faith in Democracy portfolio at Democracy Fund. After an initial round of investments in 2017 and 2018, we are excited to begin partnering with other funders to increase our impact in this important space. We are hoping that this partnership with our friends at The Fetzer Institute can serve as an example of how foundations can pool their resources to experiment, learn, and make change together.

A year ago, I wrote that Democracy Fund is interested in supporting bold leaders who are working to unify Americans and promote our shared values, and that we hope to experiment with and scale models to further strengthen and improve our democracy. The Faith In/And Democracy Initiative at PACE will identify and support those exact leaders around the country. As PACE makes their initial investments, we will be sure to share inspiring stories, lessons learned, and invitations to join this important work.

If you know an organization that PACE should consider, please encourage them to apply by clicking here.