Philanthropy Archives

Report

American Indian Media Today

Jodi Rave

November 20, 2018

Once a year, during American Indian Heritage Month in November, American citizens pause to recognize the Indigenous peoples of lands now known as the United States. But what happens to Native people during the other 11 months of the year? Answer: They’re often rendered invisible. That invisibility is complicated by a shrinking Native American news that faces a range of unique challenges today.

My new report, American Indian Media Today: Tribes Maintain Majority Media Ownership as Independent Journalists Seek Growth, gives an overview of the state of Native American media and the challenges we face in telling our own stories. The report is one in a series commissioned by the Democracy Fund to shine a spotlight on the important role of media by and for diverse communities in the United States.

In so much of mainstream media American Indians are invisible as contemporary people or romanticized as relics of a bygone era. The invisibility affects how policymakers make decisions about Native people whose lives are often struck by high rates of poverty, suicide, poor health care, and missing and murdered Indigenous women.

This has made Native media a critical source not only to inform and engage our communities but also to lift up our stories in the broader culture. Yet, for several reasons, we face a lack of news in our own backyards. Media in Indian Country are grappling with many of the same challenges around sustainability that face the rest of the journalism industry, but it is exacerbated by low levels of philanthropic support.

Tribal governments can also be obstacles to independent reporting in Indian Country. An estimated 72% of all print and radio outlets in Indian Country are owned and controlled by tribal governments or tribe-owned entities, and according to a preliminary survey from the Native American Journalists Association’s RED Press Initiative, 83% of tribal journalists face intimidation and harassment when covering tribal affairs. This means modern-day tribal citizens receive news that is mostly censored and controlled by tribal governments. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and a free flow of information remain hampered without specific legal provisions rooted in tribal constitutions.

However, a small, but devoted cadre of independent media practitioners are working to create new alternatives and share their stories, free of Native government influence. I profile many of them in this new report and describe the important contributions they are making their communities. These local journalists deserve more attention and need more support. There is much to be learned from how they build and serve communities across often rural and expansive tribal lands.

Jodi’s organization, the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, is one of 155 newsrooms participating in the 2018 NewsMatch campaign. Right now every donation will be doubled by NewsMatch through the end of the year.

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Adapting Long-term Strategies in Times of Profound Change

Srik Gopal

August 24, 2018

This piece was originally published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Over the past few years, foundations have increasingly embraced a systems approach, formulating longer-term strategies designed to solve chronic, complex problems. We value foundations for having strategic patience and being in it for the long haul. But what happens when they carefully craft a set of strategies intended for the long-term, and the context of one or more the interconnected problems they are trying to address changes considerably? Our experience at Democracy Fund, which aims to improve the fundamental health of the American democratic system, provides one example and suggests some lessons for other funders.

My colleagues and I chronicled the systems-thinking journey of Democracy Fund as we went about creating initiatives. After becoming an independent foundation in 2014, we went through a two-year process of carefully mapping the systems we were interested in shifting and then designing robust strategies based on our understanding of the best ways to make change. Our board approved our three long-term initiatives—elections, governance, and the public square—in 2016.

The 2016 election and its aftermath

It would not be an overstatement to say that the context for much of our work shifted considerably in the months leading up to, during, and following the 2016 US presidential election. Our strategies, as initially developed, were not fully prepared to address emerging threats in the landscape of American democracy, including:

The massive tide of mis- and dis-information
The undermining of the media as an effective fourth estate
The scale of cybersecurity risks to the election system
The violation of long-held democratic norms
The deepening polarization among the electorate, including the extent to which economics, race, and identity would fuel divisions]

During and after the election, we engaged in a combination of collective angst (“How did we miss this?”) and intentional reflection (“How can we do better?”). We came out of that period of introspection and planning with three clear opportunities for our work that we carried out over the next few months.

Ramp up our “system sensing” capabilities. We realized we needed to be much more diligent about putting our “ear to the ground” to understand what was going on with the American electorate. Our sister organization, Democracy Fund Voice, was already doing research that explored why many Americans were feeling disconnected and disoriented. Building on those lessons, we founded the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a bipartisan collaboration of pollsters and academics that seeks to better understand the views and motivations of the American electorate. It explores public attitudes on urgent questions such as perceptions of authoritarianism, immigration, economics, and political parties. We also ran targeted focus groups and conducted polling around issues of press freedom, government accountability and oversight, and the rule of law. Collectively, these gave us (and the field) insights into the underlying dynamics and voter sentiments that were shaping the democratic landscape.
Create an opportunistic, context-responsive funding stream. Our long-term initiatives, while highly strategic, did not leave many discretionary resources for needs that arise in the moment. Hence, with support from our board, we launched a series of special projects—time-limited infusions of resources and support to highly salient, timely issues. Our special project on investigative journalism supports and defends the role of a robust, free press in America’s public square. Our special project on fostering a just and inclusive society seeks to protect those whose civil rights and safety seem endangered in this emerging landscape. And finally, our special project on government accountability, transparency, and oversight aims to strengthen the checks and balances that help Americans hold their leaders and government accountable. Taken together, these projects address urgent issues undermining the foundations of our democracy.
Codify our convictions. As a bipartisan organization, we believe that sustainable solutions require broad buy-in, and we strive to incorporate good ideas wherever they originate. However, in the midst of multiple violations of democratic norms in the heat of the 2016 election, we asked, “Does being bipartisan mean being neutral?” In other words, we questioned whether our positioning prevented us from taking a stance. The answer was a resounding no. But we also felt we needed a point of reference from which to act. We then set about creating a healthy democracy framework that codified our core convictions—a framework that would allow us to take principled positions, speak out when needed, and act by putting our resources to work. The framework articulated a set of beliefs, including the importance of respecting human dignity, the role of checks and balances, the significance of a free press, and the expectations of elected leaders to act with integrity. These beliefs act as a filter for what fits or doesn’t fit our general frame for action.

Lessons for other funders

Based on conversations with other funders, I know our experience is not unique. The field, as a whole, is trying to understand what it means to be strategic at a time of unprecedented change. Below are a few lessons that may be helpful:

Recognize that “both/and” is the new normal. Rather than see the dynamic between the long-term and the immediate as an either/or, foundations need to adapt a mindset of both/and. The urgent needs are in many ways symptoms of systemic failure, but they do need dedicated responses and resources in the short term. Our attention is our most precious resource, and foundations need to constantly calibrate theirs to make sure it is appropriately focused.
Go beyond adaptive learning. Notions of adaptive philanthropy—having clear goals, a learning agenda that tracks to those goals, and experimenting along the way—are helpful and did indeed shape our thinking. At the same time, we and other funders must recognize that adaptive learning, by itself, may not be sufficient when the nature of change is profound, rather than incremental. There may be times when we need to take several steps back and examine core assumptions about our work, as Democracy Fund did with our healthy democracy framework, and the McKnight Foundation did with its strategic framework.
Invest in self-care. This may seem like strange advice in a discussion about strategy, but organizations are made up of people, and people tend to burn out in times of incessant and relentless change. It is important to recognize that we are living in a fraught political environment, and foundation staff, grantees, and partners may need an extra ounce of kindness and grace from others as they carry out their work. This may mean additional capacity building support for grantees, wellness counseling for staff, and an organizational culture that promotes empathy and understanding.

Conclusion

Foundations are unique in the sense that they have the ability to focus on an issue over a considerable period of time. And the recent strides the field has made on systems thinking have ensured that long-term strategies consider the multi-faceted nature of systems we are seeking to shift. However, we are grappling with the question of what happens when long-term thinking bumps up against immediate and acute needs.

In Democracy Fund’s case, building better system-sensing capabilities, creating a context-responsive funding stream, and codifying our convictions have equipped us to better respond to changing context. Our journey is by no means complete and we have a lot to learn, but we hope that our experience gives others—especially foundations wrestling with how to address immediate needs without abandoning their core priorities—an emerging roadmap for moving forward,

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Congress Needs Modern Tech to Keep Up with Constituents’ Needs. Here’s How Philanthropy Can Help.

Chris Nehls

July 12, 2018

Even before the emergence of so-called “resistance tech,” investors, venture funds, and foundations were pumping money into tech tools that make it easier for citizens to express their opinions to their elected representatives. This support has empowered constituents with more ways to contact their elected officials, and as a result, a civic engagement has grown over the past decade, burying members of Congress with ever-increasing volume of emails, phone calls, tweets, texts, and even faxes (yes, faxes).

Although civic engagement is essential to our democracy, Congress sorely lacks the commensurate resources to keep up with the staggering volume of constituent communication. Several reasons exist for this disparity. For one, Congressional offices are a minuscule market when compared to the business opportunity that activating millions of constituents represents to start-ups. Institutional rules and security requirements further hamper product innovation. Vendors must go through rigorous and opaque certification processes with House and Senate administrators before they can release products to congressional staff. These administrators have forbidden common workplace applications like Slack for security concerns. Meanwhile, Congress doesn’t invest adequately in its own technological and communications capacity to the point that offices still have fax machines in 2018.

Democracy Fund and our affiliated social welfare organization, Democracy Fund Voice, recently awarded several grants to address the disparity between the tools available to congressional staff and the technological innovations of the digital advocacy industry. These grants will enable staff to gauge constituent sentiment quickly and efficiently, deliver more meaningful and satisfying replies, and save offices countless hours of staff time currently spent on menial tasks. They also pave the way for further innovation.

A grant to the Tides Foundation will support the Popvox LegiDash Fund to build “LegiDash,” a closed social network for constituents and member offices. This tool will give congressional staff a new way to connect with folks back home one-on-one, offer a clearer picture of district sentiment in the aggregate, and provide a trusted alternative communications portal to Facebook, satisfying a growing concern on Capitol Hill about what the tech giant does with the data generated on members’ official pages.

Congressional vendor Fireside21 will use a grant from Democracy Fund Voice to research machine-learning techniques that automate much of the rote, labor-intensive processes that member offices use to organize bulk constituent email. The resulting improvements of this research could save offices dozens of personnel-hours a week and make further advances – such as content analysis of constituents’ social media comments on elected representatives’ accounts – possible.

These grants follow the success of Democracy Fund grantee the OpenGov Foundation to develop and deploy Article One, a voice-to-text tool that saves offices many hours by transcribing constituent voicemails. Fireside21 recently partnered with the nonprofit to offer this service to members in the House of Representatives.

This approach is an experiment in using philanthropy to build technological capacity for congressional offices in ways the marketplace cannot provide. Importantly, these grantees are trusted partners of congressional stakeholders, with years of experience collaborating with Congress to understand the needs of members and staff as the foundation of product design. If the grants are successful, harried staff will have capacity to craft more meaningful responses to constituents in less time, rebuilding constituents’ trust that Washington is listening. They will also free up staff hours that offices can reallocate to researching public policy, drafting legislation, and conducting oversight.

Using technology to make the most labor-intensive parts of constituent service more efficient is an exciting prospect, but it’s not our only goal in funding this space. We will continue to explore other projects and tools that can rebuild congressional capacity to address the nation’s most pressing public policy issues. Lorelei Kelly at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center likens this lawmaking capacity to a technical stack, or the overlapping components that build a technological system or software platform. Right now, this stack is breaking down. Technology can assist members of Congress in a variety of ways, from helping to build relationships with subject-matter experts at the district-level, creating new venues for constituent-member discussion in real time, leveraging troves of data to formulate policy and evaluating whether those initiatives are meeting desired outcomes.

Building this capacity makes it more likely that constituent sentiment, now often channeled into mass advocacy campaigns, can actually produce desired policy change. Congress needs knowledge-building solutions, like quick access to high-quality, impartial information; situational awareness within the institution itself; visibility into staff networks working on shared issues; and – universally – more time to act upon constituent needs.

Ideally, Congress would give itself this capability with an in-house version of 18F or a Congressional Digital Service; until that happens, philanthropy and private investors have a civic obligation to reinforce the technological infrastructure of the first branch of government. The challenges are so fundamental that even modest levels of funding, if properly placed, can create transformative change within the congressional workplace. A stronger democracy will be the ROI.

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Listening to Our Grantees: Lessons from our Second Grantee Perception Survey

Joe Goldman

July 11, 2018

As a learning organization committed to the success of our grantee partners, Democracy Fund regularly gathers feedback from grantees in order to better understand what is working, where we need to do better, and how we should think about the role we are playing in strengthening our nation’s democracy. This isn’t always easy given the natural power dynamic between funders and grantees – and so we work with the Center for Effective Philanthropy to periodically collect anonymous feedback through their Grantee Perception Survey.

Last year, Democracy Fund took part in our second Grantee Perception Survey administered by CEP. Since receiving the results last fall, our staff has had the time to reflect on the input provided to us by our grantees and implement a number of changes to our grantmaking approach in light of what we heard. We would like to thank our grantees for their thoughtful and detailed feedback. This blogpost provides an update on what we heard and what we’ve committed to doing differently.

When we asked our grantees to participate in our first Grantee Perception Survey in 2014, Democracy Fund was in the process of becoming an independent foundation. What our grantees shared then had a significant influence on our grantmaking approach – from how we streamline our processes to how we think about measurement and evaluation. For example, as a result of this work, we reduced our grant processing time by nearly 30 percent.

This year’s survey, open to all grantees who held an active grant with us in 2016 came at no less a transitional time for Democracy Fund. While we are no longer a start up, it’s hard to overstate the tremendous growth that this organization has managed over the past 18 months. Our staff size has tripled and our Democracy Fund portfolio has grown from 28 organizations when we first surveyed in 2014 to 74 organizations in spring 2017. As our original programs have matured, we’ve taken on a range of new programs and special projects to ensure that this organization is able to stand up for our constitution and democratic norms at a time of great consequence for our country.

This sense of growth, maturation, and change is evident in what we heard from grantees.

Here are just a few of the key things we learned:

We provide more support to grantees than most other funders. We provide larger grants and more general operating support than our peer funders. Our higher staff-to-grantee ratio compared to others means we’re able to be in more frequent contact with our grantees. This finding aligns well with our intent – and we’re glad to see our grantees found us living this approach day to day.

Grantees are still waiting for us to demonstrate impact. As a young foundation, many of our efforts are still nascent. Grantees rated us lower than other funders on impact in the field and effect on public policy as our work is only beginning to gain traction.

Our grantees recognize our field expertise and appreciate our efforts to advance knowledge in the field – but we can do better. Grantees gave us solid scores in our understanding of the field and see us as emerging thought leaders, reflecting the fact that much of our staff comes from the practitioner community. Still, they thought we can do more to understand grantee organizations themselves, pointing to a need to better support our field-expert staff in their transition to grantmaking roles.

As we have grown in size and complexity, we’ve paid less attention to some relationships — and it shows. Many grantees — in particular grantees who received smaller grants — sometimes felt out of the loop on Democracy Fund’s thinking. Grantees sought more clarity and consistent communication about our processes and decision-making. Many wanted more transparency about our strategy, especially as our democracy entered a period of profound change. And we heard that we need to do more to foster trust with grantees, so that they are more comfortable reaching out to us as challenges emerge.

“We are committed to improving and most effectively supporting our grantees’ work.”

We are grateful to our grantees for this honest and thought-provoking feedback. Over the past several months, our team has had the opportunity to engage with the survey results, and the key findings from the report. We have begun to implement a variety of improvements to our processes to address those areas where we know we can do better.

Each of our programs has taken the opportunity to discuss these results with their grantees to gain deeper insights and have been engaged in thoughtful internal conversations on how to address them. Grantees can expect to see the following improvements:

Clarity on applying for a grant: We are revamping our processes for initial grant review to promote more clarity to applicants on where their applications stand, how much time the process will take, and what might be expected if funding is approved. We are also entering into an effort to right-size grant requirements based on grant size.
Engagement with grantees post-approval: We are revising our practices for how to engage grantees post-approval in check-in calls and how to review learning together and share clearer expectations. This reflects direct grantee feedback on how they want to engage with Democracy Fund.
Support beyond the dollars: Leveraging what was a clear bright spot in our survey results, we are assessing what additional non-monetary support we can offer to grantees, and how to ensure all grantees are aware of the resources available to them. We are also more deliberately seeing how to connect grantees with new funders. We will continue to offer and improve opportunities to bring grantees together for networking and shared learning.
Streamlined grant reporting and metrics to put learning first: We are revamping our grantee reporting practices, which will provide new structures, tools and guidance to ensure reporting is easy and best serves the learning needs of both the grantee and the foundation.

We also know that changes at the broader organizational level are necessary to ensure we our clear about our strategies and approach. We will be working to:

Increase transparency on strategy and results: We will be clearer with grantees about our strategies, the approaches we take with our grantmaking, and the learning and results we have achieved to date.
Support program staff development: We have launched an Excelling at Grantmaking program to support staff to improve their ability to form strong relationships with grantees that are supportive and produce shared learning.

I’m excited about the new course we’ve set for our grantmaking practice through the changes I’ve described. Democracy Fund is maturing from our start-up phase at a critical moment for our democracy. Our grantees are engaged in profoundly important work that will shape the future of this country. To meet the challenges ahead, our grantees and partners need us to be at our best. We are committed to improving and most effectively supporting our grantee’s efforts. By continuing to listen to one another, we’ll rise to the occasion together.

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2017 Was a Record Breaking Year for Giving to Nonprofit News, Here is Why

Josh Stearns

June 27, 2018

As trusted information providers, local and nonprofit journalism organizations play an essential role in providing news that communities rely on to stay informed, make decisions and participate in civic life. In the wake of the digital disruption of news and declining trust in the media, there is an urgent need to redouble funding for local and state coverage to ensure the nonprofit journalism sector can fulfill its democratic mission.

That is why the Democracy Fund, Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, Knight Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation came together in 2017 to launch NewsMatch, a national matching-gift campaign to grow fundraising capacity in nonprofit newsrooms and promote giving to journalism among U.S. donors.

A new study released this month by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University revealed that from 2010 to 2015 nearly $1.8 billion in grants were given in support of journalism. However, only a small fraction, about 4.5%, went toward nonprofit local and state reporting. The report also found significant and troubling geographical gaps, with the majority of philanthropic dollars ending up in a few coastal cities.

NewsMatch was designed from the ground up to respond to the gaps that the Harvard research now highlights so clearly. It supported newsrooms in almost every state, brought new foundations and donors in, and expanded the capacity of journalism nonprofits to develop support from their community.

Today we are releasing the results of an external evaluation of NewsMatch as well as our reflections on what we learned over the past year.

In 2017 NewsMatch provided 109 newsrooms with more than 500 hours of fundraising training, a professional campaign toolkit, national marketing around the importance of contributing to nonprofit news, targeted advertising using $100,000 in ad credits donated by Facebook, and a 1:1 match of individual donations, up to $28,000 per news organization. Nearly all 109 organizations who participated in NewsMatch raised more money, from more donors than ever before. In total NewsMatch helped raise nearly $5 million for local and investigative journalism and inspired 43,000 new donors to give to nonprofit news. Those are just the topline results. The report dives deep into how NewsMatch was structured, what worked and what didn’t.

We are currently raising dollars for NewsMatch 2018 in hopes of making it even bigger than last year. Several updates to the 2018 program reflect the evaluation’s suggestions:
As in 2017, NewsMatch is open to members of the Institute for Nonprofit News. The deadline to apply is Aug. 1, 2018.

We will support nonprofit news organization’s membership models by matching the full-year value of new recurring donations during NewsMatch.
We will offer extra bonuses to small and medium organizations that show they have measurably improved their fundraising capacity over 2017.
We recognize that individual donors support nonprofit news in many ways and will match gifts made by individuals through their businesses and family foundations.

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Report

Supporting Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Journalism

Katie Donnelly And Jessica Clark

June 19, 2018

Efforts in journalism to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over the past decade have been ineffective in creating dynamic change in the stories, sources, and staff of news outlets in the United States.

Clearly, the dramatic financial downturn in newspaper advertising revenue has placed strain on all legacy journalism organizations. However, those dynamics alone do not explain the persistent gap in employment opportunities between minorities and their white counterparts seeking jobs in journalism following college graduation. Or excuse the historic leadership failure of large and profitable outlets to fulfill their promise to diversify their ranks, which has an outsized impact on communities of color given the dearth of opportunity at smaller newsrooms.

The purpose of this report is to begin to understand philanthropic interventions supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism from 2009 – 2015. As a foundation new to DEI funding in journalism, which has not made any grants in this area during the period under consideration, we plan to use this report to identify major funders and recipients of institutional grants.

This report represents our first attempt to get at this information using data from Foundation Maps for Media Funding, created by the Foundation Center for Media Impact Funders. We are aware of the many limits of this data set due to self-reporting and challenges in categorization. Even with those challenges we are proud of the work that Katie Donnelly and Jessica Clark at Dot Connector Studio have done so far to illuminate larger trends and we plan to use this report as a launchpad into further analysis of the organizations supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in journalism.

We are already getting started. We are partnering with funders including the Knight Foundation and Open Society Foundations to support data training from the Ida B. Wells Society; News Integrity Initiative and Gates Foundation in leadership training from the Maynard Institute; Ford Foundation to support the National Association of Black Journalists; Google News Initiative with the revamp of the ASNE Diversity survey led by Dr. Meredith Clark; Nathan Cummings in support of DEI initiatives at CUNY; MacArthur and McCormick Foundations with new approaches in Chicago like City Bureau and the Obsidian Collection; and Heising-Simons Foundation in paid internship with the Emma Bowen Foundation.

At Democracy Fund, our approach to journalism is focused on building trust and engagement. We break our Engaged Journalism Strategy into three tracks focused on (I) Audience-Driven Storytelling, (II) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and (III) promoting Transparency.

Through our Audience-Driven Storytelling work we invest in innovations and projects that support journalists in reorienting their work towards a focus on the concerns of their audience. This involves building inclusion into newsroom practices, supporting universities as teaching hospitals for innovation, creating communities of practice around engagement, and developing new practices, people, and products hard-wired for engagement.

Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work focuses on improving the diversity of sources, stories, and staff in news outlets. This work involves creating an inclusive environment at news outlets; recruiting, retaining, and promoting diverse staff, including leadership; and working to develop and sustain minority ownership of media properties.

In our Transparency work, we seek to help news outlets and the public better understand one another. We are committed to supporting innovations in engaged journalism through grantmaking, partnerships, and collaboration to strengthen the Fourth Estate and the democratic principles on which our nation is founded. This report is part of that commitment. We will continue to seek opportunities to collaborate with news outlets, journalism support organizations, and partner funders to achieve this goal.

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The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University to receive grants totaling $6.5 million

Democracy Fund

February 22, 2018

NEW YORK (February 22, 2018) — The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University announced today that Democracy Fund, First Look Media, and the Charles Koch Foundation will provide a total of $6.5 million to support the Institute’s work defending the freedoms of speech and the press. Democracy Fund and First Look Media, both part of the Omidyar Group, have pledged a total of $3.25 million over five years in general operating support. The Charles Koch Foundation has pledged $3.25 million over five years to help support the Institute’s litigation program, and this contribution will be matched by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation under a challenge grant that was announced when Columbia University and Knight Foundation established the Institute in 2016.

“We’re grateful to Democracy Fund, First Look Media, and the Charles Koch Foundation for their significant and vital support of our work,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director. “The freedoms of speech and the press are under extraordinary stress right now. The privatization of the public square, the emergence of new technologies of disinformation and suppression, the expansion of the surveillance state, the steady creep of government secrecy, the draconian treatment of whistleblowers, the demonization of the media by the nation’s most senior officials – all of these present urgent threats to First Amendment freedoms. These new resources will enable us to confront these threats with new vigor.”

The Knight First Amendment Institute was established in 2016 by Columbia University and Knight Foundation to fortify First Amendment freedoms in the digital age. The Institute seeks to address 21st century challenges and develop 21st century approaches to the First Amendment, with a current concentration on strengthening legal frameworks for government transparency, reviving the First Amendment as a constraint on government surveillance, and protecting the integrity and vitality of public discourse. In the past year, the Institute has developed a cutting-edge litigation docket, launched an innovative research program, and hosted public programs that have featured some of the most provocative and insightful thinkers at the intersection of law, journalism, and technology.

“First Amendment freedoms are essential to active civic participation in the public square and a robust free press that helps hold power to account,” said Democracy Fund President Joe Goldman. “The Knight Institute is well positioned to address the new challenges facing the First Amendment in our digital age. We are proud to join the ranks of the Institute’s supporters and to pair our support with the grant from the Charles Koch Foundation.”

“We’re heartened to stand alongside the Democracy Fund, Knight Foundation, and First Look Media, with whom we share a commitment to openness, free expression, and a strong, free press,” said Charles Koch Foundation President Brian Hooks. “The full range of First Amendment freedoms are vital to a dynamic and open society. As these freedoms confront new and concerning threats, the Knight Institute plays a critical role in defending and preserving them.”

“Journalism is under assault. It’s imperative we support the mission of the Knight Institute to ensure the First Amendment is vigorously protected for the good of the public,” said Michael Bloom, CEO of First Look Media. “We’re proud to stand for free speech, fearless journalism and transparency in government so that our democracy functions as it was intended.”

The grants announced today build on support from the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Hewlett Foundation, Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Laura and John Arnold, as well as from Columbia University. The grant of $3.25 million over five years from Democracy Fund and First Look Media will provide unrestricted support for the full range of the Institute’s programming. The $3.25 million grant over five years from the Charles Koch Foundation will help endow the Institute’s litigation program and will be matched by Knight Foundation, which committed in 2016 to provide the Institute with $25 million in endowment funding to be matched by Columbia University or other sources.

“These new contributions help ensure that the Knight Institute will be a champion of free expression as the First Amendment is litigated and interpreted in a digital media world,” said Alberto Ibargüen, Knight Foundation president and Knight Institute board member. “The diversity of views among the donors is a thrilling testament to the foundational importance of free speech in our society.”

In the coming year, the Knight Institute will carry forward and expand its litigation docket, which currently includes a landmark lawsuit regarding government censorship on social media, a challenge to the Department of Justice’s refusal to disclose legal memos that constitute the binding law of the executive branch, and an effort to shed light on border agents’ practice of searching travelers’ laptops and cellphones. As part of its “Emerging Threats” series, which grapples with newly arising structural threats to free expression, the Institute will be publishing essays on the regulation of social media, antitrust, intermediary liability, over-classification, and the press clause. On March 23, the Institute will co-host a symposium with the Columbia Law Review on “Free Speech in an Age of Inequality.”

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About the Knight Institute
The Knight First Amendment Institute is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization established by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to defend the freedoms of speech and press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, and public education.

For more information, contact the Knight Institute at ujala.sehgal@knightcolumbia.org.
About Democracy Fund
Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that our political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Since 2011, Democracy Fund has invested more than $70 million in support of effective governance, modern elections, and a vibrant public square. For more, visit democracyfund.org.

About First Look Media
A bold, independent spirit defines everything we do at First Look — from journalism that holds the powerful accountable, to art and entertainment that shape our culture. Launched by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, First Look Media is built on the belief that freedom of expression and of the press, diverse voices, and fiercely independent perspectives, are vital to a healthy democracy and a vibrant culture.

About Charles Koch Foundation
More than 50 years ago, Charles G. Koch began supporting education in the belief that everyone has the ability to learn, contribute, and succeed if they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. The Charles Koch Foundation, founded in 1980, continues this work by funding research and education that helps people expand their horizons, develop their skills, and help others. Through grants to nearly 350 colleges and universities nationwide and non-profit organizations, the Foundation connects scholars, students, and partners with the resources to explore diverse ideas and solutions that meet the challenges of our day. For more information visit charleskochfoundation.org.

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$3.25 Million to Support Knight First Amendment Institute

Tom Glaisyer

February 22, 2018

A range of technological, economic, and cultural forces are putting new pressures on the First Amendment — a pillar of our Bill of Rights. The freedoms of speech and of the press protected in the First Amendment ensure that Americans can openly participate in civic life and have access to a robust, free press that helps hold power accountable. Without these freedoms, the promise of a vibrant public square — both physical and digital — can be easily manipulated and the health of our democracy suffers.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, under the direction of Jameel Jaffer, is a new leader in the fight to protect the First Amendment against both longstanding and emerging threats. Today, Democracy Fund with our colleagues at First Look Media announced a general operating support grant of $3.25 million to support the Institute because their research, litigation, and public education efforts are an important building block in our support for First Amendment freedoms — especially our commitment to ensuring freedom of the press.

There have been many rhetorical attacks on the press in 2016 and 2017, and many concerns that these attacks will chip away at trust in the press and consequently result in tangible constraints on the news media. This concern is one shared by experts outside the country as evidenced by the new Inter-American Press Association mission to the United States, where free press advocates from other countries in North and South America are visiting to talk with US legislators and others about their concerns for press freedom here. The founding of the Press Freedom Tracker by a consortium of groups, including Democracy Fund grantees Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, ASNE, Online News Association, PEN America, and Free Press is further evidence.

No less significant a concern is the fact that our First Amendment freedoms are under extraordinary stress from a parallel host of challenges associated with digital technologies. The move from print and broadcast to always-on digital distribution and engagement with news has yielded huge benefits in the free flow of information. Yet there is much that needs to be understood about how the platforms operate and how they address issues that concern press freedom. There is an emerging consensus that our new digital public square is subject to manipulation by nefarious actors, and we see example after example of how those who do participate in public conversation can be subjected to harassment and trolling. These trends raise profound questions that require serious answers, including an understanding of how the market place of ideas can work in a digital age where the limiting factor is often human attention.

This is why we have provided significant support to the fast-growing Knight Institute. Though it was only created in 2016 following a significant commitment by the Knight Foundation, it has made its mark quickly with strategic litigation, research, and public education efforts in three areas:

Strengthening legal frameworks for government transparency;
Reviving the First Amendment as a constraint on government surveillance; and
Protecting the integrity and vitality of public discourse

We are very pleased to announce this support in parallel with the Charles Koch Foundation’s grant of $3.25 million and to join the long list of other foundations and supporters who have previously invested in the Knight Institute — including the Knight Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Hewlett Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Laura and John Arnold, and Columbia University. Broad support from such a range of foundations and donors underscores the critical importance of the freedoms of speech and the press to our democracy, ensures its independence, and reinforces the shared belief that the Knight Institute is well positioned to identify and navigate new threats to these freedoms.

Back to Ideas

NewsMatch Leads to Record Setting Year for Nonprofit News

Josh Stearns

February 14, 2018

We launched NewsMatch — a $3 million fund to match donations to nonprofit newsrooms — because we believe that strengthening local and investigative journalism is critical to a healthy democracy. The fund was a partnership with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation designed to make 2017 a record-breaking year for giving to local and investigative journalism.

The results are in, and NewsMatch was a resounding success. Nearly every one of the more than 100 newsrooms who participated raised more dollars from more donors than ever before.

From October 1 to December 31, NewsMatch raised more than $4.8 million from individual donors and a coalition of foundations.
Local newsrooms raised even more on top of NewsMatch: in total, more than 202,000 donors contributed $33 million to local, nonprofit newsrooms.
Of those 202,000 donors, 43,000 were new donors giving to an organization for the first time.

There is no doubt that NewsMatch helped strengthen journalism in America over the last three months, and supported the growth of charitable giving to newsrooms. Together, the 100+ local and national participants received nearly 320,000 more donations, from 77,000 more donors in 2017, compared to 2016.

What made NewsMatch a success? We are undertaking an in-depth evaluation of last year’s program to see what lessons we can learn from our efforts. However, we know three key things that made NewsMatch stand out this year.

1. Creating New Platforms for Journalism Philanthropy

We created the first one-stop platform for donating to nonprofit news. At NewsMatch.org, donors could give to more than 100 newsrooms with one transaction — simplifying the process for donors and inviting more to join.

Beyond individual donors, we also built the NewsMatch campaign as a platform for partnerships between local and national foundations. Over the course of last fall, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the News Integrity Initiative, the Wyncote Foundation, The Gates Family Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation all joined NewsMatch as partners, creating double and triple matches for many of the participating organizations. Around the country, local newsrooms also set up at least 20 other matching efforts with local funders and donors, further extending the reach and impact of this program.

2. Building the Capacity of the Nonprofit News Sector

NewsMatch has always been about more than raising money. From the start, our campaign was designed to build the long-term capacity of nonprofit newsrooms to connect with their communities and cultivate support from their readers. In partnership with the Institute for Nonprofit News and the News Revenue Hub, we created a stockpile of campaign templates, provided weekly guidance for small newsrooms who lack big fundraising teams, and offered weekly coaching and training webinars.

We have seen the impact of this work in the dramatic increase of year-by-year giving and in the boost of new donors — both of which bode well for the field. “With the support of NewsMatch, we had a record setting year, more than doubling the donations we received in past years,” Lauren Fuhrmann of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism told us. “NewsMatch provided the roadmap, tech support, and national exposure that we needed to have our most successful year-end fundraising drive ever.”

3. Raising Awareness About the Need to Support Nonprofit News

While public media and some nonprofit magazines have been around for decades, the current generation of local and investigative journalism organizations are relatively new. For the most part, people aren’t accustomed to giving to nonprofit news. We understood that it wasn’t enough for NewsMatch to double donations if people didn’t understand the importance of donating in the first place. NewsMatch elevated nonprofit news through #GivingNewsDay, which saw journalists, celebrities, and politicians on both sides of the aisle talking about the importance of donating to nonprofit newsrooms. Public voices like Mark Ruffalo, Michael Kelly, Cara Mund (Miss America), Katy Tur, Greta Van Susteren, and others joined the effort. Additionally, Facebook donated $100,000 in free advertising to publicize NewsMatch and its participating newsrooms.

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

This work would not have been possible without our partner funders, grantees, and newsrooms who brought such creativity and passion to the project. We are especially grateful to Lindsey Linzer at the Miami Foundation — which hosted the fund — and Jason Alcorn, who served as project manager.

NewsMatch catalyzed a lot of energy and proved that people support reporting they trust and rely on: but it is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. No one campaign can reverse what has been lost from local news and investigative journalism over the last decade of layoffs and cutbacks, but we are nonetheless optimistic. We continue to be encouraged by the rising nonprofit news sector and intrigued by what it can mean for renewing public service journalism as a core part of our communities. At Democracy Fund, we are committed to investing in the people and organizations who are helping build a brighter future for local news, and we look forward to continuing this work with NewsMatch in the future.

Back to Ideas

Local People Will Create the Future of Local News

Teresa Gorman

February 7, 2018

Josh Stearns co-authored this piece with Teresa Gorman.

Local news is critical to a healthy democracy, and we believe that the future of local news is local. This simple idea has shaped the way Democracy Fund has thought about its work to support and strengthen the public square in America.

Today we are announcing two new locally-based and locally-driven funds — totaling more than $2 million — that will invest in ideas, people and organizations that are working to ensure people have access to the news and information they need in these communities. The funds will focus on building more vibrant news ecosystems as vital parts of just communities and a healthy democracy.

These funds are not focused on maintaining the status quo in local news, but on pushing forward changes that improve how journalism serves the public and makes news and information more resilient over the long term. Through these funds, we will work closely with local partners to increase giving to local news and invest in long-term solutions — over short-term fixes — especially in the areas of business models, collaboration and community engagement.

In New Jersey, we will build on our previous work in partnership with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the Knight Foundation by establishing the New Jersey Local News Lab Fund with $1.3 million over two years. New Jersey has become a bold laboratory for new models of collaboration, revenue experiments, and community engagement (read more about previous work in New Jersey in this report). This new fund will continue that momentum and help broaden the work there beyond newsrooms to other civic information networks and institutions.

The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund is the start of a new multi-year commitment to the state. We are kicking off the fund with $700,000 for the first 18 months. The work we’ve done in New Jersey to strengthen their news ecosystem will inform our work, but we recognize that this new fund must be built to respond to the unique local context of North Carolina. To that end, we commissioned local journalist and community organizer Fiona Morgan to undertake a year-long research project on the strengths and challenges of local news and information in North Carolina.

The two funds, housed at the Community Foundation of New Jersey and North Carolina Community Foundation, will be managed by advisory groups made up of local stakeholders and Democracy Fund. As a national funder we recognize that we are guests in these communities and have set these funds up to ensure funding decisions are rooted in local knowledge and experience. We take seriously the advice from longtime philanthropy leader Pru Brown who wrote in a paper prepared for Democracy Fund, “ultimately, perhaps the most useful lens for place-based philanthropy is asking at every stage whether the decisions the national foundation is making and the way it is operating promote or undermine local ownership.”

A key goal of these funds is to catalyze new momentum locally around supporting local public-interest news that serves all communities. As such, both funds are built as open platforms for partnership with other funders and donors. We are working closely with local and regional foundations in each state to expand the size of the funds, leveraging even more dollars to support local news and information efforts. That work is ongoing, and we look forward to sharing more about the amazing partners we are working with in the coming weeks and months.

This work is just a piece of Democracy Fund’s broader work on local news, which includes the national NewsMatch campaign, revenue research, and shared services like Membership Puzzle Project and News Revenue Hub. Additionally, Democracy Fund supports bridge builders and network connectors in local regions who are on the frontlines of weaving together stronger news ecosystems through collaboration and capacity building.

We are thrilled and humbled by this work and by the people who are working with us. Democracy Fund is committed to working in deep partnership with local communities, to learning, and to operating transparently and openly. If you are interested in working with us reach out at LocalNewsLab@democracyfund.org and sign up for our weekly newsletter The Local Fix.

The 2016 election and its aftermath

Lessons for other funders

Conclusion

Here are just a few of the key things we learned:

“We are committed to improving and most effectively supporting our grantees’ work.”

​1. Creating New Platforms for Journalism Philanthropy

​2. Building the Capacity of the Nonprofit News Sector

​3. Raising Awareness About the Need to Support Nonprofit News

1. Creating New Platforms for Journalism Philanthropy

2. Building the Capacity of the Nonprofit News Sector

3. Raising Awareness About the Need to Support Nonprofit News