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Announcing a New Fund to Fight Misinformation

Tom Glaisyer

March 12, 2017

Misinformation, hoaxes, and propaganda are nothing new, but the internet and new technology have made it easier than ever to create and share viral deceptions. The spread of fake information and false stories erodes trust in our democratic institutions and fans the flames of hyper-partisanship.

However, those same tools also give us new opportunities to combat and debunk bad information, and help deliver accurate and trustworthy journalism to more people than ever.

That is why today a coalition of foundations including Democracy Fund, Knight and Rita Allen Foundations are launching a joint fund to support creative ideas to address the question: how might we improve the flow of accurate information?

Democracy Fund is committed to supporting innovative people and ideas that help combat viral deception and reinvigorate trust in the press. We hope this prototype fund sparks creativity and collaboration to ensure our political system is able to deliver on its promise to the American people. We expect to award up to $1 million in grants with an average size of about $50,000. Each grant comes with a two-day training on building and evolving ideas through prototyping.

We understand that these are profoundly complex issues and that people negotiate trust, navigate information, and seek out context in very different ways. We don’t believe there is any one silver-bullet, but instead want to engage a diverse set of stakeholders around these problems. We welcome early stage projects from engineers and educators, librarians and lawyers, and reporters and researchers, and more. Good ideas can come from anywhere so we’ll be reaching out to communities and local newsrooms all across the country—in both rural and urban areas, through red states and blue states, on the coasts and from the middle of the country.

The deadline is April 3rd at 5pm ET. Click here to read a FAQ for more information or apply today.

In the press release today our partner foundations write: “The call is seeking diverse ideas on topics ranging from, but not limited to, the role of algorithms in news consumption, methods for separating facts from fiction, building bridges across ideological divides and strategies for ensuring journalism organizations are authentic to the communities they serve.”

Democracy Fund is particularly interested in ideas from diverse communities and local newsrooms around the country, where people are exploring how engagement, transparency, and context are helping sort fact from fiction. Those peddling in misinformation have used the Internet to their advantage, but everyday people show that the web can be a powerful tool for truth as well. It’s time to turn the tables.

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Press Release

NewsMatch Raises $4.8 Million for Nonprofit News

Democracy Fund

February 14, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

# # #

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

About Democracy Fund:
The Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that our political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Since 2011, Democracy Fund has invested more than $60 million in support of effective governance, modern elections, and a vibrant public square. For more, visit democracyfund.org.

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

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

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

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

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

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Introducing the new Local News Lab

Tom Glaisyer

February 10, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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6 Things To Know On #GivingTuesday

Emma Thomson

November 29, 2016

As Americans head back to work with full hearts after Thanksgiving, we have an annual opportunity to support nonprofit organizations in the work they do year round. While there are plenty of reasons to give, here are six tips to keep in mind:

1. Think about today’s priorities

There’s no shortage of needs from which to choose – from education and advocacy to meeting basic needs, there are plenty of great options! We’re partial to democracy issues.

2. Check the charity rating on a resource like Charity Navigator

Before you give, confirm that the organization is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit and in good standing.

3. Donate directly through the charity

Eliminate the middle man! By contributing directly to the charity via its website or another way, you’re making sure the beneficiary gets the whole donation.

4. Earmark your contribution for a specific program or need

Passionate about a certain program or area in which a nonprofit works? You’ll be more invested in your donation if you know that it’s going to something you care about.

5. Take advantage of your workplace’s matching gifts benefit

Do your employee benefits include an opportunity for matching gifts? If so, make sure to report your giving to qualifying charities to double the impact.

6. Generosity is good!

In addition to benefits like better mental health and stress management, giving makes you feel good and is a great way to pay your good fortune forward.

The Democracy Fund is grateful to our grantees who are making a difference for the American people. We support them because we believe in their commitment to making Americans’ voices come first in our democracy. This #GivingTuesday, we can all make a difference!

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Mapping Systems is… Complex

Joe Goldman

March 31, 2016

“Systems thinking” and the practice of mapping complex systems increasingly looks like the next big trend in philanthropy. Popping up at conferences and in reports from respected experts and leaders, a systems view has the advantage of recognizing the inherent complexity of the topics that philanthropy often attempts to address.

The Democracy Fund adopted systems thinking when it launched last year and has spent the past year experimenting with a methodology to map the dynamic patterns and causal relationships that shape how systems involved with local journalism, elections, and Congress are influencing the health of our democracy. Our efforts have born significant fruit, but it has certainly not been easy.

In the spirit of collaboration and transparent learning, we thought that it would be useful to share some of the things that we’ve experienced during the process of developing system maps.

In an earlier blog post, I shared a bit about why we chose to adopt a systems approach. Our hope was that this orientation would help the Democracy Fund to avoid the trap of oversimplifying the challenges facing our democracy and provide us with tools to have greater leverage in strengthening it.

We recently published our first systems map focused on the health of local news and participation. As we continue to refine this and other maps, we are beginning to think about what they can tell us about finding leverage to change important incentives that are driving behavior. You can learn more about our approach to systems thinking here.

When we began the process of developing our systems maps, we hired an external evaluator (the wonderful Robin Kane) to travel with us on this journey and help to identify major learning along the way. Robin has so far produced two interim reports to help us check in on how our experience with systems mapping is lining up with what our initial expectations had been when we went into the process.

Several major themes jump out from Robin’s reports:

Shifts in Perceived Outcomes: As we wait to see other benefits of the process, our team has increasingly seen the value of our mapping exercise in its ability to provide us with a sophisticated means to communicate with our board and external partners about the environment in which we are working. The complexity of the map helps us to explain that there are no easy answers and that responses require multi-pronged approaches. It exposes the underlying logic of our strategies and helps to reveal where there are gaps in our analysis. The maps have also helped us to communicate with potential partners who can see their own work in the maps. We continue to hope that the mapping will help us to more effectively identify potential leverage to create change in the system, but the jury is still out on that front.
Interrogating a Map: We have been surprised how difficult it is for board members and other advisors to dig into and learn from a map outside of the context of a proposed strategy. Without the outline of a potential strategy, it is hard to know where greater detail or a narrower “zoom” is required because so many subjective choices are made during a mapping process about what to include and what to exclude for communication purposes. As a consequence, we’ve had to rethink the sequencing of our process and how we engage with our board around both the maps and our emerging strategies.
Confusion and Doubt: Ongoing questions and doubts about whether mapping will yield significant new insights have dogged our systems mapping from the beginning. More art than science, the process requires a faith that the time put in will yield more new insights than other approaches to strategy development. As we have been “building the plane, while we fly it,” we have had to cope with not having a clear road map about how to get to the next phase of our work.
Progress and Growth: While the process of developing maps has been time consuming and difficult, it has forced each of our program teams to think hard about the problems on which they are working and the solutions that they have pursued. Each team has consulted with dozens of experts and leaders, sharpening our overall understanding of the issues on which we are working. A strong sense of pride on what has been accomplished came across strongly from staff interviews by our evaluator.

In the coming months, we will complete additional maps on Congress, our election system, and other key topics. From each map, we will develop and approve strategies for the Democracy Fund’s work in the coming years. As we do so, our intention is to continue to learn from the process and share our learnings with you as we do.

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Guest Post: To Strengthen Democracy in America, Think Tech

Micah Sifry

January 5, 2016

A decade-and-a-half into the digital century, the vast majority of large foundations concerned with strengthening American democracy don’t seem to get tech. According to the new Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy tool recently launched by Foundation Center, out of a total of 18,446 grants awarded since 2011 by more than 1,300 funders focused on the broad range of issues and efforts related to democracy, just 962 have been focused on technology.

What’s more, that represents only $215 million out of a total of $2.435 billion awarded to study and/or reform campaigns, elections, and voting systems; expand civic participation; research or upgrade government performance; and/or study the workings of the media and improve public access to media. The Foundation Center tool also reveals that the universe of foundations making technology-related grants is much smaller, at 186, than the overall funder pool, as is the recipient base.

I should note that the data in Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy includes grantmaking by the thousand largest U.S. foundations and several hundred smaller funders. Because much of the data are drawn from IRS tax returns, there’s a considerable lag involved in the IRS making the returns available to Foundation Center. As a result, the data set is only complete through 2012. The fact that the $78 million awarded for technology funding in 2011 declined to $61 million in 2012 and $58 million in 2013 does not necessarily indicate a trend. New data will be added to the platform on a weekly basis, and the totals for 2013 and 2014 are likely to increase.

Still, there are a number of things to be learned from this interactive mapping tool about how the philanthropic sector views technology as a strategy for supporting U.S. democracy, especially compared to other strategies such as coalition-building, litigation, grassroots organizing, advocacy, research, and general/unrestricted support.

First, and most glaring, is the fact that, as late as 2012, the vast majority of foundations concerned with some aspect of democracy in the United States made no grants for technology. As my Civic Hall co-founder and colleague Andrew Rasiej likes to say, “Technology isn’t a piece of the pie, it’s the pan.” Apparently, most American foundations still think it’s just a slice of the larger picture rather than a set of tools and capacities that can change the whole landscape.

Second, of the 186 funders who understand the potential of technology to multiply the impact of their grantees’ efforts, just 17 are responsible for half the total number of grants included in the data set. They include many names familiar to anyone who has tried to raise money for nonprofit tech work: Ford, Knight, the California Endowment, Open Society, Gates, Irvine, the Comcast Foundation, Sloan, Omidyar Network, McCormick, Kellogg, Levi Strauss, MacArthur, Surdna, VOQAL, and Hewlett. Six of them — Knight, Ford, Gates, Omidyar, the California Endowment, and Sloan — provide more than half of the money tracked, which means many grantees could be thrown for a loop if any one of those six decided to sunset or stop funding tech. At the same time, many other high-profile funders allocate relatively small amounts to tech-related grantmaking.

The failure of most American foundations to add technology to their grant portfolios is surprising, especially this far along in the digital age. I suspect it’s because many foundations are still averse to new approaches, viewing them as risky and unproven. That said, tech-savvy foundations have a lot to be proud of. Support for projects like Creative Commons, the Sunlight Foundation, Code for America, the Center for Civic Media at MIT, the Voting Information Project, Patients Like Me, the Citizen Engagement Lab, and Democracy Works/TurboVote has paid huge benefits, fostering a worldwide ecosystem of shareable knowledge, a burgeoning open data movement, the launch of the U.S. Digital Service, the creation of online digital movements engaging millions of active participants, and the provision of timely voter registration and polling place information to tens of millions of people. Our democracy is measurably stronger because many more people and organizations have greater and more affordable access to the political process as a result.

Recently, a number of major foundations — Knight, Open Society, MacArthur, and Ford — announced the Netgain Challenge, a major new commitment to support the open Internet. It’s great they’re doing this, but they are all among the usual forward-thinking foundations you’d expect to be involved in such an effort. While I applaud their vision and intent, I also believe it’s long past time for some of the other heavy-hitters in the sector to step up, stop editing risk out of their portfolios, and make some big bets on tech.

Micah Sifry is the co-founder and executive director of Civic Hall, a community center for civc tech based in New York City and a Democracy Fund Grantee. This is a repost of the second in a series of ten posts on the Foundation Center’s Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy tool, of which the Democracy Fund is a supporter.

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Combining Media, Tech, and Election Ideas to Increase Civic Participation

Jessica Mahone

March 17, 2015

Political participation in the U.S. is often reduced to Americans’ engagement in federal elections. During campaigns, political observers combine available data and anecdotes to speculate on whether a candidate has the ground, financial, and likely-voter support to win the White House or a given congressional seat. After Election Day, many of the same pundits lament low voter participation rates, as in the 2014 midterms when turnout was at its lowest since WWII.

Rarely do these conversations meaningfully consider what voters’ participation in campaigns and at the ballot box says about broader civic engagement — particularly when it comes to the down-ticket elections and ballot issues that aren’t top of mind or at the top of news cycles but actually make up the majority of questions on most ballots.

This, in part, is why the Democracy Fund recently joined with the Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation on a $3 million challenge to identify how we can better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during, and after elections. (Apply by 5 pm eastern on March 19th.)

The voter participation lag for state and local elections, particularly in off-cycle and midterm years, is typically well behind federal elections. In recent years, local turnout has been falling even further behind, plummeting to a low of approximately 18 percent in 2009 with an average turnout rate near 26 percent between 1996-2011. This is far below the already low 35.9 percent of eligible voters who cast ballots for federal candidates in November.

At the same time that we have seen declines in voting in local races, state and local journalism has also suffered. Local newspapers have shut down and the number of reporters devoted to state reporting has declined by 35 percent since 2003. The result is a local news environment trying to do more with less and in need of new tools to inform and engage voters at the local level. In this situation, citizens lack the information they need to make critical decisions about local and state issues.

While many factors may account for any voter’s decision to participate in a particular election, confidence in one’s knowledge and ability to influence our governing institutions and public squares are important factors. Fundamental to this knowledge is the need for innovative tools that make it easier for the public to access and use a huge range of information, from voter registration deadlines to in-depth reporting on urgent issues. The types of information that voters would find useful are myriad, and so are the platforms and projects that reporters, election officials, and academics, among others, could use to creatively deliver that information in ways that energize ongoing participation.

As the News Challenge brief states: “This contest is open to anyone, from journalists, students, civic technologists, and academics, to news organizations, businesses, nonprofits, governments and individuals. In addition to the projects that better inform voters and streamline the voting process, we hope to find some ideas that will increase civic participation beyond Election Day. We see democratic engagement as more than just the act of voting. It should be embedded in every part of civic life, extending before and after an election.”

The Democracy Fund seeks out organizations and partners that are working to ensure our political systems are responsive to the needs of the American public. It’s a complicated and long-term challenge that requires collaborations like this one, through which we hope to see innovative ideas that cross the media, technology and election administration fields in ways that could give voters the tools and information they need to engage on Election Day and beyond.

The Democracy Fund is partnering with the Knight Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation on Knight News Challenge: Elections, which asks the question, How might we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections? The best nonpartisan ideas will share in more than $3 million. Apply at newschallenge.org by 5 p.m. ET March 19. Winners will be announced in June.

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Funder Collaboration Launches $3 Million Competition to Better Inform and Engage Voters

Tom Glaisyer

February 12, 2015

UPDATE: The NewsChallenge is open until 5 pm eastern on March 19th. Apply now!

Today, the Democracy Fund joined with the Knight Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Rita Allen Foundation to launch a $3-million challenge to identify how can we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during, and after elections.

The Knight Foundation’s blog elaborates on this unique Knight News Challenge on elections: “We are looking for innovative ideas ranging from new ways that news media and others can inform voters, to making access to essential registration and polling information available, to making voting easy, efficient and fair, to converting election participation into longer-term civic engagement, on the local, state or national level.”

For the Democracy Fund, this partnership represents a unique opportunity to work with leading peer funders to support new and promising ideas from people across the media, technology, and election administration fields. We hope to see ideas and collaborations from civic technologists, state and local election officials, academics, students, startups, nonprofits, governments, and individuals.

The Democracy Fund has committed up to $250,000 to the competition, and we’re looking forward to working with our partners to inspire creativity, reach out to a wide array of potential applicants, and help ensure the success of the winning entrants.

The News Challenge will open on February 25, 2015. More information is available on the News Challenge’s web site.

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The Democracy Fund Relaunches as an Independent Foundation

Joe Goldman

June 30, 2014

We have incubated the Democracy Fund within Omidyar Network over the past three years as a unique philanthropic enterprise driven by Pierre Omidyar’s vision to address the perilous state of our democracy and rebuild public confidence in our political institutions. During this time, we have committed nearly $20 million to support organizations working to strengthen our media, improve the administration of our election and campaign finance systems, and foster more effective governance in the United States.

When Pierre asked me in the Spring of 2011 to develop this new program, I could not have imagined the incredible journey I was about to embark upon. Three years later, I am excited to share that the Democracy Fund will re-launch itself this summer as an independent private foundation within The Omidyar Group.

The Democracy Fund remains committed to the priorities we have set out in our three core initiatives. Our support for grantees like the Investigative News Network, the American Press Institute, Healthy Democracy, and the Engaging News Project will continue to foster innovative new practices within and outside of journalism to better inform voters. We will continue to work with grantees like Pew’s Elections Initiatives, TurboVote, the Committee for Economic Development, and Fund for the Republic to pursue common sense solutions for fixing our election and campaign finance systems. And our work with grantees like the Bipartisan Policy Center, the No Labels Foundation, the Faith & Politics Institute, and the National Institute for Civil Discourse will continue to build bridges across the aisle and seek out ways for our government to solve problems in the face of increased polarization.

Going forward, the Democracy Fund will collaborate with its peers to drive funds towards major gaps in the field. We will seek to complement our grant making with more direct involvement in pursuing our goals through advocacy, research, thought leadership, and convening. We will maintain a strong commitment to pursue bipartisan solutions to the challenges facing our political system.

Pierre has become Chairman of our new Board of Directors and will remain the sole funder of our work. I will transition from my role as Director to become President of the Democracy Fund. Tom Glaisyer and Adam Ambrogi will continue to direct our initiatives on Informed Participation and Responsive Politics respectively. They will be joined later this year by a third Program Director for our initiative on Problem Solving and Governance.

We are also pleased to share that Senior Consultant for Operations Margaret Yao will be joined by Tony Bowen as our Manager of Operations, Finance, and Grants Management. Natalie Adona and Megan Mohr have also joined our team as our first Democracy Fellows. Several additional members of the Democracy Fund will be announced in the coming weeks and months as we continue to grow our team.

Today, we posted two open Program Associate positions that we hope to fill over the summer. Please take a look at the job postings on our blog to learn more about the positions and how to apply.

We are deeply grateful to our colleagues at Omidyar Network who have served as mentors, partners, and friends over the past three years. Their work to create a world of positive returns inspires us and we continue to be guided by their values. Without their patient support and counsel, the Democracy Fund would not be the organization that it is today. We look forward to continued collaboration to advance our respective goals.

The Fourth of July is a time for us to reflect upon the founding values and vision of our nation. While the dream of a country that is truly governed “of, by, and for the people” may sometimes feel out of our reach, it is incumbent upon each of us to do our part as Americans to continue to carry the torch of democracy and combat those forces and trends that threaten to extinguish it. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable…Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” At the Democracy Fund, we are honored to have the opportunity and resources to contribute to this important struggle and hope that you will join us in the days, months, and years to come.

At this moment of transition and possibility, we remain as inspired as ever by the potential for the American people to come together and rise to meet the historic challenges facing our political system.

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How Do Foundations Support our Democracy?

Joe Goldman

June 7, 2014

This past week, the Democracy Fund and seven peer funders joined with the Foundation Center to launch the beta version of a new interactive map and database that documents how foundations fund our democracy and democracy reform. The new tool tracks funding across an intentionally broad set of categories, including money in politics, election reform, redistricting, civil liberties, open government, public administration, investigative journalism, media literacy, access to broadband internet, civic education, volunteerism, and public participation.

Our hope is that this new tool will help raise awareness about how the field is funded, so that we can make more strategic decisions about where dollars should go in the future. The map will also be helpful for new entrants into the field as they chart their own course and to prospective grantees who are seeking out new funders or partners.

The data remains incomplete and rough around the edges because of the challenges of compiling data on foundation funding and significant inconsistencies in how funders label and describe the grants that they make. Nevertheless, I find the current version to be tremendously helpful and am hopeful that the data will become significantly more complete over time.

Three things initially jumped out at me from reviewing the beta version of the tool.

First, while the overall amount of money going into the field is relatively large (about $450 million from 355 foundations to 1,570 recipients in 2012), the amount that is going into actual reform of our political system is shockingly low by almost any standard (and the total amount remains quite small compared to other major fields of reform). While these numbers are certainly incomplete, it appears that between $6.4M and $14.2M was invested in election and campaign finance reform efforts in 2012 (this does not include funds aimed at mobilizing voters.) Even if we assume that the actual numbers are twice as large, it is hard to look at this data and not be incredibly concerned.

Second, the fields within democracy reform are remarkably uneven in their development and maturity. In some subfields, like civil liberties, we can see strong anchor organizations (like the ACLU) and a wide diversity of funders. Other subfields,like campaign finance reform, appear to be quite fragmented and populated by organizations that are rather small relative to the challenges on which they are working.

Third, the field of democracy reform remains highly polarized. There appear to be very few areas where progressive and conservative funders are jointly funding work in the same area, let alone the same organizations, outside of the fields of civil liberties and volunteerism.

I hope that other funders, as well as reform leaders, will take advantage of this new tool to take part in collaborative discussions about the health of the political reform community and how we can guide funding flows in the future to produce stronger advocates and better reform. I am confident that it will shape the trajectory of the Democracy Fund and our partners going forward.

We are especially grateful to the Hewlett Foundation for their leadership in initiating this process and for the Foundation Center’s staff for their excellent work in creating the database and tool. This is incredibly hard work and everyone involved has demonstrated remarkable commitment and skill.

Please take a moment to visit the Foundation Center’s site and provide them with feedback on how the tool could be more complete and more useful.