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Democracy Fund Invests in the Promise of Representative Institutions

October 10, 2024

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 The stakes have become higher in each election, and our country remains stuck in an outdated political system that fails to reflect the will of most Americans.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2024 Representative Institutions Grantees

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

The 2024 Representative Institutions grantees include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Goldman

July 19, 2024

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

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

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Strengthening Democracy: The Crucial Role of Election Administrators

July 18, 2024

As we head into the presidential election, the pro-democracy movement must meet the moment to strengthen our democracy and ensure equitable participation, voice, and power in communities of color. This work happens on both sides of the ballot box – by increasing voter participation and by supporting election administrators who serve our diverse electorate.

On June 26, Democracy Fund hosted a webinar that focused on the trends and needs in the election administration field, featuring Amanda Litman, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Run for Something Civics and Virginia Kase Solomón, Executive Director of Common Cause Education Fund. The conversation, facilitated by Ebony West, Senior Associate at Democracy Fund, focused on the critical issues surrounding election administration in the United States, including the challenges and opportunities administrators are facing today and strategies to strengthen and diversify election administration leadership.

Since 2020, we have experienced a high level of attrition among election administrators as a result of low compensation, inadequate funding, and a hostile work environment due to growing threats against election administrators. And, despite our country becoming increasingly diverse, many election administration positions are still largely filled by older, white Americans who may be unaware of the challenges faced by marginalized communities in gaining equitable representation and access to the vote. Finally, many states have enacted restrictive voting laws, making the voting process more difficult for people of color, young people, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. However, thanks to the efforts of our panelists, their organizations, and others like them, we’re seeing inspiring progress to confront many of the challenges facing the election administration field.

One example of Run for Something Civics’ approach is exemplified in the Arizona Pima County recorder Gabriela Casarez Kelly, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation. Kelly successfully advocated for the reinstatement of early voting sites on the Pasquay Yankee reservation, significantly increasing accessibility and voter turnout. Her journey exemplifies the real-world impact of diversity in election administration.

We also heard about the work Common Cause Education Fund is doing to increase state-level funding for election offices so they have more resources for voter education and operations. In North Carolina, Common Cause North Carolina and Democracy North Carolina successfully advocated for increased funding to the Chatham County Board of Elections so they could hire an IT Specialist. These partnerships between election administrators and advocates are key to bolstering funding for elections so that they are accessible, secure, and responsive to voters.

The field of civil society organizations supporting election officials is small, but mighty. Organizations like Center for Tech and Civic Life, Center for Civic Design, and Public Rights Project are some of the few organizations who provide training and legal support to a field that continues to face an increasing amount of challenges including our ability to carry out a safe and fair election.

While these efforts show hope of a better, more representative democracy, this important work is at risk. The chronic challenge of underfunding in election administration has now been met with new operational challenges posed by escalating security threats. Election administrators are the last line of defense against abuse of power in our government, and their work needs our support.

Our ask is simple. Philanthropy must urgently prioritize long-term investments in the backbone of how our elections are run, election administration. Our support should support the strengthening of the workforce and the systems that make the voting process equitable. Civil society and election administrators must continue to deepen the relationship with each other to ensure we work together to solve the most urgent problems for the long-term health of our democracy.

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Meeting the Moment for the Pro-Democracy Movement

Joe Goldman

January 11, 2024

Ten years ago, Pierre Omidyar and I launched Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice after a three-year incubation inside Omidyar Network. The world has changed a lot since then, and so have we.

Over the past decade, Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice have committed $425 million in grants to strengthen American democracy. In that time, we have evolved and grown in our understanding of the perils facing our country and the importance of racial justice as fundamental to our work. We believe that achieving an inclusive multiracial democracy means we must fight for our democratic values now — while pursuing transformative changes that can unrig our political system.

As we enter the 2024 election season, the challenges in front of us are sobering. Despite overwhelming evidence of the dangers posed by authoritarians, new Democracy Fund research shows just how easily Americans will accept undemocratic actions if it benefits their side. For example, even though they say that they reject political violence, about half of Republicans describe the January 6 insurrection as an act of patriotism. While our grantees have worked to ensure consequences for those who tried to undermine our free and fair elections in 2020, the authoritarian threat has not subsided.

Today we face a set of challenges that create profound uncertainty about the future of our republic. The pro-democracy field cannot afford to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the high stakes or range of threats. We’ve risen to the moment before and we can do so again.

Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice are focused on ensuring the field is prepared and resourced for the challenges that may emerge before, during, and after the 2024 election cycle:

We are working on protecting free and fair elections by shoring up election administration.
We’re fighting back against mis- and disinformation.
We’re strengthening accountability systems for authoritarian abuses that could come in 2025.
We’re also calling on our peers to join us in making their nonpartisan election-related grants by April, so that groups have the resources they need in time.

While we stand up against urgent threats, we continue to pursue transformative change toward a political system that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. This work is complex and challenging, but innovators and advocates continue to make steady progress and real strides toward transformation.

For example, a decade ago, Democracy Fund began responding to warning signs that local journalism was under threat. The sector was seeing layoffs, newsrooms collapsing, racism and sensationalism were all too common, and communities were being left with little or no trustworthy reporting. Together with our grantee partners, however, we saw in this crisis an opportunity for reinvention. We saw the promise of promoting new business models and centering the voices of communities who were never well-served by traditional journalism. Today there is a growing and thriving landscape of non-profit journalism. A tremendous community of news innovators, including our grantees, have created a new way forward for civic journalism. It’s taken years of patient investment to build from a ripple to a wave — but today we see the wave.

This past fall, funders made a new commitment to scale these approaches. Democracy Fund and a coalition of 20 funders announced plans to invest more than $500 million into local news and information over the next five years. We see this as a down payment toward an even more ambitious vision to reimagine the place of local news in the life of communities and our democracy. Local news will never be what it once was, but Democracy Fund grantees have had the vision to rebuild it as something better. The work ahead of us, in journalism and across our democracy, will take more collective action like this.

Exactly what lies at the end of 2024 is uncertain, but with a clear focus on resourcing, mobilizing, and expanding the pro-democracy movement, our field can navigate the year. It is also the time to work with resilience and purpose on advancing the promising ideas that may grow to be the next wave of change for our democracy.

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Introducing Democracy Fund’s New Government Accountability Strategy

Rudy Mehrbani

July 26, 2023

Back in 2017, we realized we needed better ways to defend the rule of law and hold our leaders accountable – and fast. We were seeing abuses of power almost daily. They included things like the “Muslim Ban,” threats to ignore court orders and the disparaging of sitting judges, and coordinated efforts to obstruct an independent investigation into the foreign interference in the 2016 election. Politicians and government officials were repeatedly violating the institutional norms that underpin our foundational democratic values. Democracy Fund made its first government accountability-focused grants in direct response to this disturbing trend. We hoped that a swift response by leaders across the ideological spectrum would reverse it. Yet, it became clear that the incentives for abusing power were too strong and the existing guardrails were too weak.

Over the last five years, we explored ways to strengthen these guardrails, balance government powers, and bolster accountability measures to deter future abuses. Democracy Fund grantees worked tirelessly toward these goals by:

Helping Congress conduct more effective, fact-based oversight;
Spearheading groundbreaking litigation to impose limits on executive power;
Defending transparency measures to expose wrongdoing;
Highlighting the consequences of unethical, illegal or abusive acts;
Defending an independent counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and obstruction of justice by President Trump; and
Helping secure significant legislative reforms, including those that strengthen the ability of inspectors general and whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing in the executive branch and clarify the rules for certifying presidential elections and conducting transitions of power.

Despite these efforts, some of our worst fears were realized. The magnitude of the abuses multiplied, culminating in a mob attacking the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the two years since these attacks on our democracy, we built a strategy to address the growing threat of authoritarianism to our institutions. We are deeply troubled by how the authoritarian playbook is being implemented and replicated across states, cities, and towns across the country that are insufficiently resourced to respond. The communities often targeted include communities of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, the working class, and others who have been historically disenfranchised or intentionally marginalized by those in power.

Building toward a more accountable government

In 2021, Democracy Fund announced a new organization-wide vision to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement, while also working to weaken and dismantle those who threaten our republic and oppose a multi-racial democracy. In alignment with this vision, we examined our government accountability work.

After deep consultation with experts in the field, we realized a new approach was needed to address the sustained efforts of the increasingly authoritarian bloc in our politics. The existing guardrails in our system depend on the willingness of political actors to tolerate dissent and difference. But as we saw on January 6th, authoritarian movements have no patience for long-held norms, cross-ideological discourse, or even respect for legitimate electoral outcomes. We need to bolster our system to respond to abuse and deter future political violence. We also need to expand the coordination and reach of organizations responding to authoritarian actions and defending their communities’ rights and interests at all levels – including the state and local level.

We have transitioned our accountability work into two new initiatives. The first, Preventing Authoritarian Abuse of Power, may look familiar to those who have followed our work to date. This initiative will build on existing efforts to strengthen our federal institutions against abuses by the authoritarian movement. It will:

Work with Congress and through the courts to create robust guardrails against abuse. This includes developing and advancing reforms that would limit executive power, improve government transparency, protect whistleblowers, and firmly defend Congress’s constitutional role as a check on executive branch abuse.
Build more resilient federal institutions that can withstand future efforts to politicize their work. This includes strengthening internal and external accountability mechanisms that ensure these institutions work in the public’s interest, not solely in the interests of those in positions of power.
Hold accountable those who have engaged in unethical or illegal conduct. This includes deploying a range of tactics to deter and to respond to abuses, including civil litigation, support for independent investigations, public education, or other efforts.

Stopping abuses at the federal level remains essential — but focusing on federal institutions alone overlooks serious risks at the state and local levels, where abuses are spreading and disproportionately impact communities of color and other historically disenfranchised groups. Community organizers and advocates have long been under-resourced in their fight for accountability. To begin solving for this, we have created a new State and Local Accountability initiative that will:

Support state and local groups responding to authoritarian abuses of power. This will include direct support of groups working on the ground, particularly those groups addressing priority issues for communities of color or other historically disenfranchised groups. We recognize that local leaders and organizations are often in the best position to identify the key concerns for their communities and the tools and tactics that hold the most promise.
Create connective tissue across the accountability field. This will include efforts to build partnerships and connections between accountability groups working at the state and local level with groups working nationally to share knowledge, resources, and tools to improve accountability across all levels of government.

These areas of focus build on our learnings from the last five years. They are informed by conversations with our grantees about how philanthropy needs to respond in this moment of democratic crisis, and what is on the horizon if we fail to act.

Some changes you will see in our funding

Over the next five years, we are committing to building capacity and resilience to withstand future attacks on our democracy by the authoritarian movement.

While we’re not making any major changes, some key shifts you’ll see include:

Breaking the cyclical nature of accountability funding. We are committed to funding this work for the next five years. This means transitioning the work in our temporary special project on Government Accountability, Transparency, and Oversight to permanent initiatives at Democracy Fund. This will enable us to provide multi-year support to core accountability organizations.
Supporting organizations working on the ground at the state level. Previously, we focused on federal level policies, abuses, and interventions. Our State and Local Accountability initiative, however, will enable us to broaden the ways we think about stopping the authoritarian movement and build a more diverse field of allies.
Greater focus on connecting groups across sectors and silos. The authoritarian threat does not have clean boundaries, and neither can our grantmaking. Stopping this threat requires interventions across all levels and branches of government, and between government and community. It also requires a greater degree of coordination and collaboration between groups working at the federal level and those working in the states and resourcing those network- and field-building efforts.

As we move into our new strategies, we’re committed to continue learning and growing, and to being transparent, accessible, and accountable along the way. We are excited to invest in organizations that are fighting for a government that is accountable to the people, and that push back against abuses of power at all levels, and especially those abuses that most impact communities of color and marginalized groups.

Moving into the next five years

We are in a troubling new era of political and government malpractice that threatens to topple the pillars of our democracy. From the Tennessee state legislature’s expulsion of two lawmakers for protesting gun violence, to bills that ban teaching about racial history and LGBTQ+ issues, to the Supreme Court’s rollback of reproductive rights, we are seeing the authoritarian movement exert its power across the country. As their influence grows, so must our response to it. We are deeply grateful for your ongoing partnership, and as always we welcome your input to hold us accountable to our values.

In the coming months, we will have more to share as our full Governance program strategy takes shape. Stay tuned for updates, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team with any questions.

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Democracy Fund’s New Just and Inclusive Society Strategy

Shuya Ohno

March 21, 2023

Climate change is here. Unfortunately, that means that many of us across the globe will soon need to leave our homelands. Within the United States, people are already leaving the rising waters of the Gulf Coast to seek refuge further north. Others are fleeing the wildfires and droughts of California for safer places. And at the southern border, migrants from all over the world (no longer just points further south) are seeking a safer life in the United States. Last year, 100 million people were displaced globally due to conflicts and crises — a new record. Climate change is multiplying this crisis. The UN estimates that over the next 30 years, about one billion of us will need to move.

What does this displacement mean for democracy in the United States? In a nutshell: as global migration reaches unprecedented levels, white supremacy is rising to meet it. This has dangerous consequences.

From the start, the founders of American democracy designed our political system to exclude everyone but white, elite, male landowners. They built racism into our public institutions and society to exclude and marginalize people of color. As a way to protect this power structure, white nationalists have always pointed to migrants as a primary target for scapegoating. Today, white nationalists are using hostile, racist language to dehumanize migrants. This often leads to acts of discrimination and violence. It’s not surprising — this cycle has happened many times throughout this country’s history. But now that climate change is accelerating, we’re seeing it at a larger scale. It affects both migrants entering the United States from other countries, and migrants within the country.

Another factor to consider: our democracy is land-based. A person’s rights and representation are tied almost entirely to where they live. When we suddenly have to move, this becomes a problem. For example, an American citizen who flees a hurricane in South Carolina and takes refuge with family in Virginia still has a passport and basic protections under the Constitution. She could request an absentee ballot from her town in South Carolina, assuming the town is still functioning. But what happens when the impact of climate change is so extreme that an entire town or city is displaced? What would it mean for a city councilor, a state representative, or a member of Congress whose constituents all leave their districts?

At Democracy Fund, we are working to address these challenges. In April 2022, Democracy Fund announced our new organizational strategy with a commitment to investing in the power and leadership of communities of color to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement and undermine those who threaten the ideals of our inclusive, multiracial democracy. Over the past year, our Just and Inclusive Society program has revised its strategies in line with this new organizational strategy to better meet the moment we are in while building for the best version of our shared future.

Our new five-year strategy is the result of many thoughtful conversations with our grantees and experts from across the field. We cannot overstate how much we appreciate the experience, passion, and creativity of these organizations, whose staff are working on the frontlines of these issues. We look forward to continuing our collaborative approach with our grantees, as we aim for transformative impact together.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts on what elements excite you, and we know we have a weighty responsibility to help make these ideas a reality.

Building power for a welcoming and inclusive American democracy

We are working toward our vision of an American democracy that is welcoming and inclusive of all migrants and refugees, that actively supports their resettlement in a just and humane manner, and that builds social cohesion in the face of massive internal and external migration. To get there, we believe we need to support a broad-based intersectional social movement capable of inspiring hope over fear, instilling cooperation over competition, and instituting a sense of shared abundance over scarcity. At every step, the movement needs to be led by marginalized and most impacted communities who are integral members of the pro-democracy coalition fighting for a just and inclusive multi-racial democracy.

In support of this future, we will fund this intersectional movement through our Power-building in Marginalized Communities initiative. This initiative will focus on the intersectional movements led by refugees, migrants, and Black and brown communities. Our investments will support organizations and leaders to: (1) elevate stories and shift narratives around migration and refugeehood, (2) build a shared strategy and solidarity across movements, communities, and geographies, and (3) build power in marginalized communities.

This area of focus is a natural outgrowth of the work we began in 2017 to protect the civil rights and liberties of Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (BAMEMSA) communities who were targeted by the Trump Administration. This earlier work provided legal and policy support to immigrant rights and racial justice work, and helped mitigate the risks of political violence resulting from a resurgent authoritarian faction.

Our new strategy has been informed by our conversations with our grantees and partners about how philanthropy needs to meet this moment in our democracy. We listened deeply to what grantees said is happening now, and what is on the horizon. Our new strategy takes those challenges head on, guided by an advisory group including the Rise Together Fund, El Hibri Foundation, the Pillars Fund, Ford Foundation, and Unbound Philanthropy.

Some changes you will see in our funding

In the next five years, we are reorienting our focus from BAMEMSA communities to include broader refugee and migrant communities that have been and will be displaced by climate change, as a subset of our wider interest in supporting all marginalized communities. Key to that work will be a shift from providing direct services, to building capacity, power, and momentum across communities that will be sending and receiving migrants.

A few of the key shifts include:

Moving from prioritizing litigation to a power-building framework. We’re shifting from a responsive posture to one that proactively works to change the system. As the numbers of migrants increase, so too will the political rhetoric driven by fear, subverting or suppressing civil liberties and rights. We plan to focus on intervention points emerging from the increasing flow of migration and rising xenophobic and racist attacks by the authoritarian faction.
Focusing on intersectional movement building led by migrant, refugee, and impacted communities. The growing number of organizations working in this arena are disconnected and insufficiently funded. To bolster the movement, we will begin investing in refugee organizing work, engage grassroots and national network organizations, and explore intermediaries that also have footprints at the regional, state, and local levels.
Engaging place-based organizations. We will support organizations located in geographies that either are “sending” people to other places or “receiving” incoming migrants by funding the implementation of existing or experimental models of support for migrants and refugees (e.g., transitional justice mechanisms, mutual aid, community sponsorship, or resilience hubs).

As we begin implementing our new strategies, we’re motivated by the opportunities for learning and growth. We will be transparent, accessible, and accountable along the way. We are excited to invest in organizations that: demonstrate excellence in building and executing programs aligned with our strategic priorities; exhibit a solid racial justice analysis; employ BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) in senior leadership roles; and work in concert with aligned efforts to build the power of marginalized communities.

Moving into the next five years

It’s clear that climate-induced mass migration and white nationalist authoritarianism are on a collision course, but efforts to protect vulnerable communities are also gaining momentum. The support we have seen in Washington, DC and New York City in response to migrants bussed there from Texas and Florida, is a powerful example. Community organizations are recruiting volunteers, enlisting local charities and churches, pressuring municipal governments, and controlling narratives. The community leaders in these cities are building a moral social movement that responds to need, supports the integration of migrant communities, and turns a tactic of division into an opportunity for solidarity and unity.

The challenges we face as a country and as a people over the coming decades are enormous. A key part of our new strategy will also be to partner with more and more funders to meet this moment.

There are still many decisions left about who and how we will fund to make this vision a reality. We’ll be sharing more information, updating our website, and considering new grantees in 2023 and we welcome your partnership and accountability along this journey. If you have questions about our new strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out. We are grateful for your partnership and energized for our collective future.

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Democracy Fund’s New Digital Democracy Strategy

Paul Waters

December 12, 2022

We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us. – Freedom’s Journal, 1827

In April 2022, Democracy Fund announced our new organizational strategy with a commitment to investing in the power and leadership of communities of color to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement and undermine those who threaten the ideals of our inclusive, multiracial democracy. It’s a bold, ambitious plan that will steadily guide us as we navigate both known and unforeseen challenges affecting our democracy.

The digital media platforms and systems that now comprise so much of today’s civic engagement and community life have become essential for staying informed and connected. But many of the platforms that people turn to have also been weaponized by hate groups, authoritarians, and other bad actors to suppress and depress voter turnout, harass women and people of color, spread divisive disinformation, and violate civil rights laws. The power to control conversations and filter information lies with just a handful of private companies.

With this in mind, our Public Square program has revised its Digital Democracy strategies in line with our new organizational strategy to better meet the moment we are in. We envision a society where Black, Indigenous, and people of color fully and equitably create, access, and enjoy media and technology that represents their needs, concerns, and dreams. As a result, America’s public square becomes more inclusive and contributes to a thriving pro-democracy movement.

Our new five-year strategies are the result of many thoughtful conversations with our grantees and lessons from the field. We cannot overstate how much we appreciate the expertise, passion, and creativity of these organizations, whose staff are working on the frontlines of these issues. Our grantees are always one step ahead, and their pivots have often preceded the challenges other researchers and analysts have eventually spotted. We look forward to continuing our collaborative approach with our grantees, as we aim for transformative impact together.

The strategies below are focused on our Digital Democracy work, which makes up half of our Public Square team’s grantmaking. In addition to the Digital Democracy strategy updates, you can find updates about our Equitable Journalism work here. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on what elements excite you, and we know we have a tremendous responsibility to help make these ideas a reality.

Building power for an inclusive, multiracial democracy through the digital public square

Our Digital Democracy strategy is working toward an inclusive, multiracial democracy in the United States where civil and human rights online are respected and grounded in an equitable civic infrastructure that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. To get there, we believe we need a more comprehensive policy analysis and movement-building agenda for how we will support the media and digital systems we need beyond traditional commercial markets. At every step, the movement will be led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color, who have experienced disproportionately low levels of digital ownership and creation opportunities and disproportionately high levels of harm on digital platforms.

In support of this future, our Public Square program will be funding digital democracy efforts through two areas of focus:

Our Equitable Civic Infrastructure initiative will fund organizations that build public pressure to change media and telecommunication policy at the state and federal levels. This work will create the equitable access to the news and information Americans need to thrive.
Our Civil & Human Rights Online initiative will fund organizations that are reigning in the systems and structures that make online spaces so toxic and dangerous. By applying principles like antidiscrimination, public accommodations, and equal protection under the law, they are transforming how we experience the internet.

These areas of focus build on our learnings from the last five years, especially informed by our conversations with our grantees about how philanthropy needs to meet this moment in our democracy, the longtime harms media has perpetuated that got us here, and the role of philanthropy in exacerbating these challenges. We have collected some of that learning in a recent evaluation ORS Impact produced. We were also guided by an advisory group including Alicia Bell of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, Courtney Lewis of the Institute for Nonprofit News, Jessica Gonzáles of Free Press, Lizzy Hazeltine of the NC Local News Lab Fund, and Chenjerai Kumanyika of New York University.

Some changes you will see in our digital democracy funding

In the next five years, we are focusing our support on the leaders and organizations that can combat the inequitable systems that have limited internet access, stymied local journalism, and led to widespread discrimination online. To advance our goals, we need race-conscious equitable government intervention into our tech and media systems, and we must invest in state and local base building. And at every step, establishing civil and human rights online is imperative to support the communities facing harms caused by these platforms, while working to address the underlying causes. This intentional shift from reactionary pivots to a long-term vision will allow for hopeful, future-focused movement-building led by BIPOC voices.

A few of the key shifts include:

Our new strategy includes a focus on platforms but expands beyond that to the full suite of infrastructure that constitutes our digital public square; and our tactics have homed in on the role of enforceable rules through the courts and government agencies.
We now recognize the important role of organizing, both to impact outcomes at the local level where early legislative wins can scale up, and to better connect national issues with the last-mile impact on communities. There can be no lasting change without a movement of people supporting it.
We understand that civil and human rights laws are the best opportunity to enforce the equitable treatment people need in online spaces to fully participate in our digital public square, and we will invest accordingly in enforcing these laws.

As we begin implementing our new strategies, we’re motivated by the opportunities for learning and growth, and we will be transparent, accessible, and accountable along the way. We are excited to invest in organizations that demonstrate excellence in building and executing programs aligned with our strategic priorities; exhibit a solid racial justice analysis; employ BIPOC in senior leadership roles; and work in concert with aligned efforts to build the power of marginalized communities.

Moving into the next five years

There is no doubt that the threats we face online are affecting civic participation, not to mention people’s physical and mental health. But there is a swell of support building to shift our relationship with digital media, with a particular emphasis on holding tech companies accountable. All across the United States, we see people recognizing the power they have over tech companies and imagining what a more transparent and less polarized future could look like in this digital age. As a philanthropic organization, we have a responsibility to help build a healthier digital media ecosystem, where people’s rights are protected and the civic information people receive is accurate and dependable. A key part of our new strategies will also be continuing to partner with other funders to meet this moment.

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Introducing Our New Elections & Voting Strategy

Lindsay Daniels

October 11, 2022

In April 2022, Democracy Fund announced a new organizational strategy with a commitment to investing in the power and leadership of communities of color to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement, and undermine those who threaten the ideal of our inclusive, multi-racial democracy.

The U.S. voting system was not designed for an inclusive, multi-racial democracy and has always de-valued certain communities, including communities of color, people with disabilities, low-income citizens, and those with intersecting marginalized identities. As a result, people of color face a voting system that continues to be rigged against their participation and power. This flawed design is accompanied by an election administration system long underfunded and weakened by disinformation peddled by an authoritarian movement. False allegations of voter fraud have increased mistrust of election processes and outcomes, led to violent threats against local election officials, and provided a pretext for state legislators to try to seize control of election outcomes.

With these challenges in mind, the Elections & Voting program took a step back to review the past six years of investments and design a new five-year strategy that meets the moment. We seek an election system that consistently produces trusted results, fairly represents the will of the majority of voters, and reflects equitable participation—especially among communities of color. This new strategy builds on the invaluable expertise, accountability, and advice of the many grantees, partners, and leaders we have worked with over the years, all of whom helped inform the direction of this new strategy and to whom we are deeply grateful.

Supporting free, fair, and equitable elections

Our refreshed Elections & Voting program envisions a democracy where people of color hold equal power to influence election outcomes and build a fully representative and participatory democracy. The current election infrastructure needs to function effectively and impartially. As we work towards these goals, we must also reimagine the system to center the voters that have been historically marginalized and oppressed.

To support this vision, we are investing in two areas of work:

Resilient Elections to strengthen the election infrastructure so it is less vulnerable to election sabotage and election-related violence; and
Voting Power to focus on equitable participation, voice, and power for people for color.

These two initiatives are built on several assumptions about how Democracy Fund can contribute to the elections and voting field, and where our investments can complement work that is happening on the ground and through other funding partners:

We believe that robust election administration and election administrators are the last line of defense against authoritarianism. Over the past seven years, we have supported trainings, tools, convenings, and research to professionalize the field of election administration. We will now shift our focus to combatting the politicization of the profession through stable funding and staffing for election administration. When election administrators are well-funded and well-trained, they can expand access to voting and prevent attempts at election sabotage.

Communities must have the power they need to elect leaders who represent their interests and influence government to be responsive to their needs. Organizers working in communities of color often lack year-round funding to build organizational capacity and conduct essential organizing that would enable sustained political power. Grassroots organizing that centers communities of color needs year-round support that allows them to build sustained momentum for participation in civic life, issue advocacy, and elections.

More transformative changes are necessary to equalize voters’ power and address the fairness and legitimacy of the election system. Even when people successfully vote, anti-majoritarian structures can reduce their voting power based on where they live. Until we unrig the election system, it is impossible to describe our political system as representing the will of the majority. While we pursue these structural changes, we must ensure voting rights continue to expand.

Some changes you will see in our elections funding

After six years of investments and experimentation, we have taken a close look at our strategy and adjusted to meet both the moment and the needs of the field. Many grantees and partners contributed to our learning by participating in evaluations of the Voter Centric Election Administration and Election Security portfolios, and in our strategy planning process. A few shifts emerged from those reflections, including:

We will deepen our support for state and local organizing groups that are building power in their communities, particularly communities of color, to engage and connect individuals in their communities, empowering them to impact policy when they participate in civic life.

We will recenter our support for voting rights work at the national level to better complement grassroots organizing and state election policy and advocacy.

We will invest less in tools and trainings for election officials while supporting election administration in new ways, with an emphasis on how to properly fund and staff election infrastructure, infuse a racial justice lens into election administration, and disincentivize leaders from undermining election results.

In partnership with our Governance Program, we will move away from incremental changes and toward long-term structural changes in our democracy that support representative and equitable majority rule.

Looking ahead to the next five years

We are incredibly proud of and grateful for the important work our grantees and partners have led over the past six years. We will continue to champion the field and are committed to a responsible shift as we build toward an inclusive, multi-racial democracy.

As we prepare for the strategy launch in 2023, we will continue to learn, adapt, and grapple with several outstanding questions. We will partner with other funders to strengthen elections and ensure equitable voter participation. We will share more information and updates on our website about our work, and we welcome your feedback.

You can expect to see similar updates from our other programs as other organizational strategy decisions are finalized.

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Democracy Fund’s New Equitable Journalism Strategy

Josh Stearns

October 3, 2022

Our political system and our media have been designed from the start to exclude and marginalize people of color, who have nonetheless often been on the frontlines reinventing journalism and strengthening democracy. The authoritarian movement has leveraged the flaws in our media to spread hate, manipulate public discourse, and build news ecosystems to amplify its vision for America. With this in mind, our Public Square program has revised its strategies to better meet the moment we are in. We want to ensure that all people have access to news and information that advances justice, confronts racism and inequality, and equips people to make change and thrive.

Our new five-year strategies are rooted in and build on the wisdom, experience, and vision of many of our grantees: we are deeply grateful to them for blazing the trails. We also want to recognize the many other leaders who have pioneered the work of media justice, community reporting, and movement journalism. Their efforts have often centered solidarity with communities and understood the urgent need for journalism that stands boldly for equity and democracy. Their work didn’t always find a home in our earlier strategies, and we are working to change that as we move forward and learn from the past.

The strategies below are focused on our Equitable Journalism work, which makes up half of our team’s grantmaking. We will provide updates on our Digital Democracy strategy when decisions are finalized (and you can expect to see similar updates from other Democracy Fund programs). We are excited to share the strategy and ideas that shape our journalism and media funding, but we recognize that these are just words on a page until we live into them.

Journalism must build power for an inclusive multi-racial democracy

Our Equitable Journalism strategy envisions people all across America exercising their power — making decisions for their families, mobilizing their neighbors and friends, and organizing in their communities — fueled by local reporting that equips people for civic action and serves them as partners. To get there, we believe we need to foster a reimagined local news and information landscape and an explicitly anti-racist public square, led by people who have historically been marginalized in our media and our democracy.

Throughout American history it has been leaders of color, especially those who are women or queer, who have pushed democracy and media forward, pioneering critical new community solutions and pushing for our country and our newsrooms to live up to their highest ideals. Our strategy process was informed by that history, and by the imagination and vision of bold leaders working today.

In support of this vision, our Public Square program will be funding journalism and media through two areas of focus within our Equitable Journalism work:

Our News and Information Ecosystems initiative will continue to support the evolution of local news in America by building more vibrant ecosystems and equitable networks across the nation that reimagine news and information as civic infrastructure.
Our Journalism and Power Building initiative will expand support for leaders of color, and the coalitions and organizations they lead, who are changing journalism and using media to build power and catalyze movements for equity, justice, and democracy.

These areas of focus build on lessons we have learned over the last six years. We have listened deeply to what grantees were saying about how journalism needs to show up in this moment of democratic crisis, the longtime harms media has perpetuated that got us here, and the role of philanthropy in exacerbating these challenges. We have collected some of that learning in an evaluation Impact Architects produced, which covers the last six years of our work. We were also guided by an advisory group including Alicia Bell of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, Courtney Lewis of the Institute for Nonprofit News, Jessica Gonzáles of Free Press, Lizzy Hazeltine of the NC Local News Lab Fund, and Chenjerai Kumanyika of New York University.

Some changes you will see in our journalism funding

In the next five years, we are focusing our support on those leaders and organizations we believe can help create a more anti-racist, community-centered media and advance transformative change in our public square. Key to that work will be shifting from a focus on incremental change in journalism institutions to transformative change. This transformative change must be rooted in movements, trailblazers, and coalitions inside and outside journalism that are building a new vision for what journalism can be and do in our democracy, who it works for, and with.

A few of the key shifts include:

Our new strategy will more explicitly elevate equity and racial justice as defining values across our entire portfolio by centering the work of leaders of color and those who have long been marginalized from journalism and democracy. We will invest more in those leaders and will focus on moving others in philanthropy in that direction.
We’ve long talked about informed communities as key to our democracy, but our new strategy is much clearer that information is power. We want to support news and information that equips people to build power for an inclusive multi-racial democracy.
We will invest less in large institutions and more in coalitions, networks and campaigns that help organize innovators in journalism to change the industry.
We no longer have a separate stand-alone press freedom strategy. Over the last five years, we’ve come to understand press freedom as a key part of sustainability and so we’ll still be funding some press freedom work as part of the infrastructure necessary to grow and sustain a truly independent media sector. We’ll also be leaning into efforts to confront harassment and abuse meant to silence journalists, especially people from marginalized communities.

As we move into our new strategies, we’re excited to continue learning and growing, and will be transparent, accessible and accountable along the way.

Moving into the next five years

While the struggles facing our public square are profound, there is real momentum growing around civic media and local news right now. All across the country we see incredible examples of people reimagining, rebuilding, and renewing journalism and the role it plays in our democracy. Those of us in philanthropy have a critical role to play in catalyzing this movement to ensure that the next era of independent media in America is just, equitable and thriving. A key part of our new strategies will also be continuing to partner with other funders to ensure we can meet this moment.

There are still many decisions left about who and how we will fund to make this vision a reality. We’ll be sharing more information, updating our website, and considering new grantees in 2023 and we welcome your partnership and accountability as we go down this path. If you have questions about our new strategy, please reach out to me — my door is always open. Again, my deepest thanks for your ongoing partnership.

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Report

Reflection on the Impact of Investing in Voter Centric Election Administration

Heather Creek

July 28, 2022

From its inception, Democracy Fund has invested in organizations supporting election administration. We believe that well-functioning election operations are a core component of a healthy election system. At the end of 2021, we commissioned an independent evaluation of the Elections & Voting Program’s Voter Centric Election Administration portfolio to review how our theory of change was executed and how the election system has shifted. Here, we reflect on the findings from that evaluation and invite you to read the full report.

Voter Centric Election Administration Portfolio History

The landscape of election administration in 2014 is a far cry from what we experience today. At that time, the findings of the Bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration were widely praised and pointed the way toward evidence-based solutions to election challenges – such as long lines at the polls and errors on voter lists – that made use of developments in technology. Election administration has always been complicated, especially in the highly-decentralized U.S. system. However from 2014-2016, the field experienced clarity of purpose and a relatively-uncontentious bipartisan consensus on best practices to move the field forward.

In this context, Democracy Fund developed a theory of change that focused on two needs of the field:

Strong networks of election administrators for knowledge-sharing across and within states
Innovative practices and technology designed for election administrators to use.

To meet the first need, we identified the leaders of state election administrator associations and hosted convenings with them twice a year in a “train the trainer” model, whereby they would learn best-in-class practices to take back to their state associations of election officials. For the second need, we invested in a wide range of civic technology tools, research, and guides developed by civil society organizations that could be used by administrators to better serve voters. Our goal was to scale and spread practices that would improve the voting experience nationwide.

Evaluation of the Portfolio’s Impact

An evaluation of the portfolio’s impact, conducted by Fernandez Advisors, focused on the ways that election officials at the state and local level have engaged in Democracy Fund’s network convenings and used tools, training, and resources in which we have invested. The report found that investing in tools and resources for election administrators helped the field adapt to shifts in voter expectations for online services and new voting methods. Our grantees’ programs helped to improve the design of election websites and ballots, helped administrators adapt to early voting and mail voting policies, and helped voters learn where to find a polling place or ballot drop box easily and accurately. These are just a few examples of the ways our grantees supported administrators’ efforts to serve voters.

This portfolio was especially well-timed to meet the unusual needs of the 2020 election when many states rapidly adjusted their voting policies and practices to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many states offered voters more flexibility to vote early at home or at voter centers in order to avoid crowds at Election Day polling places. These states could not have rapidly adopted new voting methods without following the examples of states that had spent years innovating and experimenting with flexible voting practices. Democracy Fund grantees were instrumental in helping states learn quickly from these examples because they had documented implementation processes and offered technical assistance.

While network-building, tools, and research have been instrumental in improving election administration, the failure of local and state governments to adequately resource election offices remains a significant problem. Significant and ongoing technology changes (such as online voter registration and ballot tracking) present adoption challenges for many election administrators and their staff due to both the lack of funding for technology investments and maintenance and the difficulty covering the range of expertise needed with the very small staffs that manage elections in all but the largest jurisdictions. For example, election officials interviewed for the evaluation report that they do not have the capacity to counter growing mis- and disinformation targeted toward voters.

The job of managing elections has grown increasing complex as the field faces new challenges. Local election officials must be experts in many areas: human resources, information technology, direct mail processing, public relations, cybersecurity, and more. Most election officials are managing this load with little staff capacity. In the 2020 Democracy Fund/Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials, over half of respondents said they work in an office with just one or two staff members who may not even be full-time. Participants in Democracy Fund’s state association convenings praised the information and opportunity to share knowledge and resources with peers from other states and bring ideas back to their colleagues. However, limited staff capacity and urgent demands makes it difficult for many officials to spend time adopting new practices.

Summary of Findings & Key Takeaways

When Democracy Fund began investing in civil society organizations focused on election administration, it was still a young field, with limited philanthropic investments supporting the work. We used a systems and complexity approach to analyze the needs of the field and identify the gaps and leverage points that could improve the health of election administration. We played a role in catalyzing new nonprofit organizations that support election officials and in funding emerging election sciences research. The COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2020 primary elections and made evident the importance of well-resourced and well-functioning election administration. In response, the field of organizations supporting election administration scaled up as more donors began funding this work. Even as the context shifts over time and the field adapts, strong election administration is essential to the health of a just and equitable election system.