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Investing in our Vision of an Inclusive, Multi-Racial Democracy

Joe Goldman

April 28, 2022

As Democracy Fund and Democracy Fund Voice prepare for the next five years, our teams have been asking hard questions about how we can best leverage our assets to meet the greatest needs of the field. We still have work to do, but I’m excited to share that we’ve made great progress in setting our new direction.

We are committed to achieving an inclusive, multi-racial democracy that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy. This long-term vision for the future requires:

A just and inclusive society that has reckoned with structural racism,
Equitable participation, voice, and power for communities of color,
Representative and accountable political institutions, and
Vibrant and equitable information ecosystems that meet the civic needs of communities.

If Democracy Fund and its allies are going to make progress toward these goals, we must first acknowledge that we are in a fight that threatens the fabric of our nation. While our democracy has long been profoundly and intentionally broken, today’s authoritarian actors further pervert the system to entrench their power and put the fundamental nature of our democracy at risk. The stakes before us are remarkably high.

Going forward, Democracy Fund will strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement with a focus on the power and leadership of communities of color. We will weaken, dismantle, and defend against those who threaten our republic and oppose the ideals of an inclusive, multi-racial democracy. And we will pursue structural changes that can lock in new dynamics in this struggle.

Over the next year and a half we will move toward this new direction by refreshing existing portfolios and launching new ones. Over time, you’ll see us:

- Move from Incrementalism to Transformation. The depth to which our system is broken means that incremental change simply cannot get us to where we need to go. We will launch new initiatives and explorations aimed at shifting the fundamental dynamics of the system over the long term. We will explore how we can create a more representative, majoritarian political system, while we continue to support a healthier information environment.

- Defend Core Democratic Institutions. While we have our sights set on long-term, transformational change, we cannot ignore the threats that are right in front of us. We will strengthen our election system and put in place safeguards against abuses of power. We will learn from the experience of others who have successfully defended against authoritarian actors and explore ways to weaken and fragment the power centers of those who oppose an inclusive, multi-racial democracy.

- Center Racial Justice. We cannot achieve an open and just democracy without also achieving racial justice. All of our initiatives — from elections to journalism to government accountability — will continue their journey to embody a commitment to racial equity. We will expand our Just & Inclusive Society program, including our initiative to support and empower the immigrant and Black, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (BAMEMSA) communities, along with a new effort to support movement and power building among communities of color. We will explore opportunities to ensure our nation’s leadership reflects the diversity of the country.

- Rally the Field to Step Up to the Moment. The challenges our democracy faces are great, and Democracy Fund’s resources pale in comparison. To defend against these existential threats, we will scale up our work dedicated to encouraging other philanthropists to join us in these efforts — with a significant focus on combating attempts to subvert our election system.

Our organization has learned a tremendous amount since we began our journey. We have had the privilege of standing alongside others in the fight to protect our democracy. They have pushed us to deepen our understanding of the foundational injustices of our system and to recognize the moment of opportunity also inherent in our current crisis.

Now is the time to redouble our efforts for our democracy. We must slow and eventually halt the precipitous backsliding we’ve experienced — and make real progress toward a brighter future.

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Democracy in Crisis: Preparing for the Road Ahead

Joe Goldman

July 29, 2021

In the past year, during a pandemic and national uprising for racial justice, our grantees rose to the challenge of authoritarianism, attacks on journalism, rampant misinformation, a crisis election, and increased political violence. We are truly grateful for and proud to support these efforts. As we look to the future, we will build upon the strengths of our grantee community and what we have learned together.

While we have made great strides towards an open and just multi-racial democracy, that progress has triggered a profound and dangerous backlash that threatens the very core of our republic. It is imperative that across the sector, we reflect on how this reality challenges the foundational assumptions of our work and craft strategies commensurate to this moment.

Last year, ongoing political crises culminated in our choice to anchor Democracy Fund’s identity in our democratic principles instead of bipartisanship. But we have planned to review our strategy since our launch, when we committed to formally revisiting our strategy every five years. Currently our organization is engaging in some deep thinking — while continuing our current grantmaking — and plan to wrap up in 2022 as we know the need to take up this work now could not be more urgent.

We are still early in the process of developing a new organizational strategy, but a few central ideas have emerged as anchors in our exploration:

We cannot achieve a healthier democracy unless we deal with the longstanding structural barriers designed to prevent majority-rule. To address these barriers effectively, a focus on racial justice and equity must be embedded across our work.
The racist, illiberal, authoritarian faction that is ascendant in our political system represents an existential threat to our democracy. Failure to withstand the threat posed by this faction could lead to irreparable damage. Over the coming years, we must weaken this coalition and defend against its attacks on our democracy, while strengthening the pro-democracy movement.
An incremental approach to reform without a vision for transformational change will not succeed. We must disrupt the culture, institutions, and rules of the game to unrig our political system and transform the fight for a more open and just democracy.

We don’t expect to have clarity on all program areas until at least mid-2022, as the expertise of our grantees and other field leaders are crucial to our approach. We have already engaged some partners in our work thus far, and we anticipate many more opportunities to do so in the months to come.

We feel energized by these powerful ideas. They align with our values and the communities we support. Integrating these concepts into our strategies and grantee portfolios will take time and our team is ready to dive in. It is clear that there are no silver bullets or easy answers for our democracy. But we are ready to join with our many partners to do what’s needed — listening to and building on the work of the leaders and organizations who came before us. We are grateful, as always, for those who have already engaged in our process and continue to be champions for our democracy.

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Why I’m hopeful about local news in 2021

Teresa Gorman

December 16, 2020

When you look back at how local news fared in 2020, you might be surprised by how hopeful I am for the future.

Things have been pretty rough this year. Local newspapers, public media, digital startups, and even independent nonprofit local news outlets faced debilitating layoffs and budget shortfalls despite calls for journalism to be considered an essential service in a pandemic. Newsrooms faced a drastic plunge after a steady economic fall, but the economic reality wasn’t the only danger. Many outlets continued to hold on to outdated journalistic practices that harm communities of color and destroy trust with residents. I see that every day with Democracy Fund’s grantees — they’re stretched impossibly thin, dealing with dual pandemics of structural racism and COVID-19.

Taken as a whole, that story of local news may feel like a tragedy unfolding, but the thing is, the story of local news is so much more nuanced than that. While those grantees are stretched, at the same time, they and many other local leaders have come through with some of the most resilient, creative work this year. Across the country, we have seen many examples, like these::

Enlace Latino used WhatsApp and created voter guides in Spanish for North Carolinians.
Outlier Media used texts to give Detroiters answers on where to find food pantries and where to leave a ballot.
Newsrooms banded together with the Colorado Media Project to counter misinformation about COVID-19 and the election.
The Chicago Independent Media Alliance united dozens of local community media to raise money for each other and to replicate innovative government ad models learned from the Center for Community Media.
Loved and Lost, a massive newsroom collaboration in New Jersey led by the Center for Cooperative Media, identified and memorialized 100s of New Jersey residents who died from COVID-19.

These responses to challenging circumstances all centered equity and community needs, The pioneering leaders behind this work represent just a sampling of people who are ecosystem builders — who see a gap in local information where they live, and work to fill it. And the ideas they implemented in 2020 didn’t come out of nowhere. They have been writing the playbook and connecting and strengthening their ecosystems as they go, from the bottom up, for years.

Democracy Fund has dedicated millions of dollars to building healthier and more resilient local news ecosystems across the country in partnership with these ecosystem builders. This work is not possible without them, and I’ve been impossibly lucky to learn from them over my tenure as a program officer. They have been doing the hard and continuous work to develop new models, champion new ideas, build trust and community, and literally underpin our democracy, often while being unrecognized, undermined and under-funded by philanthropy.

In 2021, let’s focus on (and fund!) the solutions that have been there all along

That troubling trend of being unrecognized and unappreciated is never more clear than when I read almost any article about the future of local news. Too often, the “future of news” is defined by white men from elite parts of the industry who seize on a flashy technology or a national startup as the thing that will save us all. They ignore and demean those who are building with equity and community as their guiding star, many of whom are Black and brown women. They wail about the loss of local news, while refusing to see the solutions right in front of their faces.

In 2021, I say, no more. It’s time to put our hope, our dollars, and our support behind the people and solutions that were there all along. It’s time to listen.

Here are just a few of the Democracy Fund grantees, partners, and leaders that I am turning to for this transformative, hopeful, vision of what local news can be. All of them, and many more, are who give me hope — and I hope they give you hope, too.

“This moment calls for radical thinking — for fundamentally reimagining the role of the journalist. By seeking a rigorous understanding of history, learning how to work collaboratively with shared trust and agency, and building collective power, journalism can rise to meet this moment in a spirit of liberation and resistance,” —Cierra Hinton, Lewis Raven Wallace, and Manolia Charlotin, leaders at PressOn, a media collective that catalyzes change and justice in the South. (Journalism Must Be an Act of Community-Building)
“The journalists we need today are not heroic observers of crisis—they are conveners, facilitators, organizers, educators, on-demand investigators, and community builders. Most of all, they strengthen the systems that make communities resilient, ” —Darryl Holliday, co-founder of City Bureau, a civic journalism lab building community in Chicago and sharing their model with communities in Cleveland and Detroit. (What Journalism Can Learn from Mutual Aid)
“I personally know so many colleagues who are just very passionate about journalism. They’re also passionate about New Mexico… In spite of all these pressures and all these difficulties, they believe they have a meaningful role in creating a better future for New Mexico… I think at least some folks have that mentality: that even though there are many difficulties, it is an opportunity, as well. We can choose to take the opportunity.” —Diana Alba-Soular, Southern manager for the New Mexico Local News Fund, an organization connecting journalists and communities with resources, support, and new ideas. (Why Diana Alba-Soular is working on the wellbeing of New Mexico journalism)
“Over time, institutions and individuals in power have been allowed to ignore the concerns and struggles of the disenfranchised. But when underserved and marginalized communities come together our voices can be heard, and who better to identify the needs of the community than the people who live there? If I know anything about Newark, I know for certain that the people who make up New Jersey’s largest city are as resilient as they are resourceful and they always find a way to work it out,” —Kenneth Miles, a freelancer and consultant for the Center for Cooperative Media, a backbone organization whose mission is to grow and strengthen local journalism in New Jersey. (Solutions needed to help fill information gaps in Newark)
“This year’s election cycle elicited record donations — now it’s time to direct that support to another feature of our democracy: a new generation of local news outlets,” —Sarabeth Berman, the Executive Director of American Journalism Project, a venture philanthropy organization which pairs capacity building with transformative investments in civic news organizations. (How the death of local news has made political divisions far worse)
“For journalism to have a future, it must broaden its definition of audience and serve more diverse communities with a staff and models that reflect the changing reality…Well, for those publishers of color serving low-wealth news consumers, they’re already hitting that mark by attracting, serving, and building trust with those that many newsrooms have discarded. They are reimaging what a newsroom can and should be.” —Candice Fortman, Executive Director of Outlier Media, a service journalism outlet that uses SMS texting technology to provide information to Detroit and shares their methodology with other ecosystems. (Faith is not a business plan)
“I’m realizing that so much is untapped as [NewsMatch] year over year progresses and gets to strengthen these [nonprofit news] organizations. It gives me a lot of hope for the future. Once organizations are able to learn and leverage these opportunities, it shows how a sustainable ecosystem for nonprofits news could eventually become the norm.” —Courtney Hurtt, program manager for NewsMatch, a yearly matching campaign that has helped nonprofit newsrooms raise over $100M over 5 years. (Courtney Hurtt is building a better future for nonprofit newsrooms via NewsMatch. Here’s how.)
“By following New Jersey’s example, local and state governments can build off the decades-long tradition of public investments in media and target government funding toward news deserts and underserved communities…The future of local news is too important to be left to market forces, and the media conglomerates that got us into the local-news crisis aren’t going to get us out of it. That’s why we need more people-powered campaigns like the one behind the Civic Info Bill in New Jersey so that any decisions about local journalism respond to our needs and don’t rely on the systems that have failed us,” —Mike Rispoli, News Voices Director at Free Press and board member of the NJ Civic Info Consortium, an example of a structural change that is inspiring states across the country including in Ohio and Colorado. (Why the Civic Info Consortium Is Such a Huge Deal)

As you can probably imagine, I could share voice after voice, person after person, making change and transformation happen now. But I’ll leave you with what is probably the most important point of all:

“Alone, no one person or organization has the power, insight, creativity or path for achieving what is possible. In coalition, however, all of that is present… Together, we have everything we need.” (Media 2070: An invitation to dream up media reparations)

Together, all of these ideas, leaders, and initiatives represent the transformation that can, and will, come to local journalism in 2021. They go beyond economic bandaids and trying to recreate old systems. Instead, they look to the future and, if we support them and follow their lead, can create true structural changes so that all communities can have access to the information they need to live healthy lives. We should all thank them for giving us this hope — I certainly will.

In 2021, Democracy Fund’s Public Square Team will continue to share what we’ve learned in our first five plus years of grantmaking with you. Did something here connect with you, or did I miss something? Reach out at tgorman [@] democracyfund.org.

Learn more about Democracy Fund’s grantees and work:

Sign up for the Local Fix newsletter.

Read our guide to assessing a local ecosystem.

Learn about local news ecosystems at The Local News Lab.

See who we fund via Democracy Fund’s database.

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NewsMatch: A unique program to fund news “for the people, with the people”

December 4, 2020

News is a public good.

What does it mean to treat journalism as a public good? Without an informed citizenry able to access the news they need to navigate their lives, actively participate in the public square, and hold their local and national government officials accountable to their public duties, we are at risk of weakening democracy’s most vital participant and protector, the people. That is why NewsMatch has spent five years building a people powered campaign to support and strengthen nonprofit news.

Since 2004, nearly 1,800 communities in the United States have lost their newspapers. This is in addition to communities that have long existed with limited access to news and information that is relevant and useful to navigating local life. Not only are Americans losing their local newspapers, but local tv and radio news programs are also losing the original and substantive investigations these newspapers used to provide. While some news seekers turn toward social media, local tv and local newspapers remain the most utilized sources for news. The ongoing disappearance and deterioration of credible and comprehensive local news limits people’s ability to meet the critical information necessary to make important decisions that impact their everyday lives. It is not enough to simply save what has been lost, we need to rebuild stronger with serving the public as our foundation.

Mission versus money.

As traditional news models break down, there have been entrepreneurial efforts experimenting with business models to find new markets and new audiences. Many of these efforts utilize digital platforms and focus on attracting paying subscribers and advertisers. Yet, people most in need of quality and credible news are the least likely to be able to pay for it (and for what advertisers are trying to sell). They are also often part of communities whose stories and informational priorities need to be better reflected in the news already. Fortunately, there are emerging newsrooms who are increasingly committed to improving representation, inclusion and equity in their news content creation and seeking to transform the industry. But these newsrooms are forced to compete with the bottom-line need to be financially sustainable. NewsMatch seeks to level the playing field through philanthropic matching dollars and in-depth investment in capacity building around fundraising for nonprofit newsrooms.

News for all, not for some.

More and more, the philanthropic world is recognizing the opportunity to protect democracy by supporting rigorous and inclusive journalism. Finding ways to disentangle news generation from news revenue ensures that the media industry won’t just serve the interest and needs of those who can afford to pay for it or pay to influence it. Supporting news organizations committed to inclusive and fact-based news and information might also help to stymie the proliferation of media organizations with nefarious objectives that are filling the media gap in poor communities with news that is often free to the consumer, but also highly partisan, not credible and not independent from political or corporate interests. A public shift from seeing news as a service one pays for solo access to a collective good that benefits us all is an important step toward treating local news like the vital democractic resource it is.

NewsMatch is one strategy.

NewsMatch was created as a strategic way to support quality journalism. It aims to jumpstart small, emerging newsrooms, some serving communities that have been poorly served by mainstream or national media. News for the people, with the people, NewsMatch’s 2020 slogan captures the promise of what newsrooms can become when we recognize the public good it provides and act to protect it.

The NewsMatch annual campaign pools funds nationally to provide participating newsrooms with a matching incentive and tools and training to build its long-term fundraising capacity. Newsmatch is a powerful tool for donors, foundations, and corporations concerned about the future of local and investigative reporting. Since 2016, NewsMatch helped 200+ nonprofit newsrooms across the country raise more than $100 million from hundreds of thousands of people — many of whom were first-time donors to nonprofit news. In 2019, NewsMatch turned $3.7 million in philanthropic investments into $43.5 million in support for local news in just two months, a more than 1200 percent return on investment.

So, how is NewsMatch doing?

So far, so good. Last year, Democracy Fund partnered with the Knight Foundation to commission an evaluation of NewsMatch to see how the campaign was faring on three ambitious goals: 1) to dramatically increase giving to journalism, 2) to strengthen long term fundraising capacity in newsrooms; and 3) to build awareness about journalism’s impact in our democracy. There was ample evidence that the 2019 NewsMatch program met the first goal, with returning organizations securing more donors and donations then the previous year. The second and third goals, which were longer-term in nature, were not yet met, although there was indication of progress toward both goals. Related to the second goal by design, NewsMatch serves a diverse array of nonprofit news organizations ranging from small community-based start-up organizations to national public media outlets. That diversity makes it a necessity to tailor the training and support provided so that it is more relevant to the specific context and challenges each media organization faces. To better provide this added nuance, an investment toward additional administrative support was made to help newsrooms strengthen long-term fundraising capacity. As for the third goal, while this evaluation found some evidence that the general public may not yet be aware of news as something to donate to, part of NewsMatch approach is to help funders and the public begin to see news as vital to our democracy and thus cannot be left solely to market forces.

What can I do?

This post opened with the line local news is a public good. If after reading this you agree, well then, we’re a bit closer to it becoming one. Reimagining the role of the news as a collective good that strengthens and protects democracy moves us beyond futile attempts to patch and reinstitute a flawed industry with a history of neglecting and harming communities of color. There is an opportunity now to set the bar much higher by supporting local news organizations committed to the transformative change necessary to become a news industry that truly serves all people.

If you are an individual interested in donating to support news as a public good, you can find a local media organization by using the search engine NewsMatch provides on their site. If you are a grantmaker, consider becoming a partnering funder.

Lastly, while philanthropic giving is powerful, we recognize that it is just one strategy to treat local news like a public good. Newsrooms serving marginalized communities can struggle to compete for philanthropic dollars as well. While philanthropy is important, it is no replacement for sound local and federal policy. Democracy Fund is also supporting burgeoning media policy efforts to protect local news. We look forward to sharing more about this work in future posts.

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Social Media Transparency is Key for Our Democracy

Paul Waters

August 11, 2020

According to the Pew Research Center, one in five Americans rely primarily on social media for their political news and information. This means a small handful of companies have enormous control over what a broad swath of America sees, reads, and hears. Now that the coronavirus has moved even more of our lives online, companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have more influence than ever before. And yet, we know remarkably little about how these social media platforms operate. We don’t know the answers to questions like:

How does information flow across these networks?
Who sees what and when?
How do algorithms drive media consumption?
How are political ads targeted?
Why does hate and abuse proliferate?

Without answers to questions like these, we can’t guard against digital voter suppression, coronavirus misinformation, and the rampant harassment of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) online. That means we won’t be able to move closer to the open and just democracy we need.

A pattern of resisting oversight

The platforms have strong incentives to remain opaque to public scrutiny. Platforms profit from running ads — some of which are deeply offensive — and by keeping their algorithms secret and hiding data on where ads run they avoid accountability — circumventing advertiser complaints, user protests, and congressional inquiries. Without reliable information on how these massive platforms operate and how their technologies function, there can be no real accountability.

When complaints are raised, the companies frequently deny or make changes behind the scenes. Even when platforms admit something has gone wrong, they claim to fix problems without explaining how, which makes it impossible to verify the effectiveness of the “fix.” Moreover, these fixes are often just small changes that only paper over fundamental problems, while leaving the larger structural flaws intact. This trend has been particularly harmful for BIPOC who already face significant barriers to participation in the public square.

Another way platforms avoid accountability is via legal mechanisms like non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and intellectual property law, including trade secrets, patents, and copyright protections. This allows platforms to keep their algorithms secret, even when those algorithms dictate social outcomes protected under civil rights law.

Platforms have responded to pressure to release data in the past — but the results have fallen far short of what they promised. Following the 2016 election, both Twitter and Facebook announced projects intended to release vast amounts of new data about their operations to researchers. The idea was to provide a higher level of transparency and understanding about the role of these platforms in that election. However, in nearly every case, those transparency efforts languished because the platforms did not release the data they had committed they would provide. Facebook’s reticence to divulge data almost a year after announcing the partnership with the Social Science Research Council is just one example of this type of foot-dragging.

The platforms’ paltry transparency track record demonstrates their failure to self-regulate in the public interest and reinforces the need for active and engaged external watchdogs who can provide oversight.

How watchdog researchers and journalists have persisted despite the obstacles

Without meaningful access to data from the platforms, researchers and journalists have had to reverse engineer experiments that can test how platforms operate and develop elaborate efforts merely to collect their own data about platforms.

Tools like those developed by NYU’s Online Political Transparency Project have become essential. While Facebook created a clearinghouse that was promoted as a tool that would serve as a compendium of all the political ads being posted to the social media platform, NYU’s tool has helped researchers independently verify the accuracy and comprehensiveness of Facebook’s archive and spot issues and gaps. As we head into the 2020 election, researchers continue to push for data, as they raise the alarm about significant amounts of mis/disinformation spread through manipulative political groups, advertisers, and media websites.

Watchdog journalists are also hard at work. In 2016, the Wall Street Journal built a side-by-side Facebook feed to examine how liberals and conservatives experience news and information on the platform differently. Journalists with The Markup have been probing Google’s search and email algorithms. ProPublica has been tracking discriminatory advertising practices on Facebook.

Because of efforts like these, we have seen some movement. The recent House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee hearing with CEOs from Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon was evidence of a bipartisan desire to better understand how the human choices and technological code that shape these platforms also shape society. However, the harms these companies and others have caused are not limited to economics and market power alone.

How we’re taking action

At Democracy Fund, we are currently pushing for greater platform transparency and working to protect against the harms of digital voter suppression, coronavirus misinformation, and harassment of BIPOC by:

Funding independent efforts to generate data and research that provides insight regarding the platforms’ algorithms and decision making;
Supporting efforts to protect journalists and researchers in their work to uncover platform harms;
Demanding that platforms provide increased transparency on how their algorithms work and the processes they have in place to prevent human rights and civil rights abuses; and
Supporting advocates involved in campaigns that highlight harms and pressure the companies to change, such as Change the Terms and Stop Hate for Profit.

Demanding transparency and oversight have a strong historical precedent in American media. Having this level of transparency makes a huge difference for Americans — and for our democracy. Political ad files from radio and television broadcasters (which have been available to the public since the 1920s) have been invaluable to journalists reporting on the role of money in elections. They have fueled important research about how broadcasters work to meet community information needs.

The public interest policies in broadcasting have been key to communities of color who have used them to challenge broadcaster licenses at the Federal Communications Commission when they aren’t living up to their commitments. None of these systems are perfect, as many community advocates will tell you, but even this limited combination of transparency and media oversight doesn’t exist on social media platforms.

Tech platforms should make all their ads available in a public archive. They should be required to make continually-updated, timely information available in machine-readable formats via an API or similar means. They should consult public interest experts on standards for the information they disclose, including standardized names and formats, unique IDs, and other elements that make the data accessible for researchers.

Bottomline, we need new policy frameworks to enforce transparency, to give teeth to oversight, and to ensure social media can enable and enhance our democracy. Without it, the open and just democracy we all deserve is at real risk.

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How Political Ad Transparency Can Help Fix Democracy’s Cybersecurity Problem

Nancy Watzman

August 7, 2020

Without sufficient transparency and accountability, online platforms have become hotbeds for disinformation that manipulates, maligns, and disenfranchises voters, especially people of color and women. The Online Political Ads Transparency Project is critical to Democracy Fund’s Digital Democracy Initiative’s goal of providing greater transparency and oversight to combat coordinated disinformation campaigns, minimize misinformation, and define and defend civil rights online.

There is nothing new about misinformation, dirty tricks, and voter suppression in the history of democracy. But as political campaigns – like much of the rest of public life – have moved online, so have tactics to subvert election outcomes. Political ads and messaging are micro-targeted at voters who have no idea who is paying to influence them or what their motives might be. Or, as Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy, researchers for the Online Political Ads Transparency Project at New York University’s Center for Cybersecurity, would put it, democracy has a cybersecurity problem.

In May 2018, Edelson and McCoy found a perfect opportunity to study this problem: they decided to look at Facebook’s newly public, searchable archive of political ads. Facebook had released this archive following criticism that it was profiting from political ads while not disclosing information about them to the public. Unlike TV and radio broadcasters, who are required to report political ad buys on television and radio to the Federal Communications Commission, online platforms like Facebook — to this day — are not legally required to do so. But while Facebook’s lack of transparency was technically legal, that doesn’t mean it was right. The democratic process is harmed when Americans don’t know who is attempting to influence them via political ads.

Diving into Facebook’s archive of political ads, Edelson and McCoy scraped information and used the resulting data to publish an analysis that showed that from May 2018 to July 2018, Donald Trump was the largest spender on the platform — a key insight into political influence on Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook eventually shut down the NYU team’s ability to gather information by scraping — but this was only a temporary setback. Facing mounting pressure from the research community, Facebook soon after created a way for researchers to obtain these data programmatically, via an API interface. This made it simpler to do an ongoing analysis of the ad library corpus, versus a one-time scrape covering a limited time period.

In doing all of this work, the researchers’ goal was to push Facebook to adopt better transparency policies — by presenting them with the evidence of how inadequate their current policies were. But Edelson and McCoy were learning that was an even more difficult task than they had expected.

“When you are battling a traditional cybersecurity problem like spam” explains Edelson, “the honest actors – whether it’s a bank, an insurance company, or something else – have incentives to change their behavior, because their customers will reward them with increased profits. But in this case, online platforms may have a long-term interest in being good citizens, but their short term interest is in making money off of ads and targeted content, precisely the tools the bad actors are gaming. So it’s hard to get them to change.” In other words: social media platforms have competing motivations.

But the team did have one advantage: the power of public pressure. And they uncovered plenty of things that would worry the public. When they conducted a thorough cybersecurity analysis of how well Facebook was adhering to its own policies on political ad disclosure, they found numerous problems. More than half of the advertising pages they studied – representing $37 million of ad spending – lacked proper disclosure of which candidate or organization paid for the ads. Even when names of sponsors were disclosed, the information was sloppy and inconsistent.

They also identified “inauthentic communities” — clusters of pages that appeared to cater to different racial or geographic identity groups that do not adequately disclose how they are connected to each other.

Rather than going straight to the public with this information, Edelson and McCoy reached out to Facebook to share their findings, letting the company know that they planned to present their research publicly in May 2020 at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. And it did have an impact: in response, Facebook made internal changes that addressed some of these issues.

This was a victory for the researchers, but the work continues and many obstacles and mysteries remain. Sometimes the Facebook API stops working. Sometimes researchers find ads that are clearly political, but are not included in the official ad library. And sometimes the reports that Facebook releases that aggregate ad data don’t match the raw data they’ve collected.

But despite the difficulties, Edelson and McCoy persist. “I’m proud of the fact we’ve moved Facebook on transparency,” says Edelson, “but there is always more work to do. Voters need to know who is targeting them and how — and how much they are spending — to help them make informed decisions when they fill out their ballots.”

In 2020, the researchers are continuing to work on projects aimed at making Facebook and other platforms safer for our democracy. They have launched AdObserver, a browser plugin that allows Facebook users a way to volunteer data on the ads they are seeing. This will yield valuable information on whether ads are missing from the Facebook Ad Library, as well as information on targeting that the social media platform does not make available. And they are creating a new tool that will help civil society organizations – who represent people who often are targeted by such ads – to quickly identify problematic ad campaigns. While there’s no doubt democracy still has a cybersecurity problem, the NYU researchers are working hard to protect it from threats.

Cover Photo: Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy of The Online Political Ads Transparency Project at New York University’s Center for Cybersecurity. Photo Credit: New York University.

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Why Democracy Fund is Declaring Independence From Bipartisanship

Joe Goldman

June 16, 2020

For the past six years, Democracy Fund has distinguished itself as an organization that has sought common ground between the left and right. We have worked hard to engage ideologically diverse partners and have pursued strategies that could garner support from across the political spectrum. In doing so, we have sought to address the polarization and gridlock that have come to define our nation’s political system.

This bipartisan approach has enabled us to play a rare role in the democracy reform space. We supported the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which was co-chaired by the lawyers to the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns. We worked to create space for more ideologically diverse groups to advocate for campaign finance reform. And, we bolstered conservatives who took lonely stands on behalf of the rule of law during the Mueller investigation.

We are proud of this work and remain committed to the belief that principled compromise and broad coalitions are important for creating lasting change. We know that there are people across the ideological spectrum who care deeply about our country and we benefit from being exposed to diverse points of view.

But it is time to be clear: we are unwilling to compromise on fundamental principles of a healthy democracy. There can be no compromise when a Black person’s life is taken by a police officer as a result of a racist culture and institution. There can be no compromise when our free press is attacked as the enemy of the people. There can be no compromise when children are separated from their parents at the border, or when Muslims are “banned” from entering the United States. There can be no compromise when a party puts its political interests before the interests of conducting free and fair elections. There can be no compromise when leaders ignore the rule of law. These are violations of the non-negotiable ideals of a just and open democracy.

As more political leaders have abandoned their commitment to core democratic principles, we have increasingly found it impossible to describe our work as “bipartisan” without compromising on who we are and what we believe. Simply put, a commitment to “bipartisanship” above all else is untenable when our political leaders openly embrace authoritarian politics and reject values like pluralism and the rule of law.

I am therefore sharing today that Democracy Fund will no longer use the term “bipartisan” to describe our organization. Rather, we are an independent, nonpartisan foundation that advocates for an open and just democracy. As an organization, we choose to anchor ourselves in our democratic principles rather than the space negotiated between the two political parties. I know this decision will disappoint some of our partners and energize others, but I believe it is what our principles require of us. Democracy Fund will champion the leaders who defend democracy and who challenge our political system to be more open and just.

Democracy Fund’s work must be driven by evidence, learning, and our core beliefs about what is essential to a healthy democracy. We have long held six beliefs:

In the dignity of every individual and in the equal protection of their rights under the law.
That voting is the cornerstone of our democracy.
That constitutional checks and balances and respect for the rule of law are critical to protect against abuses of power.
That a healthy democracy cannot exist without a participatory, vibrant public square, including an independent, free press.
That informed dialogue and principled compromise are essential to governing a large, diverse, and complex society like the United States.
That political leaders and elected officials bear an uncommon burden to act with integrity.

We proudly stand for these beliefs and will unabashedly defend them. Today, we are adding another democratic value to this list:

We believe a just and equitable political system must eliminate structural barriers to ensure historically excluded communities have meaningful influence in our democracy.

Americans must acknowledge that our political system has been intentionally designed to marginalize many — particularly Black and Brown people — since its founding. Built on land stolen from its original inhabitants with the labor of enslaved people, our nation initially and repeatedly denied a voice to all but a privileged few white men. At Democracy Fund, we believe that we must amplify the efforts of unjustly marginalized groups to be heard and be represented, just as we must stand against those who promote bigotry and hate.

In recent years, Democracy Fund has been working to create a more diverse, equitable democracy through efforts like becoming a founding partner of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, supporting communities targeted by hate, fostering a more representative Congress, and combating barriers to voting for historically disenfranchised communities. We remain committed to eliminating structural barriers not only in what we do, but by taking an inward look at how we do it.

While I am proud of the work that we and our grantees have done to contribute to a more equitable democracy, I know Democracy Fund has fallen short of what is needed. Our bipartisan positioning has too often been an excuse to not grapple with and address the deep injustice that is ingrained in our political institutions and system. Indeed, adding a core belief that explicitly elevates the need for equitable influence and power is a small step toward rectifying that failure, but it’s not enough. Moving forward, we are prioritizing a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in our work, including our philanthropic practices, and we invite you to hold us accountable as we do this work.

The challenges facing our democracy are urgent and complex, and I feel a deep sense of responsibility and service to the field — and to our mission of defending democracy and challenging our political system to be more open and just. While our political system is resilient and has endured through times of severe stress, the ongoing health of our republic depends on each of us standing against immediate threats to our democracy and engaging in the long struggle to ensure that our country lives up to its democratic ideals. Led by our principles, Democracy Fund aspires to be a better champion and ally to those in the fight.

Cover Photo: Participants in a Memorial Day Parade in Washington, DC. Photo by Roberto Galen.

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Statement

Our commitment to being part of the solution

Joe Goldman

June 3, 2020

Democracy Fund stands in solidarity with our grantees, partners, and those across the nation who are outraged and grieving over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many other Black lives that have been lost or harmed by racism, white supremacy, and police brutality. That includes the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected communities of color.

At Democracy Fund, we believe that a healthy democracy requires that historically targeted communities have power and equal protection under the law. This means police brutality must end, and it means Black communities, social justice organizers, and allies across the country must be able to peaceably assemble to protest another attack on a Black man. These protests should be joined and amplified, not shut down nor met with police aggression. We have to center the experiences of Black people and other marginalized communities as we work to build a more equitable democracy. Many of us need to confront our own privilege to work in solidarity to actively dismantle racism.

Instead of helping us to forge a path forward, our nation’s leaders are threatening to deploy military force against fellow Americans, condoning attacks on journalists, and using social media to stoke division. This is a violation of the very principles of an open and just democracy, and further endangers our nation.

There is significant work to do to protect the lives of Black people to ensure they have power in our democracy. Philanthropy, including Democracy Fund, must do better at attacking the racism and injustice built into our society and institutions — including our own. We are committed to being a part of the solution.

Moving forward, we commit to four things:

Providing more dollars with fewer barriers to support Black-led organizations fighting for social justice and anti-racist policies;
Directing financial support to local newsrooms and Black reporters so that they can keep telling important stories, including those that shed light on injustice and racism;
Using our influence with other philanthropic organizations to improve funding strategies — including our own — that eliminate barriers for Black-led and -supporting organizations to receive resources; and
Working with foundations and donors across the country to find every resource possible to remove barriers and ensure that everyone is able to vote safely in November.

Black Lives Matter,
Joe Goldman

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Systems Map

Digital Democracy Initiative Core Story

Paul Waters

May 15, 2020

Our democracy is a complex political system made of an intricate web of institutions, interest groups, individual leaders, and citizens that are all connected in countless ways. Every attempt to influence and improve some aspect of this complex system produces a ripple of other reactions. To identify the root causes of problems we want to address, find intervention points, and design strategies to affect positive change, we use a methodology called systems mapping. We create systems maps in collaboration with broad and inclusive sets of stakeholders, and use them to design and then assess our grantmaking strategies. They are intended to provide a shared language, creating new opportunities for dialogue, negotiation, and ideas that can improve the health of our democracy.

This systems map describes how digital tools and technologies have transformed our public square in recent years for better and for worse. The flow of news, information and civic discourse is now largely governed by five major companies: Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Following numerous high-profile scandals, the public has grown concerned about issues of discrimination, mis/disinformation, online hate and harassment, lack of transparency, voter suppression, and foreign interference in our elections through the platforms. The platforms’ lackluster response to these crises suggests that we need to build a strong movement to force the platforms to become accountable not just to their shareholders, but to the public.

The map consists of three interlocking loops.

Platform Power & Profitability describes how the platforms have come to dominate digital communications at the expense of the public square’s overall health and transparency.
Discriminatory Targeting lays out the ways in which platform tools have been used to weaken our democracy, spread hateful content and disinformation, and have exacerbated longstanding racial, economic, and gender inequalities.
The Decline of Commercial News shows why and how news publishers have been unable to compete with platforms for attention and profits in the digital age, and what the loss of journalism means for the public square.

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Blog

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

Joe Goldman

April 3, 2020

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

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

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

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

1. Increasing Flexibility Within Current Grant Agreements

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

2. Rapid Response Funding for Operational Continuity

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

Preparing For What’s Next

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

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

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