Blog Archives

Key to Public Trust: A Congress that Looks Like America

Laura A. Maristany

July 12, 2017

Let me tell you a quick story.

As a young political science major at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, I always dreamed about working in the policy space. While my great grandparents on both sides were involved in politics in Cuba, no one in my family had pursued a career in U.S. politics until me. Needless to say, I didn’t have a robust network of well-connected people who could help me get my foot in the door. So in 2005, when my mother heard about a paid congressional internship program, she immediately encouraged me to apply. Fortunately, I was accepted into the program and given the opportunity to work in the office of the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico – one of the busiest offices in the House of Representatives. This experience offered me a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn how Congress functions from the inside and build a network of peers and mentors, which eventually led me to a full time job on Capitol Hill.

In “this town” it is difficult to climb the Washington D.C. career ladder without having done your time on Capitol Hill. My paid internship opportunity and subsequent experience working in Congress is a staple of my resume that continues to open doors for me. But while internships continue to be a reliable path towards working for Congress, many are unpaid jobs – and there are very few young people with the means or ability to move to Washington, D.C. for a semester or summer to work for free. This is an especially acute problem for young people from low income and minority communities.

The result? A Congressional staff that currently does not represent the diversity of our nation.

At the Democracy Fund, we believe that healthy democracy demands vibrant public discussion and participation in our nation’s civic life. Robust public participation signals that people believe their voice and the institutions of our democracy matter. So we support programs and projects aiming to put people back at the center of our democracy in ways that give them the visceral experience of feeling heard and included.

Because it is the institution tasked with elevating the voice of all Americans to the national stage, Congress must make an effort to incorporate all the communities it serves. To truly represent the diverse people of this great nation, Congress should be committed to hiring the diverse people of this great nation.

It’s Time for Congress to Take a Long, Hard Look in the Mirror

In 2015, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (Joint Center) took the first steps to quantify the lack of diversity in Congressional staff through a study focusing on top staff leadership in the U.S. Senate. The results confirmed what is visible to anyone visiting their Member of Congress; minorities are grossly underrepresented in the institution tasked with representing all of us.

The Joint Center report found that of 336 top Senate staffers (Chiefs of Staff, Legislative Directors, Communications Directors, and Staff Directors), only 24 staffers were people of color – 12 Asian Americans, 7 Latinos, 3 African Americans, and 2 Native Americans.

The Joint Center’s chart shows the disconnect between what our country looks like in comparison to the top leadership in U.S. Senate offices.

Importantly, this is a problem for both Democrats and Republicans. For example, although African Americans account for 22% of Democratic voters, they account for less than 1% of Democratic top staff. Of the 6 Black top staffers in the U.S. Senate, only two are Democrats (the other four are Republicans).

As you digest these numbers, keep in mind that, aside from its duty to work with the House of Representatives on legislation, the U.S. Senate has the final word on who sits on our Supreme Court and on who leads the agencies in charge of implementing our national policy. Therefore, lack of diversity in Congressional staff has long lasting ripple effects throughout our nation’s institutions, and pretty much every facet of our lives. (The Joint Center plans to release similar information related to the House side in 2017.)

To correct the imbalance found by the Joint Center and to ensure Members of Congress are responding to the communities they represent, seeking out and hiring more diverse staff is more crucial than ever.

The Path Forward: Congressional Staff That Looks Like America

Regardless of your views on size and scope, when it comes to government, we as citizens long for institutions that carry out the will of the people, for policies that help our communities thrive, and for systems that improve our daily lives. As the representative institution in our system of government, Congress is in a unique position to elevate our voices, but to do that, it must continue to listen to us – all of us.

A Congress that looks like the people it represents is a crucial part of the strategy to rebuild public trust. Understanding that diversity is key to healthy organizations and institutions, Democracy Fund plans to make significant investments to organizations uniquely positioned to tackle these challenges and, hopefully contribute to breaking this vicious cycle.

Two of these organizations – the Joint Center and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund – are already leaders in this space and, with support from the Democracy Fund, will be able to scale their programs to ensure Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle prioritize diversity in their teams. New funding will allow these organizations to expand programs that help Congress recruit, train, and place qualified candidates for positions in congressional offices that better reflect the demographics of the constituencies they represent. They will also work to modernize congressional hiring practices, collaborate with existing diversity efforts to foster more relationships across the aisle, and promote professional development resources that help congressional staffers learn new skills, deepen their understanding of issues, and succeed in their careers.

Ultimately, we believe these programs can begin to move the needle towards a more representative Congress and help Members of Congress become more responsive to the communities they represent.

To learn more about these projects or to get involved, please email us at info@democracyfund.org.

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Mapping the Legislative Ecosystem

Chris Nehls

July 5, 2017

Few things about Congress are simple: even different types of information it generates as a legislative body – from bill language and roll call votes, to members’ press releases and statements into the official record – are processed and maintained by a myriad of offices. Over the last half-dozen years, public servants of those offices and citizens invested in open access and easy use of the data Congress produces have gathered annually at the Legislative Data Transparency Conference, hosted by the Committee on House Administration. Originally held as an opportunity for the various stewards of legislative data to discuss collective challenges, in recent years the conference also has become a moment to herald the unappreciated success of the legislative data community in standardizing and releasing datasets that help the American people understand congressional efforts and hold elected representatives accountable.

On June 27, I joined OpenGov Foundation Executive Director Seamus Kraft and Demand Progress Policy Director Daniel Schuman on stage at this year’s conference. Our panel discussed how the legislative data community can use Democracy Fund’s Congress & Public Trust systems map to contextualize its efforts in the broader congressional reform movement.

WATCH: Mapping Congress to Power Meaningful Reform & Innovation

Successes like publishing bill text in machine-readable formats or creating common xml schema are not going to end up on the nightly news. But a proper legislative data infrastructure makes it possible for bill histories and vote records to become evident with a few clicks of a mouse or for instant visualization of how a bill would change existing law. These types of innovations make it easier for members of Congress and their staff and to do their jobs and keep congressional conduct transparent for the electorate. In the broader transformation it encourages, in other words, legislative data reform efforts help strengthen congressional capacity and support a more informed citizenry.

It’s important from a systems perspective to remember that even work on small-scale projects can create ripples of change in a complex environment like Congress. As Schuman reminded the audience, every new dataset that comes online opens possibilities for techies to build new tools that help fill knowledge gaps people within the system can use to solve common challenges.

The panel suggested ways that individual organizations can utilize the systems map to think strategically about their contributions to institutional change. For example, Kraft said that the OpenGov Foundation drilled down on the map in the context of their product design, discovering in the process that constituent engagement was a vitally underserved focus area they could impact with a new project to transform congressional offices’ processing of voicemail and constituent calls.

The systems map also helps remind narrowly-focused communities like the one we addressed Tuesday that their collective efforts also impact the work of similar communities focused on different types of challenges. Washington is full of such groups, whether they focus on government ethics and transparency, the rules and procedures of Congress, of the ways in which advocacy groups make their case to lawmakers. Actions by one community change the dynamics of the system in significant ways for others. The challenge for those across such communities who care about a healthy congressional system is working in concert with one another to amplify efforts.

For our part, our team recently revised our systems map to represent our new thinking on congressional oversight of the Executive Branch. These changes better reflect the importance of government watchdog organizations, transparency and government oversight groups, whistleblowers, the media, and others in holding Congress accountable to its Constitutional responsibility to oversee the conduct of federal offices and the White House.

To learn more about our systems map project, please visit democracyfund.org/congressmap or email us at congressmap@democracyfund.org to sign up for email updates.

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Announcing News Match 2017: $2 Million Fund Will Match Donations to Nonprofit Newsrooms

Tom Glaisyer

June 21, 2017

This piece was co-authored by Tom Glaisyer and Jennifer Preston at Knight Foundation

We believe that journalism is essential to building informed and engaged communities, and that a healthy democracy requires a robust and independent press. For the last decade, as the digital disruption of the traditional business model for journalism has led to deep cuts in newsrooms across the county, nonprofit news organizations have filled critical gaps by providing vital news and information to communities, delivering investigative and beat reporting with pioneering models.

The future and mission of nonprofit journalism has never been more important as trust in the news media is at an all time low and people are searching for reliable news in their social and mobile streams. Today, the Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation welcome other funders and supporters to join a new matching gifts fund to support nonprofit news. Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation are pledging $2 million in 2017 to kick off a campaign to support nonprofit journalism, with an additional $750,000 committed to help nonprofit organizations build the capability and capacity they need to put them on the path of sustainability.

The new fund builds on the success of last fall’s Knight News Match, which helped 57 nonprofit news organizations across the country raise more than $1.2 million in matching donations from small donors. This year’s effort significantly expands the number of newsrooms eligible to participate and increases opportunities for both place-based and national foundations to support the matching gifts program.

The objective of this fund is to support nonprofit newsrooms delivering local, beat and investigative reporting. To be eligible to participate, nonprofit newsrooms must be full members of the Institute for Nonprofit News in September 2017. The program will begin in the fall so that the matching gifts program can be used as a way to reach new donors and appeal to recent donors during the critical end-of-year fundraising season.

To support the matching gifts program and help put nonprofit news on the path to sustainability, Democracy Fund and Knight have committed $750,000 dollars to support the most effective strategies, tools and best practices for long-term sustainability. These investments will allow the Institute for Nonprofit News, Local Independent Online News, and the News Revenue Hub to help local newsrooms expand their donor base, develop successful membership programs, and make the case for supporting journalism in their communities.

We believe this is a profoundly important moment for journalism in America. Our communities and our country need journalism that reflects and responds to the diverse needs of all Americans. In the face of the hollowing out of the traditional industry, nonprofit news sites offer a chance to restore local coverage and deliver expert beat reporting, but they require the support of their communities. Whether you can give five dollars or five hundred to the participating nonprofit news organization of your choice, News Match will double it.

More details about the fund will be announced in the fall. In the meantime, Democracy Fund and Knight Foundation will continue to invite additional partners to join the fund, especially community and place-based foundations who recognize that news and information is an indispensable community asset, and want to leverage the fund to further amplify support.

For questions about the News Match fund contact:

Josh Stearns at Democracy Fund, jstearns@democracyfund.org

Jennifer Preston at Knight Foundation, preston@knightfoundation.org

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Welcoming Tammy Patrick to Democracy Fund’s Elections Program

Democracy Fund

May 12, 2017

This week the Democracy Fund is excited to welcome Tammy Patrick as a new Senior Advisor for the Elections program. A widely-respected leader in the election administration space, Tammy brings with her a strong background in using data, best practices, and practical approaches to make voting easier. In this new role, Tammy will help lead the Democracy Fund’s efforts to foster a voter-centric elections system and work to provide election officials across the country with the tools and knowledge they need to best serve their voters.

Tammy joins us from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), where she worked to promote the recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA). BPC has had major successes working in states across the country to advance the PCEA’s recommendations, as identified in our recent progress report, available here. Tammy is also a former Commissioner of the PCEA, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013. As a Commissioner, Tammy was an active contributor to the work that lead to a series of unanimous, bipartisan recommendations on how to improve elections in the United States.

Tammy spent 11 years working to infuse data and innovation in local election practices as a federal compliance officer for the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona, where she served over 1.9 million registered voters in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Her long list of accomplishments also includes the U.S. Postal Service’s Mailer’s Technical Advisory Committee, where she works on important issues related to the role the United States Postal Service place in our elections.

In addition to her work with the Democracy Fund, Tammy serves on the steering committee for National Voter Registration Day as well as the board of advisors for the Center for Technology in Civic Life and the MIT Election Data Science Lab. She also teaches Data Analysis for Election Administration for the Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota, which provides a certificate in public administration for election officials.

“We are thrilled to welcome Tammy to our team,” said Adam Ambrogi, Director of the Democracy Fund’s Elections Program. “With her unrivaled expertise on the challenges and nuances of elections administration in the United States and a proven ability to develop relationships with election officials, policy experts, academics, advocates from across the political spectrum, Tammy will be a tremendous asset in helping the Democracy Fund seek new ways to support election officials and improve the voting experience for all voters.”

To learn more about our staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/who-we-are. We will keep you updated as we continue recruit for several open positions at the Democracy Fund.

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Systems Thinking: A View from the Trenches

Srik Gopal

May 3, 2017

This piece was co-authored by Donata Secondo and Robin Kane and was originally published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)

In recent years, systems thinking—a discipline that helps us understand interdependent structures of dynamic systems—has emerged as a powerful force for change in the philanthropic world. Borne out of the realization that significant and sustainable social change requires more than discrete interventions, systems thinking has become de rigueur for any foundation looking to create impact at scale. A 2016 publication on systems grantmaking by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, as well as recent pieces by FSG, Bridgespan, and New Profit have captured this spirit, and sought to provide guidance and direction for foundations navigating this new world.

But what does systems thinking and change look like in the trenches?

The Democracy Fund, which spun off from Omidyar Network as an independent entity in 2014, provides one example. The Democracy Fund’s mission is to help ensure that the US political system can withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people. Given the complexity of this goal, we knew from the beginning that to produce the greatest impact, we needed to create strong, systems-oriented strategies that aligned with the work of others.

READ MORE via SSIR

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Engaged Journalism: Putting Communities at the Center of Journalism

Teresa Gorman

April 26, 2017

This post was co-authored by Paul Waters

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square program is dedicated to supporting vibrant and thriving media through increasing engaged journalism practices in news outlets across the country. Two of the most common questions we hear about engaged journalism are: what is engaged journalism? And how (once you’ve figured out what it is) do you help the practice spread? To begin answering those questions, we commissioned two papers from Dot Connector Studio. Today, we are releasing those papers publicly for journalists, news organizations, funders, and any others that may find them useful.

The first is “Pathways to Engagement: Understanding How Newsrooms are Working with Communities.” In this paper, we have documented a broad spectrum of efforts that help position communities at the center of journalism by creating a taxonomy of engagement practices. Different approaches are outlined, along with useful examples from the field. We refer to the full spectrum of ideas presented here as “Engaged Journalism.” We undertook this effort primarily to clarify our own thinking, not to enforce a uniformity on others. We hope our taxonomy will be of use to the field, but we also see the value in continuing to push and pull on the meanings behind the words we use.

The second paper is “Communities of Practice: Lessons for the Journalism Field.” Organizations in the field need new solutions and ways to spread, compare, replicate, scale, and evaluate engaged journalism. Communities of practice (CoP) are one way to accomplish that for engaged journalism, and also for other groups. This paper examines the theory and evolution of CoPs and explores in greater detail some CoPs that are developing with those working in engaged journalism. The appendix provides a checklist for building and expanding CoPs for any type of group.

We hope that these lessons and examples—drawn from leaders and practitioners—will challenge and inspire both journalists and those who fund them. These papers are designed to share with your colleagues, newsroom leaders, and even community members. We hope that the paper on Communities of Practice will prove useful not only for those seeking to organize CoPs around engaged and local journalism, but for other funders and organizers in the space aiming to coalesce around other crucial responses to disruption in news.

We welcome your feedback on these ideas and look forward to hearing more from you about how engaged journalism and communities of practice are being adopted in your newsrooms and communities. Please send feedback to localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

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Welcoming New Teammates to the Democracy Fund

Democracy Fund

April 11, 2017

The Democracy Fund team is a group of remarkably passionate and dedicated people from all walks of life and across the political spectrum. As we face new challenges and embrace new opportunities, we are proud to welcome three outstanding additions to our team. Spanning a wide range of experience and interests, we are confident that these individuals will bring the skills and diverse perspectives that are critical to our work to help strengthen democracy.

On the program side, please join us in welcoming Laura A. Maristany, the Democracy Fund’s new Associate Director for Constructive Politics in the Governance Program. A seasoned advocate with extensive Capitol Hill and legislative experience, Laura previously served as chief federal advocate and Director of the Washington, D.C. office for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Laura also served as Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). At both organizations, Laura played a key role in developing and implementing their respective legislative agendas and developing relations with Congress, the Administration, federal agencies, and other national organizations. At the Democracy Fund, Laura will lead the Governance Program’s efforts to strengthen the congressional political system by fostering more constructive political engagement and a healthy two-party system.

“We so grateful to have Laura join our team,” said Betsy Wright Hawkings, Director of the Democracy Fund’s Governance Program. “With her strong organizational skills, experience developing relationships with leaders on both sides of the congressional aisle and across the federal government, and proven ability to partner with other national organizations, Laura will be a tremendous asset in helping the Democracy Fund promote the ability of elected officials to cooperate and find common ground.”

Our Operations team has been growing as well. Bringing an extensive background in financial management, auditing, compliance, and operations management for nonprofit organizations, we are delighted to welcome our new Controller, Robin Thompson, to the team. Robin will plan and oversee the Democracy Fund’s financial resources, including implementing and managing new, more efficient systems for our complex and growing organization.

We are also happy to welcome Lorna Kerr, our new Human Resources Associate. Focusing specifically on diversity and inclusion, performance management, learning and development, and a host of other human resource functions, Lorna will help us cultivate a values-driven culture at the Democracy Fund that brings out the best in our rapidly growing, diverse staff.

“Robin and Lorna both bring deep experience in their respective fields and a passion for motivating people and implementing best practices,” said Tony Bowen, Director of Grants Management and Operations. “We are very excited to have them join our growing organization and help us professionalize our internal operations so we can better serve our partners and support our teams as we work to make democracy better.”

To learn more about our staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/about-us. We will keep you updated as we continue recruit for several open positions at the Democracy Fund.

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News Integrity Initiative: Building a More Trustworthy Public Square

Paul Waters

April 4, 2017

Josh Stearns co-authored this piece with Paul Waters.

At the Democracy Fund we believe that a healthy democracy depends on a vibrant and trustworthy public square. At a time of deep partisanship and threats to democratic ideals and institutions, media have a powerful role to play informing the public and helping bridge the differences we face in our communities, and our nation. However, the erosion of trust in journalism raises profound challenges for a democracy that depends on an open marketplace of ideas, vibrant civil debate, and a press that holds all leaders accountable.

We joined the News Integrity Initiative because we understand that trust is a complex issue and that it demands a diversity of approaches.

The News Integrity Initiative, a project by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, is focused on helping people make informed judgments about the news they read and share online. By funding applied research and convening meetings with industry experts, the Initiative will work to advance news literacy, increase trust in journalism around the world, and better inform the public conversation.

We are excited to join others in supporting a range of people, practices, and ideas to rebuild new kinds of relationships between communities and newsrooms. There is no silver bullet to solve all concerns around trust in media, but we want to roll up our sleeves and work with others who are committed to asking hard questions and seeking out workable solutions to complicated problems.

At the Democracy Fund, we bring to this work a deep commitment to local news, community engagement, and diversity in media. We know that trust looks different in different communities, and that trust is often nuanced, contextual, and shifting. Part of how we got here today is through self-inflicted wounds by an industry that hasn’t always served the needs of everybody in America. And we are aware that issues of trust in media are not new for many communities who have been left out, misrepresented, and hurt by media coverage throughout our nation’s history. We want to work with people in big cities and small rural communities, on the coasts and in the heartland, and in red and blue states across the country.

While these issues have been in the spotlight recently, the erosion of trust in journalism is part of broader shifts in how people relate to institutions across our democracy. The ongoing economic challenges facing the press today demand new ideas about the role the public in supporting and sustaining the press. We are encouraged by the News Integrity Initiative’s emphasis on putting people at the center of the discussion about trust.

Jeff Jarvis, the director of the Tow Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at CUNY, which will administer the fund, wrote that he wants “to explore this issue from a public perspective ,” arguing that news literacy shouldn’t be “just about getting the public to read our news but more about getting media to listen to the public.” To that end, we need newsrooms that are deeply engaged with their communities and we need active citizens who are equipped and empowered as creators, consumers, and collaborators.

We look forward to working with the News Integrity Initiative and organizations across the country to catalyze efforts to put people at the center of American journalism and do the hard work of building a more trustworthy public square for all.

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Investing in an Independent, Robust Free Press

Tom Glaisyer

March 28, 2017

A healthy democracy cannot exist without a vibrant public square, including an independent, trusted, and robust free press. At a time when news organizations increasingly find themselves under attack, the Democracy Fund along with our partners at First Look Media are announcing major commitments of more than $12 million to support a robust free press – the largest grants either organization has made to date in support of journalism.

For years, the media industry has struggled against major economic threats that have severely undermined our fourth estate. In response, the Democracy Fund’s Public Square program has worked with journalists across the country to experiment with new models that can reinvigorate local media and ensure that newsrooms are able to fulfill their core responsibilities to a healthy democracy. But 2016 media trends were deeply alarming. Viral deceptions and bogus information sometimes seemed to overwhelm the facts and fact-checkers. Newsmedia coverage only partially reflected vast swathes of the country. And media institutions continued to struggle financially and with earning the public’s trust. In short, America’s lively and contentious public square stands to become choked, chilled, and full of claptrap.

However, sometimes the moments where challenges are revealed prove to be turning points. It’s not clear that this is the case, but we can say without doubt that this moment has provided a renewed focus on the critical role of our nation’s press. Many individuals and organizations who have been raising alarm bells about the future of media are newly energized.

It is in this moment that we all have an opportunity to act.

Standing With Those Who Seek the Truth

With that in mind, the Democracy Fund is announcing a number of new grants this week, and I wanted to take this opportunity to describe them within the longer arc of our work.

The bedrock of our press rests on a robust interpretation of the First Amendment. Free press advocates are battening down the hatches. Trends in digital and platform rhetoric may, if nothing else, spark violent speech and even violence towards journalists, chilling freedom of expression. Without robust defenders of the First Amendment, all American journalists will struggle. We hope that our support will enable the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to continue and expand on its work to provide legal resources and guidance for independent journalists, nonprofit news outlets, and partners in broadcast, print, and online news media. With public support for the news media dangerously low, we need a community of press freedom advocates that is able to engage with the public around these issues.

Supporting Bold Ideas for Big Investigations

The craft of journalism and, critically, the accountability journalism that larger non-profit outlets are well positioned to deliver without fear or favor, are an important asset to the field. Each of the following institutions is unique. In partnership with our colleagues at First Look Media we made five significant grants.

A grant to the Center for Investigative Reporting provides general operating support as they pioneer new models of investigative reporting rooted in collaboration, community engagement, and creativity. A grant to the Center for Public Integrity provides general operating support to expand their watchdog reporting and strengthen their ability to hold institutions accountable to the American people. And, with our additional support, ProPublica is positioned to expand its groundbreaking work that combines hard-hitting investigations and cutting edge data journalism in service to communities.

Finding New Partners and New Funding

Two other grants take a different approach, but are to us complementary pieces of the puzzle. We have to find the best way to flexibly deploy resources towards reporting. The Investigative Reporting Workshop (IRW) at American University achieves this through partnering with newsrooms and exploring new paths to engage others who previously might not have seen themselves as accountability experts. In contrast, a New York University grant will establish a laboratory for community-supported investigative journalism and focus on developing sustainable business models for U.S. newsrooms rooted in new membership structures and drawing on the lessons from a world leader in community-driven accountability journalism.

(As part of this announcement of our support, we want to underscore that Democracy Fund will never try to influence the journalism of our grantees, and explicitly ask grantees not to discuss their editorial strategy with us, or any stories they may or may not write.)

A New Fund for State and Local News

Sustainability is key at the local level, too, and through the announcement of a commitment of $1 million towards a new fund for state and local investigative journalism, we hope to serve as a beacon for those who want to support local and state news, investigative beats, and nonprofit news. Many of the dozens of nonprofit outlets that have sprung up over the last few years are maturing and looking to the future.

Let’s be clear: the degradation of trust in news media is real, and public support needs to be renewed if we are going to have a flourishing public square—an essential component of a healthy democracy.

At the Democracy Fund, we believe the practices that will build the truthful, trusted journalism that we need focus on the public. The public should know that the journalism being produced has fidelity to the facts. The public should be engaged and connected to journalists in a very real and not superficial way. The news media and journalists the public relies on must be diverse in sources, stories, and staff. For any of this to come to pass, journalists must be able to continue to practice hard-hitting accountability journalism without fear, represent diverse points of view, be relevant to the public, and be sustainable.

We hope that these new commitments will build effectively upon the $18 million in grants that the Democracy Fund’s Public Square program has made over the past five years to support efforts that help journalism to become more audience-centered, trusted, and resilient.

This is all very much a work in progress. But we believe there is a strong future for journalism and we look forward to continuing to work with our grantees, the wider community of those working in news and engagement, and the public towards this mission.

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NYU and De Correspondent Launch New Laboratory for Community Supported Investigative News

Josh Stearns

March 28, 2017

Rebuilding trust in journalism means rethinking the relationship between readers, revenue and reporting. That idea is at the heart of a new project launching today.

The Membership Puzzle Project, a collaboration between New York University and Dutch news site De Correspondent, will create a laboratory to study ways community engagement can strengthen investigative reporting and make journalism more sustainable. With $515,000 in funding from Democracy Fund, First Look Media and Knight Foundation, the Membership Puzzle Project will tackle specific problems and develop scalable solutions for developing strong membership programs, and share those lessons throughout the United States’ journalism landscape.

De Correspondent launched in the Netherlands with one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in journalism and now has over 50,000 members paying $63 a year, with an 80 percent renewal rate. Their reader-funded $3.2 million budget supports 20 full time “correspondents” who work closely with their communities to report on issues of critical public interest. De Correspondent operates in the open, sharing their budget and decision-making transparently and building deep and diverse relationships with its community in ways that strengthen the reporting and the sustainability of the newsroom.

De Correspondent announced its expansion to the U.S. market today.

The site will be incubated at New York University for the first year, where professor Jay Rosen will help translate their model to the United States and convene leading thinkers and innovators from across U.S. to exchange ideas, spread best practices, and train people on both sides of the project. This two-way laboratory will serve as a catalyst for creating new ways of supporting and strengthening the Fourth Estate.

This project is part of more than $12 million in new grants dedicated to supporting a robust and free press announced by the Democracy Fund and our partners at First Look Media earlier this week. Other grants include $3 million each to the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, and ProPublica, $800,000 to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and $500,000 to the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University. In addition, Democracy Fund announced a $1 million commitment to a new fund to invest in state and local investigative reporting.

A healthy democracy requires a free and robust press that responds to the needs of its communities and holds power to account. The critical role of the press in American democracy, as expressed in the First Amendment, is rooted in the information needs of communities which seek to be self-governing. At a time when the press is under attack and traditional business models continue to erode, the public becomes all the more central to securing and supporting the critical democratic function of journalism.

Democracy Fund’s investment in this project builds on more than $18 million in earlier grants which have focused on supporting a vibrant public square in America. We are particularly excited for how this project can dovetail with the work of the recently launched News Revenue Hub which is providing shared membership administration and strategy for small local newsrooms and topical reporting sites around the country. That work is already seeing profoundly exciting results and they will be core partners in the work with New York University and De Correspondent.

For Jay Rosen, one of the pioneers of civic journalism in the 1990s, this project is the culmination of years of work focused on putting people at the center of journalism. Ten years after Rosen dubbed the term “the people formerly known as the audience” this project asks, what is the social contract between journalists and the public that we need today? De Correspondent provides one answer to that question.

De Correspondent has shown that when newsrooms embrace the public as core to their work they can navigate through the stormy waters we are currently facing. Together we believe this project can help more newsrooms chart a path towards a robust future.