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Supporting Independent Journalists and Nonprofit Newsrooms in a Time of Unprecedented Threats

Estizer Smith
/
March 25, 2019

Journalists are being buffeted by growing political attacks and legal threats from powerful companies, political leaders and individuals at a moment when their capacity to fight those battles is greatly diminished. In a 2016 survey, the Knight Foundation found that a majority of editors believe financial pressures on newsrooms have left publishers less prepared and less able to go to court to preserve First Amendment freedoms. Nowhere is this more true than amongst struggling local legacy press, emerging nonprofit newsrooms and independent media makers.

The challenges that small newsrooms face were recently thrown into stark relief by Jon Ralston, the founder of The Nevada Independent, when he described why he chose not to publish an article which included credible allegations of misconduct at the Las Vegas Review-Journal (the article was subsequently published by the Columbia Journalism Review). Facing threats of legal action and the prohibitive cost of prolonged litigation, Ralston had to choose between risking the existence of his fledgling organization and the livelihoods of his staff, or not publishing a well-researched and well-sourced piece that was credible. He had no doubts about the validity of the reporting, but the cost of defending the reporting could have bankrupted his organization.

These sorts of challenges and choices are a critical part of how we must understand press freedom today. No journalist was bloodied or arrested. There was never a court battle. But as the landscape of our press changes, these sorts of strategic legal threats are an increasingly powerful tool for those who want to silence the press. We must embrace a modern conception of freedom of the press that recognizes a more encompassing set of challenges and imagines a new range of solutions. Though they are hard to measure, things like self-censorship as a result of economic concerns and the harassment of journalists—both in person and online—are growing threats to the public’s right to know.

The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker accounts for arrests, physical attacks, border stops, and subpoenas, but it is often hard to quantify instances of online harassment and threats to journalists that are frequently as insidious. In an attempt at remedying a part of this, the International Women’s Media Foundation partnered with Troll Busters to publish a report on the impact of attacks and harassment on female journalists. In that report, 63 percent of respondents indicated they had been threatened or harassed online, 58 percent indicated they’d been threatened or harassed in person, and nearly 30 percent have considered leaving the profession as a result.

As the threats to journalists change, so too does the public’s understanding of what is at stake. While we know the threats to journalists and attacks on freedom of the press are real and deeply concerning, polling we funded in 2017 showed that although 95 percent of registered voters believe that freedom of the press is important, 52 percent do not perceive it as being under threat.

Democracy Fund is committed to supporting independent journalists and nonprofit newsrooms through a variety of efforts, from expanding community engagement to rebuilding sustainable business models. We know the challenges are nuanced, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Our hope is to help provide newsrooms with the resources needed to both report the truth confidently, without fear of being sued into financial ruin, and to help ensure that all journalists facing harassment have access to the resources necessary to recover and take care of themselves and their families.

Over the past two years, we have invested in organizations that defend and advocate for the rights of journalists and newsrooms at every level. For example:

Legal Defense

  • Knight Institute for the First Amendment: The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University works to defend and strengthen the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, and public education. Its aim is to promote a system of free expression that is open and inclusive, that broadens and elevates public discourse, and that fosters creativity, accountability, and effective self-government
  • Media Freedom and Information Access Legal Clinic at Yale Law School: The Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale University Law School is dedicated to increasing government transparency, defending the essential work of news gatherers, and protecting freedom of expression by providing pro bono legal services and developing policy initiatives.
  • Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press works to protect the right to gather and distribute news, keep government accountable by ensuring access to public records, and to preserve the principles of free speech and unfettered press, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
  • Student Press Law Center: The Student Press Law Center works at the intersection of law, journalism and education to promote, support and defend the First Amendment rights of student journalists and their advisers at the high school and college level. The SPLC provides information, training and legal assistance at no charge to student journalists and the educators who work with them.

Advocacy

  • Reporters Without Borders North America: Reporters Without Borders North America seeks to raise awareness and involve Americans in preserving freedom of information, as well as monitor and take action to prevent press freedom violations in the United States, Canada, and the English-speaking Caribbean. They raise awareness on the current climate for press freedom and mobilize other partners, the US government, the UN, and American citizens who want to support freedom of the press and defend journalism.

Engagement

  • PEN America: PEN America’s Press Freedom Incentive Fund supports PEN America members and their allies to mobilize their communities around press freedom. During its pilot 2017-2018 year, this Fund supported initiatives in more than 20 cities and regions—in places like Detroit, Birmingham, and Denver—to build new local constituencies ready to defend press freedom.

These grants and others have and will continue to provide the traditional legal foundation for our press freedom work. However, we know they alone will not fix the broader systemic issues affecting newsrooms. They do not address the field’s need to protect itself from litigation, and they do not address the personal harassment and threats that individual journalists—particularly women and people of color—endure every day. Given that knowledge, we have been working to think bigger, and leading efforts to broaden the safety and insurance infrastructures that support newsrooms and journalists in 2019.

Three areas Democracy Fund is focusing on this year are:

Legal Clinics

We are working with partners across philanthropy to find a new way to empower a network of university-affiliated legal clinics that focus on the first amendment and media access to more directly serve newsrooms and journalists in their communities. We believe a robust network of legal clinics with increased capacity to provide direct services to journalists can create a strong new force for First Amendment litigation and legal advice.

Insurance Infrastructure

We are exploring the development of a new option for libel and defamation insurance that is affordable and serves nonprofit newsrooms specifically. We believe that the accessibility of insurance is key to a newsroom’s ability to publish rigorously sourced stories that hold those in power accountable, and we believe philanthropy can play a role in helping the field bridge the gap between need and access.

Harassment and Safety

Finally, we are starting new work around supporting journalists who face online harassment and threats to their physical safety, with an emphasis on women and people of color. A press that regularly sees its journalists self-censoring out of fear, or, in the worst cases, being harassed out of the field altogether is not free.

A modern conception of a free and independent press in the United States must be for all journalists, not only those with resources to afford legal fees and in-house counsel. It must acknowledge the economic challenges of the changing media landscape. It must be responsive to the challenges of the networked society, and engage meaningfully with the public to gain their trust and their support. Lastly, it must support journalists who suffer or face harassment as a result of their public facing work. Fundamentally, this modern conception must recognize that threats to a free press are nuanced and often not as public as one might believe.

In partnership with many others in the field, we are taking a multi-layered approach to addressing the myriad, complex challenges facing the free and independent press.We believe that this work can help us move in the right direction, and we will continue to learn and iterate throughout the year.

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Elections Program Research: Winter 2019 Roundup

Sarah Cole
/
March 18, 2019

Democracy Fund’s Elections Program research is off to a strong start in 2019, with the release of the first brief out of the 2018 Democracy Fund-Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials (LEOs)—which will be released in full this summer. The brief focuses on voter education and accessibility and was previewed at the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Conference and the Democracy Fund-Bipartisan Policy Center event on “The Voting Experience: 2018 and the Future.” Outlined below are key insights from the brief, in addition to key insights from the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) Annual Conference and a grantee spotlight on the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). Stay tuned in the coming months as we gear up and plan for the 2020 Presidential Election!

New Research at the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA):

In January, the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) met for its annual conference in Austin, Texas. Outlined below are the highlights shared by Democracy Fund partners, including:

  • University of San Diego’s Evan Crawford, Reed College’s Paul Gronke, and Portland State University’s Paul Manson: It’s difficult to interpret survey results from local election officials because of variations in jurisdiction size and work responsibilities.
  • University of Texas at Austin’s Nadine Suzanne Gibson: While there were no detrimental effects to voter experience or confidence when using private vendor service packages, there were also no data supporting the claim that election services vendors improve the administration of elections.
  • Auburn University’s Bridgett A. King: State-level election statutes and administration requirements for poll workers have variable effects on whether African American or Hispanic/Latino American voters are more or less likely to see a poll worker that matches their race or ethnicity.
  • Mississippi State University’s Thessalia Merivaki: There was inconsistent implementation of youth pre-registration in Miami-Dade and Hillsborough Counties in Florida despite uniform rules within the state, meaning that where a pre-registrant lived influenced the odds of whether their applications would be invalidated.
  • Fairfield University’s Gayle Alberda: In-person early voting had a negative effect on voter turnout in municipal elections across Ohio.

Preview of 2018 LEO Survey Results at NASS and BPC:

In early February, Democracy Fund’s Elections Program participated in two events. First, we sponsored a breakfast at the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Conference that brought secretaries of state and members of the advocacy community together. Second, we partnered with the Bipartisan Policy Center on “The Voting Experience: 2018 and the Future.” At each event, we presented a sneak peek of results from the 2018 Democracy Fund-Reed College Survey of Local Election Officials (LEOs). Some of our preliminary findings include:

  • LEOs surveyed believe that it is easier today for voters to register and vote, and it is easier for LEOs to administer registration and voting processes;
  • Ninety percent of LEOs enjoy educating voters, but only 35 percent say that they have the time and resources to do so, along with their responsibilities to administer the election; and
  • LEOs felt prepared for the 2018 election, and were confident that their states would secure systems from outside interference and successfully count votes as intended.

Note: The full report can be viewed on www.electionline.org under Research and Reports.

Research Grantee Spotlight: The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE):

Tuft University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) found that involvement in the post-Parkland gun violence prevention movement contributed to an increase in youth voter turnout in the 2018 midterm elections. Young people under 21 years old who reported being actively involved in the movement were 15 percent more likely to have been contacted by a campaign both before October and in the last six weeks before the election, and young people who reported that they were actively involved in the movement or agreed with it were 21 percentage points more likely to self-report that they voted in the election.

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NewsMatch 2018 raises $7.6 million, fueling growth in local news and investigative journalism.

Josh Stearns
/
February 12, 2019

The last month has been a difficult one for journalism in America. In a span of just two weeks roughly 2,000 journalists have lost their jobs or been offered buyouts. The nation’s six largest daily newspaper companies seem caught in a dangerous dance of consolidation and cost cutting. Even the Newseum, a museum dedicated to journalism, announced that it had to sell its landmark building down the street from the U.S. Capitol in January. All of this comes after a decade of struggle that has profoundly eroded journalism’s ability to serve local communities and live up to its role in our democracy.

However, there is another side to the story of journalism in America today.

New data from newsrooms all across the country shows that 2018 was a record-breaking year for community support of nonprofit news. Individual donors to journalism organizations gave more than $116 million in 2018, a 50 percent increase over 2017. In November and December alone, over 240,000 people gave to news organizations and more than 50,000 were new donors who supported a nonprofit newsroom for the first time.

This growth in giving to nonprofit journalism was fueled by an innovative national campaign called NewsMatch. Now in its third year, NewsMatch doubles donations to support quality journalism at the end of the year and provides expert training, individualized coaching and a campaign-in-a-box to grow the long term sustainability of local news and investigative journalism.

Over the last year, nonprofit journalists were a driving force for good, holding elected officials accountable, revealing injustice and waste, and shining a spotlight on public safety and health. NewsMatch members have provided critical reporting on family separation in Texas, covered coastal restoration in New Orleans, revealed patterns of abuses within New Mexico’s foster care system, and drove accountability through local reporting on #MeToo in Minnesota.

Fueling a New Era of Giving to News

  • NewsMatch 2018 helped 154 newsrooms raise $7.6 million from individual donors and a coalition of foundations and companies making it the largest-ever grassroots fundraising campaign to support local news.
  • Nonprofit news organizations are getting more successful at year-end fundraising. The average NewsMatch participant raised 11 percent more during the campaign in 2018 vs 2017.
  • Small and medium-sized newsrooms saw the biggest growth in year-end support, with 30+ percent increases in individual donors, donations, and dollars raised during NewsMatch.
  • NewsMatch was a platform for local philanthropy. Participants secured more than $675,000 in additional matching commitments from major donors and foundations during the campaign.
  • In the three years since NewsMatch was first launched it has helped participating newsrooms raise more than $14 million.

Community Support Drives Community Impact

The dollars raised through NewsMatch will make sure that more stories like these can be told in 2019. The funds will go to hire more journalists, engage local communities, fight for access to government secrets, and ensure that more people have access to the information they need to live their lives and make decisions about their families and the nation.

NewsMatch 2018 supported 154 newsrooms in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, with two-thirds of them focused on state or local journalism. All the participating organizations are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) which has guidelines about ethics, editorial independence and donor transparency. Ten years ago INN was founded by 27 nonprofit newsrooms and today the organization has more than 200 members. The remarkable growth of the nonprofit news sector — and the fact that the public is increasingly stepping up to support it — is an important counterbalance to the challenges facing journalism.

However, nonprofit news is still nowhere near filling the gaps left behind by the years of deep cuts in local and national journalism. Just this month, the Knight Commission on Trust Media and Democracy released its final report. The commission writes, “With traditional business and financial models for journalism under siege, major investments in and new approaches to supporting sustainable nonprofit and journalism collaborations are essential, particularly at the local level.”

Coming Together to Meet the Challenge

NewsMatch is answering that call by pioneering new approaches to supporting and strengthening local news and investigative reporting. The campaign created the first one-stop website where people can find and donate to multiple nonprofit newsrooms. The fund, which is housed at the Miami Foundation, is a unique platform for philanthropy, drawing support and collaboration from a diverse range of local, national and niche funders and companies including Democracy Fund, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, the Facebook Journalism Project, the Gates Family Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the Present Progressive Fund at Schwab Charitable, the Rita Allen Foundation, and the Wyncote Foundation. NewsMatch has created a simple on-ramp for funders who want to help rebuild journalism in America.

By combining philanthropic support with individual donations, NewsMatch focuses on not just raising money but also building the capacity of newsrooms to create durable and sustainable relationships with their audience. News Revenue Hub, a core partner of NewsMatch, provided more than 500 hours of training and consulting to newsrooms last year. Through templates, toolkits and technology tools the Hub provides newsrooms with proven models and best practices for cultivating donors and members.

That work doesn’t happen overnight. While we celebrate the remarkable progress and growth of NewsMatch in 2018 the team is already busy building the program for 2019. With the nonprofit news sector growing each year, NewsMatch needs to grow too and is currently recruiting new corporate and philanthropic partners who want to support the program. NewsMatch has also engaged Third Plateau, a social impact strategy firm, as an independent evaluation partner. A full evaluation of the program will be made available to the public this spring.

NewsMatch is helping build more trusted, sustainable local news and investigative reporting, but the real heroes here are the journalists and staff who work for nonprofit newsrooms all over the country. It is their work, their stories, their connection to community that makes NewsMatch possible. It is why NewsMatch exists, and how NewsMatch succeeds.

In the coming weeks we’ll be sharing more stories of how newsrooms made 2018 a record-breaking year and what they are planning for 2019. Follow NewsMatch on Facebook and Twitter to find out more.

Credits: Oklahoma Watch, PublicSource, ProPublica Illinois, Texas Observer
Credits: Oklahoma Watch, PublicSource, ProPublica Illinois, Texas Observer
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New Rules and Select Committee Create Opportunity for a More Effective Congress

Chris Nehls
/
January 14, 2019

Last week, the congressional reform community scored some major wins: new rules in the House of Representatives to support ethics and transparency, and the creation of a Select Committee with real potential to promote further reforms.

New Rules Lay the Foundation for New Results

The set of rules that the House of Representatives adopts each Congress often sets the tone for the next two years of legislating. Judging from the rules the House adopted in the first few days of this session, the 116th Congress is positioning itself to aggressively address challenges to its legislative capacity.

Current House rules tilt control of the chamber in ways that make it much harder for members to find bipartisan consensus on key problems that voters sent them to Washington to tackle. The select committee will examine ways that changes to how committees operate and how bills proceed to final passage can empower individual members to inject their expertise in the process and negotiate across the aisle. The Congressional Institute and Bipartisan Policy Center Action (a grantee of our sister organization, Democracy Fund Voice) have explored extensively what such changes could look like.

New Committee Promises Change and Accountability

The House overwhelmingly approved the creation of a Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress in a remarkable bipartisan vote of 418-12. This committee, to be chaired by Rep. Derek Kilmer of Washington, will suggest changes to House rules and procedures to encourage more bipartisan cooperation on bills and allow members to have more of an impact on the legislative process. It will also look into how Congress can adopt better workplace technology to become more innovative and examine challenges to recruiting and retaining a diverse and highly talented workforce. Membership on the committee will be split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

Building Congressional Staff Capacity

Although changes to procedural rules may open new avenues for bipartisan legislation, the effects of these reforms will be limited as long as the working conditions, capacity, and resources of congressional staff remain stagnant. Fortunately, the broad mandate of the Select Committee allows it to address these foundational issues as well. As Democracy Fund grantees have highlighted, the level of support the institution provides its most essential personnel has reached crisis status. In a 2017 Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) survey, only 6 percent of congressional senior staff said they were “very satisfied” with the technological infrastructure of the Congress in supporting members’ duties and only 15 percent were very satisfied with the level of knowledge, skills, and abilities of fellow staff.

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Our grantees like the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), the Legislative Branch Working Group, and Demand Progress have demonstrated how low pay, inadequate professional development opportunities, and high turnover can lead harried staff to rely increasingly on the perspectives of lobbyists and advocacy groups to inform legislation. Demand Progress, Lincoln Network, and TechCongress have noted that Congress suffers from a lack of staff with scientific and technical expertise—which might amount to just a handful of employees—to make sense of highly complex policy areas touching on nearly every aspect of American society. OpenGov Foundation and Lincoln Network, meanwhile, have explored how the information technology and digital communications systems serving congressional offices are inadequate for the world’s most powerful legislative body.

As the Select Committee begins its work, its members can rely on Democracy Fund grantees for impartial expert information on the state of congressional legislative capacity and ideas for modernizing the institution. Lincoln Network and Demand Progress, for example, have teamed up with a bipartisan coalition of civil society organizations, think-tanks, and academic experts to launch Future Congress, a resource hub to help improve the institution’s understanding of science and technology.

Fostering a Congress That Looks More Like America

The rules package also created a new Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which will develop and implement a plan to address Congress’ long-standing challenge of recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, especially among senior staff. As Democracy Fund grantee the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies recently demonstrated, less than 14 percent of top-level congressional staff are people of color. This lack of diversity presents an urgent legislative capacity issue, as Congress lacks staff perspectives that reflect the demographic composition of the nation.

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion can look to the Staff Up Congress initiative, a project of the Joint Center and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, for best practices in developing a pipeline of diverse candidates and hiring and promoting in an inclusive manner. The Joint Center is holding the freshman class of the 116th Congress accountable by tracking new hires of staff of color to senior positions.

The Select Committee and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion are just two aspects of a broader package of reforms that will strengthen ethical and transparent conduct of House members. The rules package also establishes a whistleblower office for congressional staff, strengthens institutional support for ethics investigations of members, and forces members to pay out of their own pocket for employment discrimination lawsuits.

Change in Washington requires patience and preparation to be ready to seize opportunities for reform when they arise. The rules reform package validates our strategy of long-term investment in organizations that provide a vision of what a modern Congress should be. In partnership with congressional stakeholders, those organizations are poised to begin a historic undertaking in the new Congress, strengthening its ability to fulfill its constitutional obligations and restoring public trust in the institution.

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Not Just Another Election Year: Reflections on Defending Democracy in 2018

Joe Goldman
/
December 20, 2018

In July, I published an open letter to tell you about the numerous ways our organization stood up in this time of crisis. Since then, Democracy Fund and our grantees have continued to garner important successes in bolstering the guardrails of our democracy.

Nowhere was this more on display in 2018 than during the midterm election. Millions of Americans from across the political spectrum engaged in the electoral process as volunteers, candidates, and voters for the first time. Record-breaking turnout resulted in a Congress that is more reflective of America than ever before. This surge of enthusiasm for our democracy was inspiring and reenergized my dedication to Democracy Fund’s core mission.

Dozens of Democracy Fund grantees played important roles in supporting this groundswell. I am honored that we helped enable their success. I’d like to take this opportunity to share just a few of their stories.

Ensuring the integrity of our electoral process and systems

Razor-thin margins and recounts in numerous races this November brought significant public scrutiny to election officials and highlighted the importance of well-resourced election administration. This year alone, our grantees’ work resulted in the modernization of nine states’ voter registration systems and pressured at least five states to comply with the National Voter Registration Act.

On the important issue of election security, grantees such as the Defending Digital Democracy Project equipped hundreds of jurisdictions across the nation with best practices and resources to meaningfully respond to cyber threats. I’m particularly proud of the contribution of Democracy Fund Voice staff and grantees in ensuring the congressional appropriation of $380 million for election security that was awarded in grants to all 50 states and multiple territories.

Defending voter access

When voter access was put in jeopardy, our grantees fought to protect the rights of voters in some of the most-watched states in the midterm elections. Demos helped protect the language access rights of Spanish speakers in Florida. The Campaign Legal Center sued to defend the voting rights of Native Americans in North Dakota and played a key role in efforts to combat the controversial measures implemented in Georgia by then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Common Cause provided thousands of volunteers to support election protection and strategies to alert the public if voters had problems at the polls. The Texas Civil Rights Project won expanded early voting access for Texas State University students and kept nine polling locations in Harris County open for an extra hour after they opened late on election day.

Engaging and informing voters

Robust and fair elections systems are a crucial starting place for successful elections, but so too is an engaged and informed public. Millions of voters used tools built by Democracy Fund grantees to register to vote, identify their polling locations, and access other important information about the election. Democracy Works’ API powers the voter registration and voter outreach efforts of Facebook, Google, and Twitter, among others – over 3.5 million people received help registering to vote in 2018. Meanwhile, Democracy Fund partnered with Nonprofit Vote and dozens of others to implement the most successful National Voter Registration Day ever, with more than 800,000 Americans registering to vote on September 25th alone.

Throughout the election season, grantees in our Public Square portfolio played an important role in keeping the public informed about election systems, the candidates, and campaigns. Hundreds of local newsrooms supported by Democracy Fund helped prepare and educate voters for the decisions before them. Our North Carolina Local News Lab helped spark an exciting collaboration between Duke University, Politifact, the University of North Carolina, and McClatchy newspapers to publish over a dozen fact-checking articles on local and state races, including a series on the North Carolina constitutional amendments. The Center for Public Integrity undertook a fascinating effort to track the influence of money in races across the country. And ProPublica’s Electionland has quickly become one of the most important journalistic collaborations to track and report on election administration in the country. Their reporting on misinformation and political ads on social media platforms such as Facebook were particularly noteworthy.

In these ways—and so many more—Democracy Fund’s grantees and partners helped shape what may well be a watershed election in our history.

Preparing to govern

With the midterms behind us, Congress is set to receive a significant influx of new members. Many grantees in our Governance program are helping them get off on the right foot through orientations, trainings, and other resources. A record number of women and people of color will hold seats in the 116th Congress, and Democracy Fund has provided additional funding this year to the Women’s Congressional Policy Institute to help these members thrive. The Staff Up Congress initiative, meanwhile, is facilitating the recruitment and placement of members of underrepresented groups for senior congressional staff positions.

With such a large number of first-time legislators set to join the institution, it is all the more important that members of Congress have the resources necessary to manage effective legislative offices. That’s why I’m particularly pleased that so many of the priorities of Democracy Fund Voice and its grantees passed through the FY2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill. This includes new resources for the Congressional Research Service and GAO, funding for cybersecurity and tech improvements, and the first significant new funding for member office capacity in Congress in a decade.

Holding government accountable

Our government accountability and investigative journalism grantees have consistently had a hand in some of the key political issues of the year, informing the public and applying pressure where ethical and legal breaches among government actors have been suspected.

  • Our grantees filed more than 3,000 FOIA requests and dozens of FOIA lawsuits, including Lawfare’s successful effort to secure the release of more than 100 FBI emails that contradicted the White House narrative that Director James Comey had lost Bureau support before his firing.
  • ProPublica’s heart-wrenching reporting on the family separation crisis played a key role in rallying public opposition to the administration’s policies. And the Project On Government Oversight and OpenTheGovernment uncovered documents showing that DHS officials signed off on policies that would lead to family separation and then told Congress there was no such policy.
  • Protect Democracy Project is looking ahead to a moment of democratic renewal, laying out an extensive list of reforms to strengthen Congress’ role as the first branch and to rein in executive branch abuses.

Meanwhile, when the Attorney General was forced to resign, we helped lead the philanthropic sector in defending the rule of law by rallying 45 signatories to our statement demanding that the Mueller investigation be allowed to reach its conclusion unimpeded.

Elsewhere in our portfolio, grantees have continued the slow and steady work of informing and engaging the public through trustworthy local journalism, building an effective and constructive Congress, and rebuilding a strong civic fabric by reaffirming our commitment to core American values.

Across the nation, I see dedicated Americans standing up for the type of democracy they want and working daily to build it. The determination our sector has shown has given me renewed faith in our democracy’s future and has increased my resolve to face the challenges ahead. In my open letter in July, I noted that our approach would be far more aggressive in combating the unprecedented threats that our democracy faces. In the new year, Democracy Fund looks forward to continuing to invest in efforts to create a more effective Congress, modern and secure elections, and a robust public square.

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Constructive Oversight in the Newly Elected Congress

Lara Flint
/
November 27, 2018

Earlier this month, the Project On Government Oversight sponsored the first-ever Oversight Summit, convening experts from nonprofits, think tanks, Congress, and the executive branch to share best practices and strategies for improving oversight of and by the federal government. The Summit featured organizations across the political spectrum working to support meaningful oversight, transparency, and accountability efforts—including Democracy Fund grantees like the R Street Institute, the Levin Center, the Partnership for Public Service, and many others.


At Democracy Fund, we ground our work in a framework of principles we developed to describe the attributes of a healthy democracy. Under that framework, constitutional checks and balances and respect for the rule of law are critical to protecting Americans against abuses of power by their government. Co-equal branches of government and our federal system both serve as checks, and civil society plays a critical role in holding those in power accountable to the Constitution, the law, and the people they represent.As expected, a topic that arose repeatedly was the incoming 116th Congress and its oversight powers and priorities. As is often the case under one-party rule, Congress has not leaned into its role as a check on the executive branch over the past two years. Despite a range of issues crying out for meaningful oversight, Congress largely did not engage, instead giving in to the hyper-partisanship that pervades our political system (though with some exceptions). Congress’ lack of institutional resources has further hamstrung its ability to fulfill its constitutional role to conduct oversight. With a president whose rhetoric and actions fundamentally threaten democratic norms, however, the stakes are high, and the need for effective oversight can no longer be ignored. While the 116th Congress has a full agenda, the incoming House leadership has promised oversight of the executive branch will be a top priority.

Our framework also emphasizes that political leaders bear an uncommon burden to act with integrity. Their words and actions should reflect democratic values, the Constitution, and the dignity of every individual.

As Democracy Fund’s Betsy Wright Hawkings outlined at the beginning of the 115th Congress, “For those who care about values-based leadership, rules matter—starting with the rule of law. And that is what oversight is—enforcement of the rules.” These principles apply regardless of who holds power.

So how should the new Congress exercise its oversight responsibilities? Some have debated whether the House should aggressively pursue investigations. I think that is the wrong question.

There is no shortage of oversight to be done—the hurricane recovery effort in Puerto Rico; separating children from their parents at the border; government officials using their positions to enrich themselves rather than serve the public good; or foreign attempts to influence our elections. All of this oversight is sorely needed.

Instead, the question is whether the House will ground that oversight in a methodical effort to make our government work better for the American people, or whether Democrats will approach its investigations as an opportunity for partisan retribution. Will the new House majority reach across the aisle—even if they expect to be rebuffed? Or will they go it alone from the beginning? Will they reflexively issue subpoenas, or deploy them as a last resort?

Strong oversight efforts can be aggressive and constructive. As former congressional oversight staffer Kris Kolesnik said during the Oversight Summit, “all oversight begins and ends by putting politics at the door.” The administration should absolutely be asked tough questions by members of Congress—but those members must also remember why they are asking these questions in the first place: to uncover and fix wrongdoing and make our government better, not to score political points.

This will take hard work, and unfortunately we know that Congress is under-resourced to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities under Article I—another theme raised frequently during the Summit. That is why Democracy Fund has invested in organizations that provide bipartisan oversight training to congressional staff; help ensure that government actions are transparent to the American people; and conduct their own investigations of government wrongdoing.The importance of this was underscored by Senator Carl Levin, a keynote speaker at the Summit and veteran of countless bipartisan oversight investigations during his decades in Congress. At the Summit Senator Levin awarded the first ever Carl Levin Award for Effective Oversight to South Carolina State Rep. Weston Newton, the Republican chairman of the Legislative Oversight Committee, who has worked across the aisle to make government work better in South Carolina. Rep. Newton explained how oversight should transcend party affiliation: “Whether an agency is doing its job properly or not should not be something that either party has the franchise on asking the questions [about]…nor should the party in power be afraid to ask the questions and expose the shortcomings of those agencies.”

Even with these challenges, by all reports the incoming House majority is poised to breathe new life into Congress’ role as a check on the executive branch. Done right, this is a critical component of our democratic system, it will protect against abuse of power, and it will make our government work better.

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Building a Team to Invest in Democracy

Lauren Strayer
/
November 26, 2018

Following the 2016 election, Democracy Fund heard from many philanthropists seeking advice on what they can do to respond to the threats facing our political system. For some, the last two years have brought a newly pervasive sense that our democracy is under threat and that our political system is far more fragile than most of us assumed. We feel the same way, and we are humbled that interested donors and their advisors are turning to us and to our peers for guidance.

Through our efforts to support these new partners, we discovered that Democracy Fund can play a helpful role in providing advice and connections to philanthropists who are learning about the field. To that end, I am delighted to share that we are building a new team at Democracy Fund to help us be a better resource to philanthropists, advisors, and our peers. The team will be led by a newly created position, the Director of Partnerships.

This swell in philanthropic interest comes at a pivotal time. Despite a clear and pressing need, the level of philanthropic support for this field remains critically low. Whether you look at voting, journalism, or civic education, many of the most capable and innovative organizations in the space have struggled through multiple cycles of feast and famine and need more resources to meet the challenges at hand.

To make progress on issues that are important to the American people and to ensure the health of our democracy for future generations, the United States needs deep investment by philanthropists and advocates. Policy reforms ranging from the future of affordable housing to climate change depend on a political system that is responsive to the public. A more equitable society requires eliminating barriers to voting and reducing the influence of money on politics. And improving the ability of individuals and communities to thrive rests on a functioning government, fair enforcement of the rule of law, and stability in our politics. Despite the reality that progress hinges on a healthy democracy, the field receives less than two percent of overall philanthropic giving.

Building a healthier democracy together

Working with our peer funders, we hope the Democracy Fund Partnerships team can be a resource to donors and to the field. Our goal is to make the expert capacity of our staff and our collaborative approach available to interested philanthropists. We believe that enlisting greater philanthropic energy, ideas, and resources to the fields in which we work is one of the most effective ways for us to meet the scale of the challenge.

Our new team will educate and engage philanthropists who are new to democracy with the goal of helping them to enter the field. Led by the Director of Partnerships, the team will help donors and their advisors make strategic decisions to invest in our country’s democracy. It will take some time and experimentation to build this program, but there are a few things you should expect to see:

  • Resources: Democracy Fund will work with our peers to develop resources that help new donors to better understand the space, including investment guides highlighting the most innovative and high-impact strategies and organizations in the field. The Foundation Center’s data tool for the democracy field is an excellent example of the kind of resource we have helped create in the past that can help philanthropists understand the existing landscape.
  • Educational Events: Over the past 18 months, Democracy Fund has partnered with the Giving Pledge to educate members of that network about opportunities to strengthen democracy in the United States. We expect to organize more briefings and workshops like those we organized with Giving Pledge to inform new donors.
  • Joint Funds: Democracy Fund participates in and has created several collaborative funds that enable donors to easily contribute to vetted, highly effective grantees working to protect the health of our government, elections, and free press. Our Public Square program, for example, works with other journalism funders through NewsMatch, the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund, and the Community Listening and Engagement Fund. We aim to work with our peers to develop other similar funds that make it easier for new donors to enter the space.

Our Commitment to the Field

Our new efforts to build philanthropic partnerships will not slow our existing efforts to deploy our resources to support the field. Since Democracy Fund began, we have committed more than $100 million in grants and built a team of more than 45 people with deep expertise on issues ranging from journalism and elections to Congress and government accountability. Thanks to the generosity and leadership of Pierre Omidyar we intend to continue to invest at a similar level in the coming years.

At the same time, our commitment to our existing grantees will not limit our advice to new donors – we hope to help philanthropists find their own path into the field, whether or not it mirrors the path that we have chosen.

We are grateful for the mentorship and ongoing partnership of many foundations who have supported this field for decades, including the Knight Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. At such a deeply important moment for our country, we are excited to begin this important work and will continue to share our progress as the team grows and the program develops.

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Op-Ed: How Philanthropy Can Do More to Stand Up for America’s Democracy

Joe Goldman
/
November 25, 2018

When the chief justice of the Supreme Court finds it necessary to reprimand the president of the United States for undermining the independence of the federal judiciary, it can be difficult to objectively know if that signifies a constitutional crisis.

Compared with Watergate, we are living through a slow-motion Saturday Night Massacre as the president and his allies test the limits of our democracy every week and sometimes every day. Instead of igniting from one clearly crossed red line, a constitutional crisis is creeping up on us.

As philanthropic leaders, we find it especially challenging to know what our role should be at a time like this. We represent nonpartisan institutions concerned about issues as disparate as civic engagement, civil rights, the environment, the arts, and more. That work can only truly thrive when our democracy is healthy, and so while we remain committed to our individual missions, we must also stand up and support people and organizations working to protect constitutional norms…

Read more from Joe Goldman at The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

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Learning from History to Plan for What’s Next

Joe Goldman
/
November 7, 2018

​American democracy is in crisis. At a time of deepening polarization and social strife, many of our elected officials – most notably our chief executive – routinely disregard, and indeed actively undermine, the very norms and institutions that buttress our democratic system. At every turn, the foundational values of American democracy are under attack.

Fortunately, the threats facing our democracy are not unique and there is much to learn from other countries and from our own history – both about democratic backsliding and about strategies to reverse its course. Understanding the experiences of other democracies can help us grapple with challenges we are experiencing today, and plan for those that may lie ahead.

Democracy Fund invited Rachel Kleinfeld and David Solimini of the Carnegie Endowment for World Peace to write What Comes Next? Lessons for the Recovery of Liberal Democracy to tackle just this question. Through their research, Rachel and David dig into several case studies and offer insightful recommendations on what might be done in the United States to recover from the path of institutional decline.

Rachel and David’s analysis challenges us to revisit many of the assumptions Democracy Fund has made in assessing our democracy’s vulnerabilities and deploying strategies to protect it. Our staff has grappled these insights in ways that have enriched our thinking and the approach to our work. Among others:

  • We are affirmed in our work focused on ensuring the independence of a robust, healthy media that can hold those in power to account. The watchdog function of the media cannot be underestimated.
  • We take to the warning against placing too much hope in the political parties and legislature to defend themselves against abuses of power by a strong executive. We must explore ways to find, pressure, and incentivize, alternative champions of democracy.
  • While the paper corroborates our fears on the risk of the American’s system reliance on informal norms, we were encouraged to read how federalism should be considered an important tool in combatting the worst overreaches of an embattled federal government.

Democracy Fund regularly publishes research relating to our established program areas, and we occasionally commission work that is intended to push our thinking in new directions. We, like others, have much to learn. We are all well-advised to engage deeply with new, big ideas that challenge our assumptions. The research is a platform for rigorous scholarship that can help us identify new strategies to build a healthier democracy.

Read the Full Report Here

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Local Officials Working to Make Your Vote Secure

Adam Ambrogi
/
November 6, 2018

As the nation gears up for what could be one of the most historic mid-term elections, it’s important to separate the misconceptions from realities when assessing the safety and security of our elections. A new cohort of nonprofits have emerged to focus on promoting election security and election access for the voting process. Election officials at the local and state level, as well as national officials, have worked incredibly hard since 2016 to identify and respond to foreign probing and cybersecurity breaches—and we believe that despite increased risks, our elections are safer than they have ever been.

The U.S. election system is not run by a single body or office—rather they are administered by approximately 10,000 local jurisdictions nationwide – which makes it difficult to coordinate an attack on the election process or rig the system. Even within the same state, different jurisdictions use different technologies to administer their ballots, making a successful attack even more difficult. There are problems that need ongoing attention; and it is certainly true that foreign interference is a real threat—but federal, state, and local authorities remain vigilant as they protect our democracy.

To secure an election, local election officials test machines in the lead up to the election to detect problems early and ensure things run smoothly on Election Day. In addition, all 50 states and 1,000 local election offices share information with U.S. Department of Homeland Security to prepare for potential cyber threats. Additionally, Congress has worked to provide state and local government with funds to aid them in securing this election.

To keep voting machines secure, they are held under lock and key with additional protections in place to ensure that nobody without proper credentials can access the devices undetected—typically with multiple layers of physical security such as fencing, key card access, locks, and seals, as well as observational video surveillance. Together, these serve as a check and balance to prevent tampering with the machines and to catch any errors in the count.

Similarly, it is very unlikely that anyone could ever change a vote tally. Ballots are cast at tens of thousands of polling places across the country. Changing an election result would require advance knowledge of likely results, numerous perpetrators working together to go completely undetected by communities, election officials, and law enforcement, including the FBI.

It’s also important to keep in mind that 80% of Americans vote on paper, and almost all states require a post-election review to validate the results. If a discrepancy exists, reviews and recounts are ordered, and the paper records are used for the official record. Even if an individual machine were compromised, the official result would be based on the paper record. And most states are considering a move to a post election audit that’s based on the difference between the the candidates, sometimes known as a “risk-limiting audit.” Furthermore, local election officials are the best resource in any election cycle. You can learn about how they secure the election systems, machines, and other equipment on their social media accounts. If there are problems getting attention from your poll worker or the head of your polling place, there is an effective national hotline, 1866-Our-Vote

Finally, instances of people voting multiple times or voting if ineligible are an incredibly rare occurrence, and this does not occur at a scale that has ever been shown to impact or change an election result. The registration rolls and voters reporting their identity both serve as a check, and the massive criminal penalties for voter fraud operate as a major deterrent. The likelihood that a scheme of voter impersonation would change a particular race is incredibly small.

While Congress needs to do more work to solve this problem-and fund a solution, they’ve started the process. Earlier this year, they appropriated $380 million dollars to the states, to be used to promote greater security of elections. All of the states and territories requested this money, received it, and many states are now using the money to improve security and voting systems. Overall, our elections are as secure as they’ve ever been—certainly compared to 2016. There are diligent public servants on hand to address security concerns that do arise in the 2018 midterms so that each state can understand the challenges and feel equipped to prepare for the 2020 presidential election. While I am optimistic, the need to better secure our elections and provide voters has never been greater, and Congress must provide a regular stream of funding to the states to deal with the rising threats—as the states and localities cannot match the magnitude of threats alone.

To find your polling place, learn about the candidates, or find other information about your local election from nonpartisan organizations like the Voting Information Project and Vote411.org—and find out more about your state’s recount process here. You can also talk with family and friends about the election. And to learn more about our work, check out the website www.democracyfund.org, including new research on the public’s view of election administration and reform, found here, and state-level news about elections on www.electionline.org.

Democracy Fund is a foundation working to build an inclusive, multiracial democracy that is open, just, resilient, and trustworthy.

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