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Project 2025 is a threat to our democracy. Here’s how funding accountability work can help.

October 10, 2024

Readers of this blog have undoubtedly heard of Project 2025 by now. The 900-page document has been widely criticized for its ambitious and extreme plans to undermine and politicize career civil servants in the federal government, eliminate important safeguards against weaponization of government law enforcement, limit freedoms like access to reproductive healthcare, and much more. It aims to give the president unchecked power over the executive branch as a means to achieving policy goals that will negatively impact life for millions of Americans. The consequences will be far-reaching and difficult to reverse.

Thankfully, the government accountability field has prepared for years to preserve our system of checks and balances and ensure there are consequences for those who abuse their positions of power. Through coordination, litigation preparation, and public education, these organizations — including many Democracy Fund grantees — are preparing to halt and hinder these dangerous proposals.

In this piece, we’ll get deeper into how Project 2025 is a threat to democracy, how the accountability field is responding, and why funders must do more to provide sustained support to the field.

How is Project 2025 a threat to democracy?

Project 2025 is a threat decades in the making. The project is spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation and a coterie of influential groups, including America First Legal, Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms For Liberty and others that have espoused an authoritarian vision for governing. Its authors have advocated for ending marriage equality and LGBTQ+ protections, restricting abortion rights, mass deportations of immigrants, conservative takeovers of school boards, curtailing voting rights, and much more.

The proposals in Project 2025 touch on every aspect of federal policy-making, from education, to climate, to national security. At its foundation is a desire to weaken nonpartisan expertise throughout the government, increase the power of partisan officials, limit checks on the president, and roll back rights and freedoms to align with an authoritarian worldview. If put into place, these actions would not only reduce the effectiveness of the federal government, they would significantly enable abuses of power. Here’s what it would look like:

1. Weakening nonpartisan expertise would politicize and hamper essential government functions.

Project 2025 calls for the president to re-issue an executive order that allows for the replacement of a large swath of career officials, including scientists, researchers, and economists, with politically appointed cronies (known as “Schedule F”). These new officials would be selected based on loyalty tests and the extent to which they agree with the policies laid out in Project 2025, rather than qualifications and expertise. This opens the door to mismanagement of critical government functions, from air traffic controllers to food inspectors. A sobering example of this dynamic was illustrated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response to the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, with unqualified political appointees being cited as one reason for the government’s failures. More recently, public health researchers cited the appointment of a Coronavirus Response Coordinator with vague authorities as one of the key factors contributing to haphazard inter-agency coordination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Removing checks on the president would lead to the weaponization of law enforcement.

Project 2025 aims to politicize and weaponize the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies. There is a long-held practice of insulating the Department of Justice from the partisan goals of the president. This firewall protects the rule of law against real or perceived bias or influence. It prevents a president from ordering law enforcement agencies to selectively enforce the law for the benefit of his allies or detriment of his opponents. Project 2025 seeks to turn this norm on its head, by overturning policies that limit the president’s direct communication with the Attorney General and making explicit that all litigation strategies must be aligned with the president’s agenda. Project 2025 also proposes a vast expansion of the number of political appointees within the FBI, further opening the door for partisan motivations guiding investigatory decisions, rather than unbiased assessments of the law.

The impact of these changes could be the targeting, harassment, and eventual prosecution of perceived political foes of the president, selective enforcement of the law to benefit industries aligned with the president’s party, and legal actions against district attorneys who do not strictly follow the president’s agenda. Put simply, the rule of law — the foundation of our legal system – is at risk.

3. Rolling back federal policies that protect women, LGBTQ+ people, and communities of color would open the door to discrimination.

Project 2025 relies on a core element of the playbook used by authoritarians around the world — idolizing white, heterosexual men and the nuclear family while denigrating those who fall outside of this definition of a “real” American. To this end, Project 2025 seeks to roll back access to reproductive healthcare, target LGBTQ+ youth and families, and unravel federal policies to advance diversity and inclusion. It proposes eliminating guaranteed free access to emergency contraception while criminalizing the mailing of abortion medication — which could result in a de facto nationwide abortion ban. It orders the National Institute of Health to study the purported “negative effects” of gender affirming care for children while enabling adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples. And it broadly prohibits federal agencies from working to ensure their programs, hiring processes, and staff training utilize diversity, equity, and inclusion principles. Taken together, these policies would make the government more hostile and less responsive to women, LGBTQ+ people, and communities of color — potentially turning back decades of progress.

These are just three examples. The plan is extensive, and its architects hold many ideas that are dangerous to our democratic system of checks and balances. For example, a key author of Project 2025, Russell Vought, argues the president should use an illegal practice called “impoundment” — the withholding of congressionally appropriated funds – to effectively defund any federal program or agency he wishes. The threat to American values and civil liberties is clear.

How is the accountability field responding?

The pro-democracy response to the authoritarian ideology underpinning a platform as dangerous and sweeping as Project 2025 must be bold and comprehensive. It requires a broad coalition of groups with expertise on issues from healthcare to tax policy that are ready to fight in court and the court of public opinion. Thankfully, strategies for slowing or stopping the worst aspects of Project 2025 are in motion, and the field is coordinating to respond on Day One. Activities groups are pursuing include:

1. Research on Project 2025 policies and their impact.

The fact we know as much as we do about the proposals in Project 2025, and how dangerous they are, is due in large part to the indefatigable efforts of groups like Accountable.US, which shed light on the vast network of groups, supporters, and funders of the project — many of whom are influential political operatives. Documented helped uncover secret training videos provided to the supporters of Project 2025, providing additional context for how it could be implemented and even advice from its authors on how to avoid the scrutiny of the pro-democracy field. And the Center for American Progress reviewed all 900+ pages to highlight its most pressing threats. Without these efforts, the democracy field would be less informed — and likely less prepared to respond. Accountability-focused organizations have proven their worth, confirming the need to consistently support their efforts.

2. Raising awareness around Project 2025 policies and their impact.

The research underway is not only essential for groups that are planning legal and other responses, it is key to raising the public’s awareness. Polling now shows that a majority of Americans have heard of Project 2025 (a significant increase from just a few months ago) and more importantly, it shows that Americans view the policies negatively. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that Project 2025 would receive almost-daily front page coverage in national news outlets and extensive coverage in popular shows like Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show without the tireless efforts of these organizations.

3. Preparing for the legal and regulatory battles ahead.

Many of the policies in Project 2025 depend on regulatory and executive actions. To prevent or delay them, Democracy Forward is coordinating a broad range of issue-advocacy groups to prepare legal and other responses. They have also been a leading voice in congressional testimony regarding the harms of Project 2025. The Partnership for Public Service is working with media outlets to tell stories about real-life civil servants to help the public better understand the critical role of federal workers. It is also helping ensure federal employees understand their rights, building off of successful work coordinated by the Partnership, Protect Democracy, the Project On Government Oversight, Democracy Forward, and others, to advance a new federal rule that will make it harder to implement Schedule F.

4. Strengthening guardrails to prevent abuses

Many dangerous elements of Project 2025 are possible only because of weak or nonexistent checks on presidential power. An over-reliance on norms and policies that the president may discard at will paves the way for abuses. Combined with inaction and even assent from Congress and the courts, this is a problem decades in the making and one that will persist without further action. The accountability field is working to bolster guardrails to prevent abuse by:

Identifying weaknesses in the law and proposing model reforms. This includes research by Protect Democracy to better understand the weaknesses an authoritarian can exploit and a blueprint for model guardrail legislation from CREW.
Supporting key oversight functions in government. This includes work by the Project on Government Oversight to strengthen internal watchdogs, including Inspectors General, and work by the Government Accountability Project and Whistleblower Aid to support disclosures by government employees and contractors.
Demanding the courts and Congress hold the executive branch accountable. This includes legal advocacy and court filings from the Constitutional Accountability Center and work by Public Citizen to pressure Congress to investigate government wrongdoing.

What funders can do now

The work described above is just a snapshot of the ongoing efforts to understand and fight back against Project 2025. These efforts must be sustained through, and beyond, 2025. The threat encapsulated by the extreme policy proposals within Project 2025 existed before its publication and will continue to loom over our democracy even if not implemented next year. While the project is notable for its audacious scope, its policies have been years in the making and include the core tenets of the authoritarian movement.

We must sustain funding for research, communications, legal, and advocacy efforts about Project 2025, its authors and supporters: it guts checks and balances, threatens the rule of law, and is a brazen attempt to turn our democracy toward authoritarianism.

Please reach out to learn more about specific funding gaps, needs, and opportunities that Democracy Fund has gathered from our grantees and network.

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Our Work is Not Done After Election Day

Joe Goldman

October 9, 2024

Our grantees are on the frontlines of the 2024 election, doing everything they can to ensure free, fair, and representative elections for our country. We know their work will not be done on Election Day — yet many of these nonpartisan organizations typically experience a sudden dropoff in funding after November.

This withdrawal of support threatens their ability to resist the authoritarian playbook, fuel a pro-democracy governing agenda, and build durable power to support an inclusive, multi-racial democracy. Anti-democracy forces don’t defund their infrastructure after every election cycle, forcing groups to downsize and lose momentum — and we shouldn’t either.

That’s why we’re launching a new campaign called Election Day to Every Day. Following on the success of this year’s All by April campaign, we’re inviting the philanthropic community to join us in ensuring the pro-democracy movement can be sustainable and resilient not just leading into Election Day, but every day that follows.

The boom and bust cycle of election-year giving is toxic. Unless we change our behavior as donors, our grantees will not be able to make progress toward the inclusive multiracial democracy that is so vital for everything we care about.

“People’s Action Institute is working together with networks and organizers across the country to scale up the movement for social justice. We can’t maintain the momentum we need to defeat authoritarianism when funding across the field drops off after every election. But with consistent support, we can strengthen our communities to create a vibrant, multiracial democracy that works for all of us.” – Sulma Arias, Executive Director, People’s Action Institute

With the Election Day to Every Day campaign, we are trying to do things differently. Together, philanthropy will continue our support for building an inclusive multiracial democracy. As a community, we commit to:

Start Planning Our 2025 Giving Now: We lose vital time when we fail to plan ahead and consider alternative scenarios for the future. Donors need to consider how our changing context could impact our strategy and priorities, so that we and our grantees can respond quickly to new needs on the ground. Anti-democracy forces are well-resourced and ready for multiple governing scenarios. We need to prepare for the same. Now is the time to start planning – not next year.
Provide a Bridge into Next Year: Many grantees come out of a hard fought election exhausted and with real gaps in funding. It’s not uncommon for leadership transitions to take place – further complicating the situation. Moving up grant decisions to the first quarter of 2025 or providing bridge funding allows grantees to avoid having to lay off staff and eases the pressure as they pivot to respond to new challenges.
Commit to Multi-Year Support: The single most important thing that donors can do for the health of our grantees is to provide multi-year support. Doing so allows them to plan, build infrastructure, and deploy longer-range strategies. This longer-term view makes our grantees more resilient to a changing environment.
Support Safety and Security: Grantees are facing evolving safety and security threats leading up to and following Election Day. Many are encountering cyber attacks and threats of physical violence. All of them have staff who are experiencing burn-out and trauma. If we want our grantees to sustain themselves past Election Day, we need to provide for their safety and well-being.

Individual donors, foundations, donor advisors, and other philanthropic organizations are all invited to join this critical campaign to change the culture of philanthropy. You can join by becoming an “Election Day to Every Day” signatory and by spreading the word within your networks.

Together, we can ensure the pro-democracy field is ready for the future. We came together powerfully earlier this year under the All by April banner, which mobilized at least $155 million to ensure our grantees had the resources they needed early in an important election year. Now we must keep our foot on the gas and make sure our democracy field partners know that we have their backs not just on Election Day, but Every Day.

Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.

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What We Learned from All by April

Heather Creek

October 4, 2024

Earlier this year, Democracy Fund joined with funders from across the philanthropic community to commit to making their election-related grants by the end of April. The All by April campaign attracted 174 signers — including foundations, donor networks, advisors, and individual donors — who committed to move funds earlier in the year, simplify grant processes, and encourage their peers to do the same.

By providing early financial support, All by April aimed to empower nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations to plan and execute their election strategies more effectively, build out programs at lower costs, and engage voters earlier in the election cycle. We are proud to share the results from this campaign and outline how funders can carry forward the lessons into their ongoing election-related grantmaking.

The Success of All by April

To understand the impact of the All by April campaign, Democracy Fund collaborated with Grassroots Solutions on an evaluation. Our topline findings include:

1. The campaign mobilized at least $155 million.

Of the 174 signers of the campaign, 60 percent were direct grant makers and 40 percent were groups that work with funders like donor advisors, intermediaries, and funder affinity groups. Forty-seven of the funders and individual donors provided data on their giving between January and April of 2024. They reported making $79 million in new 501(c)(3) grants for election-related work and moving up $61 million in scheduled grant payments so that grantees would have access to funds earlier in the year. The campaign’s message also reached groups that were not able to sign onto the campaign (often due to their organization’s policy on signing public commitments). Entities that didn’t sign the campaign but reported that it still influenced their giving reported $13.7 million in new grants and $3.25 million in payments moved up to the first four months of 2024. In total, the campaign mobilized at least $155 million in election-related support.

“AbA inspired us to make additional gifts — in addition to the 2024 and multi-year funding we had already provided — and to do so before the end of April.”
— All by April Participant (Grantmaker)

2. The majority of All by April signers reported that they changed their plans for giving in 2024 because of the campaign.

The campaign’s deadlines and structure created the motivation that moved signers to action – especially among those who were newer to election-related giving. Among direct grantmakers in the survey, 57 percent gave between 76-100 percent of their funding for elections work by April. Those who did not change their giving based on All by April reported that they had already planned to move their funds early or faced internal barriers that prevented them from doing so.

“Once we had our list of grantees, we might have spent more time obsessing over allocation amounts. Having taken the pledge helped inspire us to stop worrying and get the money moving.”
— All by April Participant (Grantmaker)

3. The campaign changed expectations about how philanthropy can support election-related work.

Nearly all of the campaign signers (98%) reported that they were already aware of the benefits of early money for election-related work before the campaign began, but they lacked the motivation and urgency to respond to the field’s need. Signers who were not direct grantmakers, but who advise donors or convene donor networks, reported that the campaign created a “movement wide” framing that gave them the language to encourage earlier giving among their clients and members.

“It allowed me to have conversations with peer funders about the importance of moving early. It created a very helpful (even if somewhat artificial) deadline.”
— All by April Participant (Donor Advisor)

“We used the All by April frame to push our entire donor community for larger, earlier giving, and to make the case for c4 money also. it was helpful to have “movement wide” framing, coordination and momentum to support the work we would have done.”
— All by April participant (Philanthropic Network)

We are grateful to all of the campaign signers who committed to meet the urgent needs of the field when the funds would be most useful. We are especially grateful to the signers who participated in the evaluation and shared their funding data. This transparency allows us all to learn together and continue to improve the way we support free, fair, and representative elections.

Exploring Practices to Move Money Faster

The All by April campaign evaluation revealed that some funders need to make intentional changes to their practices to meet the needs of the field. Funders reported needing to move their timeline for considering new grants or shift other internal processes — like grant amendment requirements — in order to move up payments.

At Democracy Fund and amongst survey respondents, we noted several practices that helped funders move funds quickly:

Streamlining the grant amendment process. Funders cut internal red tape and asked that grantees only submit an updated budget to process an amendment.
Adopting a shorter renewal application. A shorter application helped to avoid asking grantees to send information their current funders already had.

Starting in 2025, planning to default to making payments for election-related grants in Q1 of each year.

Funders may also consider other established time-saving practices like accepting applications that grantees have prepared for other funders or funding intermediaries who may have existing grantee relationships and can regrant money into state and local groups.

Looking Ahead: Funders Need to Sustain the Field Between Elections

Our grantees are on the frontlines of the 2024 election, doing everything they can to ensure it is free, fair, and representative. But we know their work is not over on Election Day. Anti-democracy forces don’t defund their infrastructure after every election cycle, forcing groups to downsize and lose momentum — and we shouldn’t either.

Yet many grantees see a financial cliff after November. This sudden dropoff in funding threatens their ability to resist the authoritarian playbook, fuel a governing agenda, and build durable power in service of creating a more inclusive, multi-racial democracy.

To ensure we are meeting these needs, we will be announcing a new campaign next week, called “Election Day to Every Day” to ensure our pro-democracy field is ready for any and all scenarios that lie ahead in the post-election period. We must keep our foot on the gas and make sure our field partners know that we have their backs not only on Election Day, but Every Day that follows.

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How (and Why) Democracy Fund is Experimenting with Grantee Reporting Models

October 3, 2024

In 2020, our Digital Democracy portfolio (DDP) wanted to find a way to learn more about our grantees’ challenges while also being mindful of their limited time during a turbulent year. We decided to hold learning conversations with our grantees instead of commissioning formal evaluations, so that we could quickly extend support. Our learning and evaluation partner, ORS Impact, led these conversations by hosting 90-minute small group discussions with grantees, focusing on their work ensuring tech, telecom and media serves communities of color, trends they were seeing across the digital rights movement, and challenges they faced. After a couple of iterations of these yearly learning conversations, we adapted them to count as narrative grant reports, providing the option to replace the traditional, often time-consuming annual narrative reports written by each DDP grantee.

ORS Impact currently conducts these sessions on an annual basis and prepares a final report, which we submit internally to meet the grant reporting requirement. This method of reporting and evaluation is an efficient way to get all the information we need to explore how grantees’ actions lead to outcomes in the aggregate. It also helps us adjust our strategies and activities to best support grantees and the field. Note: Initially, Democracy Fund staff attended the small group sessions. We no longer participate in the sessions because we know our presence creates power imbalances and may alter results.

This new method is just one way that Democracy Fund is experimenting with different forms of reporting that are inclusive, add value to the field, and embrace complexity (tenets of our Strategy, Impact and Learning values).

While the learning cohorts are a unique practice of DDP, Democracy Fund has been using other forms of reporting, like one-on-one verbal reporting, in addition to traditional narrative reports. Most Democracy Fund grantees have the choice between verbal reports or narrative reports, which so far, caters to each grantee’s preferences and reduces the burden on their time and energy.

What we’ve learned from this new model

Over the past four years of experimenting with this method of reporting, DDP grantees have had in-depth discussions on topics ranging from field infrastructure, coordination and networks, and strategies connecting research and advocacy. We have been able to learn a lot from our grantees on these topics, with a richness of findings that is only possible through group conversations.

The small group dynamic has many advantages:

Facilitating real-time learning for us and our grantees. This allows us to spot more connections and patterns across our portfolio, which a traditional one-off narrative report doesn’t do.
Ensuring our grantees have access to the same learnings we do. We share the final report back to grantees and share it with other partners, making our learnings known to the field.
Building relationships and more coordination between grantees.
Reducing grantees’ time spent on reporting.

Most importantly, this approach de-centers the funder and ensures that learning isn’t happening in a vacuum.

There two disadvantages worth noting:

Unlike with written grant reports, the findings from group discussions are aggregated and anonymous so there is less specificity and consistency year over year.
This method, along with verbal reporting, caters to verbal processors, and not everyone prefers learning this way.

Because of our learning philosophy to embrace complexity and conduct learning activities that are inclusive and add value to the field, these disadvantages do not outweigh the benefits of this reporting method. We value our grantees’ time and expertise, and strive to help build more opportunities for coordination.

What we learned from DDP grantees in 2024

This year’s findings have produced valuable insights for the DDP team and our grantees. We asked our grantees about field coordination, philanthropy’s impact on the field, infrastructure support, and how to support local organizing work. These topics, among others, were best discussed without Democracy Fund in the room, to promote candor and provide a safe space. The grantees raised that funder-driven shifts create disruption, loss of strategic agency, and competition and instability. When shifts happen, funders should provide transparency and transition support, and connections to other funders.

Another finding worth noting from this year’s conversations was about supporting local organizing. Our grantees who do local organizing around tech justice talked about the importance of trusted relationships between organizations, community visioning processes, and national policy organizations taking direction from community organizing. The grantees were able to riff on each other’s ideas, and find commonalities across locales. This discussion was less likely to have been as rich or honest if it had happened in a one-on-one conversation.

More findings from the 2024 learning cohorts, such as what grantees surfaced as infrastructure needs and inhibitors to local organizing can be found in our 2024 summary report.

Funders need to consider the impact of their reporting models

As trust-based philanthropy takes hold across the field, more and more funders are looking for methods to learn alongside their grantees and track changes within the field without creating an overwhelming burden on grantees. As a result of Democracy Fund’s recent Grantee Perception Survey, we are committed to finding more ways to share what we are learning. We encourage other funders to do the same, and avoid reporting requirements that put funders’ needs above those of grantees.

Here are some resources, organizations, and individuals that informed shifts in our internal reporting requirements:

Please reach out to learn more about Democracy Fund’s learning processes.

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Worried about misinformation this election year? Here’s what funders can do.

Angelica Das

August 15, 2024

Misinformation is hardly a new problem, but it often spikes around breaking news events. Racist narratives and conspiracy theories have rapidly escalated after the launch of Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign. Misinformation from across the political spectrum about the motivations behind the attempted assassination of former President Trump has also intensified.

The spread of misinformation is being acutely accelerated by political violence and the amplification of false AI-generated media. Newsrooms and journalists face staggering challenges to deliver reliable information to communities in a presidential election year — especially when these tensions are high.

The good news is we know more about the solutions today than ever before. The missing piece is the scale of resources needed to adequately respond to today’s challenges.

Philanthropy can address these challenges by combating misinformation and amplifying trustworthy information. Both actions are essential this election year and beyond to ensure communities have the necessary information to make decisions that impact their daily lives. It’s not too late to invest in this strategy.

Here are four ways that pro-democracy and journalism funders can act now:

1. Fund the organizers and experts who are mobilizing against misinformation. They are working right now to disrupt bad actors, hold Big Tech accountable, and intervene against harmful and false information campaigns targeting voters, particularly communities of color. Here are some examples of Democracy Fund grantees doing the work:

A coalition of media and tech advocates including Free Press and MediaJustice are running the Change the Terms campaign to hold companies accountable when their technology is used to discriminate and suppress the vote.
Check My Ads is following the money from ads that show up next to authoritarian messaging that seeks to undermine the election.
Nonpartisan researchers at Protect Democracy and Over Zero are publishing essential resources that support journalists in explaining the various threats to democracy and de-escalating hate speech and dangerous rhetoric.
Democracy SOS and the Center for Cooperative Media are providing crucial support for journalists to stay prepared and quickly respond to emergent issues. This includes curating resources for journalists, providing direct support to newsrooms, and boosting reporting on democratic backsliding, political violence, and misinformation in real time.

2. Fund newsrooms who are sharing trustworthy information. Newsrooms have the ideas, strategies, and motivation to meet this moment and are ready to move with more resources. In particular, newsrooms led by people of color have unparalleled reach and trust with the communities they serve — positioning them to counter misinformation and drive civic engagement. Here are some ways to find and support newsrooms:

Use the Center for Community Media’s Maps & Directories to find and fund diverse community media outlets.
Visit the INN Network Directory to find national and local independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan, and public service news organizations.
Learn about 12 powerful projects already underway in need of resources. The Lenfest/AP Forum on Democracy & Journalism recently highlighted these efforts to strengthen this year’s election coverage and voting integrity efforts.
Give to a joint effort to support newsrooms on a larger scale. The Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, NewsMatch, and Press Forward Pooled Fund all drive general operating funds to newsrooms.

3. Protect the messengers who are vulnerable to physical, digital, and legal threats. Small independent newsrooms and freelancers are especially exposed, particularly those serving communities with high levels of political polarization and voter suppression. We are already seeing authoritarian leaders attacking the media, and we anticipate this strategy will continue. To prepare for these risks, funders can proactively engage their grantees in scenario planning and be ready to quickly deploy resources if grantees are threatened.

4. Ensure newsrooms have the flexibility to adapt within an unpredictable political environment. News operations need the flexibility to plan, respond to challenges, and maintain operations. Restricted funding can lead to short-term solutions at the expense of long-term organizational health. Our funding practices can evolve to better meet their needs by offering multi-year, general operating support whenever possible, extending the timeline of grants, or reducing cohort and reporting requirements.

The need for trusted information doesn’t end on Election Day. Ultimately, elections and democracy reporting needs sustained support from philanthropy to be successful. Fully-funded democracy reporting would cover the decisions made about our voting system year-round by legislatures, courts, and local officials and track voter suppression efforts. It would allow the space to build stronger relationships with the community and the expertise to explain how national patterns impact local events. This coverage requires funders to think of democracy and elections coverage not as a seasonal activity, but as an ongoing process.

Please reach out to learn more about specific funding gaps, needs, and opportunities that Democracy Fund has gathered from our grantees and network.

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Strengthening Democracy: The Crucial Role of Election Administrators

July 18, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Listening to Our Grantees: Lessons from Our Third Grantee Perception Survey

Joe Goldman

July 16, 2024

Last year, Democracy Fund partnered with the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to conduct our third Grantee Perception Report. This work builds on previous surveys from 2014 and 2017. We felt it was crucial to hear from our grantee partners last year as we launched refreshed program strategies as part of our new five-year organizational strategy.

Our 2023 CEP survey was open to all 250 Democracy Fund grantees with a grant active between June 2022 and June 2023. One hundred fifty grantees shared their feedback with us. We deeply appreciate the time and care they took in sharing their thoughts, and we are committed to taking their feedback to heart as we strive to be a better funding partner.

We’re sharing the key findings from the CEP report, which includes feedback from grantees of our partner organization Democracy Fund Voice.

Grantees said Democracy Fund understands and impacts their fields – providing a rating of just under 6 out of 7 on both measures. They said our team was respectful (6.83 out of 7), compassionate (6.54 out of 7), and exhibited trust in them (6.51 out of 7). They also said Democracy Fund staff embody a “strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” (6.44 out of 7).

One grantee wrote: “I have worked with many foundations, donors, government agencies, and other funders during my career to date and Democracy Fund is, by far, the most compassionate, empathetic, equitable, thoughtful, flexible, and trustworthy funder I have had the good fortune to work with.”

While it is always gratifying to hear when we are doing a good job, we view this survey as a unique opportunity to understand what is working and where we can improve. Among the most important messages we heard were:

1. Grantees value our efforts to streamline our grantmaking process. Sixty-two percent of respondents reported receiving unrestricted grants and 36% reported receiving multi-year unrestricted grants – placing us at the 92nd and 89th percentile of foundations respectively. Grantees encouraged us to provide more multi-year general operating support, reinforcing the ongoing changes we’ve made to our grantmaking process and approach. After our 2017 survey, we committed to clarifying our process for prospective grantees, right-sizing our application requirements, and streamlining our reporting practices. In our 2023 survey, Democracy Fund grantees reported spending a median of 10 hours on our proposal process and 6 hours on reporting, down from 24 hours and 15 hours, respectively, in 2017. We are particularly proud that in 2023, grantees reported significantly less pressure from us to modify their organization’s priorities to create a grant proposal that was likely to receive funding: grantees placed us in the 15th percentile of all funders in CEP’s dataset related to feeling pressure from the foundation, down from the 98th percentile in 2017.

2. Our beyond-the-grant assistance (especially our support around field building and fundraising) adds significant value to our grantees’ work. Nearly two-thirds of our grantees reported receiving non-monetary assistance, reflecting our 2017 commitment to expand our non-monetary support. Grantees emphasized that Democracy Fund should continue to help new donors enter the space to increase funding for the democracy field overall, connect grantees to new funders, share its own research and learnings with the field, and convene grantees and partners to strengthen field strategies. Many grantees suggested we double down on this type of support in their narrative feedback, along with requests to more regularly bring cohorts of grantees and partners together, something Democracy Fund did much more frequently before the pandemic.

3. Many grantees highlighted their strong and trusting relationships with Democracy Fund program officers but noted a disconnect between those one-on-one relationships and our foundation-wide communications practices. Following our 2017 survey, we committed to supporting program staff as they worked to build trusting and collaborative relationships with their grantee partners. We are heartened that our grantees reported feeling more comfortable approaching us with problems, and they gave our program officers high marks for being respectful and compassionate. However, we have more work to do to provide organizational context and share timely and consistent updates with our grantees. This need was particularly pronounced as we pivoted into our new organizational strategy. Grantees felt we could have done more to engage them in our strategy development, explain the changes, and describe the implications for their organizations. This sentiment was especially strong among grantees whose grants were not being renewed, who rated their experiences with Democracy Fund less favorably across the board and highlighted areas where our communication and transparency fell short of their expectations.

We take this feedback seriously, and moving forward, we commit to:

Deepening our engagement with grantees by providing clearer and more consistent communications, particularly around foundation-wide strategy, as well as program-level updates. We will experiment with different approaches over the coming months, and we’re eager for feedback from our grantees about which hit the mark and where we can further improve.
Finding more ways to share what we are learning with our partners and develop a shared understanding of where resources can be most impactful. Learning is one of our organization’s core values, and we dedicate significant time and capacity to listening to our grantees and learning from their work. This information shapes our understanding of the problems facing democracy and helps us adapt our priorities to meet the field’s needs. We share our formal evaluations publicly, but we plan to more frequently share what we are learning from informal, ongoing reflections and to be in dialogue with our grantees about their learnings.
Continuing to streamline our grant application and reporting processes as we further reduce grantee time and resources spent on these activities. Since 2020, we have rolled out a streamlined renewal application, experimented with verbal reporting options, and included a “why we ask” rationale for every question on our application to ensure that the information we collect serves a clear purpose. We know how valuable our grantees’ time is, and we plan to further refine our application and reporting requirements to free up grantee capacity for other activities.

We plan to weave these commitments into our day-to-day practices over the long term as we aim to become a better funding partner. We will hold ourselves accountable to this spirit of continuous improvement by repeating the CEP survey every two to three years. We are grateful for our grantees’ feedback, and we are committed to learning and growing as we work together to build a more inclusive, multiracial democracy.

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A Call for the Pro-Democracy Field to Prepare for Gray Rhinos

Joe Goldman and Crystal Hayling

June 6, 2024

Admitting that you’re planning for the worst-case scenario when it comes to democracy can be tough. It takes courage not to brush aside threats of violence. It is hard to acknowledge that our political systems might fail or that forces are actively working to undermine our election system.

As Democracy Fund’s new paper, On Black Swans, Gray Rhinos, and the 2024 Election outlines, understanding the menagerie of “chaos factors” in front of us may hold the secret to readying the pro-democracy field to meet this moment.

Too often, “Black Swans,” or unpredictable disasters, distract our attention in these conversations. At Democracy Fund, we are more focused on “Gray Rhinos” — the foreseeable dangers that we fail to prepare for, even though they are charging straight at us in plain sight.

What makes a Gray Rhino foreseeable and a Black Swan nearly impossible to predict? The difference is often in what holds our attention. And navigating the chaos factors ahead will come down to listening, readiness, and resilience.

Listen to Marginalized Communities Sounding the Alarm

By the time the rumbling earth caused by a charging rhino is close enough to feel, most responses are ineffectual: fear, hope that the carnage will happen to someone else but not us, doubt that we can do anything to stop it, and of course, the desire to just run and hide. There’s no escaping disaster when a Gray Rhino is on our heels.

However, there are ways to prepare for Gray Rhino threats. One of the best ways to prepare is to listen to marginalized communities, who are often the first lines of both defense and impact. Their perspectives are invaluable because they are often the first to be targeted and tend to have the greatest perspective on the real scope of the dangers we face.

Too often, however, the people closest to the harms aren’t at decision-making tables — their valid concerns and forewarnings are cast aside by people in positions of safety and power.

Take for example, the conservative court’s intention to overturn Roe v. Wade as a Gray Rhino. Despite the clear and stated threat, along with the warnings of reproductive justice advocates and BIPOC organizers, many people were not able to imagine or prepare for the court taking this action. The Rhino was charging straight ahead, but too many hoped that it would ultimately divert its path. People who had already directly experienced their rights being taken away were in a better position to realize the threat and know how to organize against it. But with so many ignoring their warnings, we were largely unprepared when the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling finally came down in the summer of 2022.

Political violence may be the next Gray Rhino that will cross our path. Communities that have been under the threat of state-sanctioned violence are keenly tuned into the warning signs of authoritarianism and anti-democratic actors. All the warning signs in our election environment are there, including an alarming rise in threats against front-line leaders, election administrators, and public officials. Movement leaders are raising the alarm and lives are at stake should we continue to ignore their warnings. We need to not only prepare for this very real threat but protect the organizers and communities that are most directly in the path of this Gray Rhino.

Invest in Readiness by Taking Cues from Communities

Listening to marginalized communities doesn’t just help us identify threats. It also provides insights into effective solutions.

The signs and effects of most threats are felt first at a local level, which is also where the groundwork for solutions is often laid. As funders, we must look to local organizers and community-based solutions to understand what is most needed and likely to be the most effective. These efforts often embody the resilience we need — flexible, adaptive, and community-centered, rather than brittle and dependent on external forces.

For example, during COVID-19, mutual aid networks emerged to provide essential support where top-down responses fell short. Similarly, research shows that social connection and cohesion directly aid a community’s ability to recover from natural disasters and public health crises. Communities with a deep sense of connection that adopt a sustained, shared response to threats are more resilient than those relying on temporary, external interventions.

As grantmakers, we can fuel what works. For example, the Trusted Elections Fund has invested in state-based networks to prepare for the dual threats of election sabotage and political violence. And organizations like the Center for Tech and Civic Life are ensuring that under-funded local election offices have the resources they need to carry out a well-run election.

Just as the fields of natural disaster and public health response have developed coordinated strategies, pro-democracy philanthropy can apply this same resilience-planning mindset to prepare for future threats.

Resilience in the Face of Charging Rhinos

Planning for resilience requires us to look clear-eyed at Gray Rhinos and listen intentionally to people who know the signs before they begin to charge. We must listen to those who can see chaos factors on the horizon. With senses heightened to these threats, we may begin to realize that what looks like chaos is complexity. And where chaos can cause us to lose hope, complexity is something we can tackle together.

This preparation involves asking crucial questions: Who are we bringing to the scenario planning table? Whose voices are we listening to and prioritizing? What strengths and solutions already exist at the local level that we can further support?

The more that the grantmaking community can invest in planning and the more we shift resources to community-led efforts, the stronger the pro-democracy field will be. Together, we can weather what is ahead by investing in resilience, engaging in shared preparedness, and building trusted relationships with people who can identify these threats.

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Democracy Fund Invests $23 Million to Ensure Our Elections Are Free, Fair, and Representative

May 29, 2024

Philanthropy’s typical “wait and see” approach has proven to be too little, too late for fast-moving election cycles. With primary elections underway, the pro-democracy organizations working to protect free, fair and representative elections need support now to prepare and execute planned strategies.

In February, Democracy Fund worked with dozens of other philanthropies to launch the nonpartisan 501(c)3 All by April pledge. Nearly 200 foundations, individual donors, philanthropic advisors, and pooled funds signed on, agreeing to commit funds earlier and move them sooner than we have in the past.

Democracy Fund has fulfilled our All by April commitment by:

Expediting the distribution of $23 million by the end of April in election-focused grants for this election cycle. This includes new grants awarded in 2023 and 2024 and early distribution of committed 2024 funding for multi-year grantees.
Streamlining grant processes as much as possible, particularly for renewal grants.
Providing as many general support grants as possible so grantees can be responsive to evolving opportunities and threats to free and fair elections.

“Year after year, pro-democracy field organizations tell us that money from philanthropy arrived too late to be used effectively and efficiently. We took action on that learning this year by rallying the field through All by April. Getting unrestricted dollars to grantees faster means they are better able to plan, hire, and train staff and build the networks needed for this election cycle and beyond. All by April is proof of the positive impact philanthropy can have when we join together and listen to what our grantees tell us they need.” – Joe Goldman, president, Democracy Fund

Philanthropy Should Move at the Speed of Grantees

The grantees we support work year-round to ensure our elections are free, fair, and representative.

“For organizations like New Georgia Project whose work is critical every year, not just in election years — early and ongoing investment is not only needed, but essential. We already have to contend with the boom-and-bust cycle of funding that follows major election years, and having resources to start the year allows us to have an impact immediately and plan for the future. Because of early investment in 2024, we have already helped more than 13,000 Georgians register to vote, knocked on more than 84,000 doors, and talked to thousands of Georgians about voting this year. We build power year over year and knowing early that we have resources to support our work gives us the stability we need to have the greatest impact we can have.” – Kendra Cotton, CEO, New Georgia Project

The organizations receiving expedited and additional support as a result of the All by April campaign are the cornerstone of our democracy. Whether they are fighting to reduce barriers to voting, combating misinformation, recruiting poll workers, or protecting voters and election administrators — these nonpartisan groups help connect voters to the ballot and promote a more equitable democracy. They need fast, consistent, and flexible dollars to do their best work.

“Philanthropic funding is critical to the success of election protection, GOTV, and other strategies to advance free and fair elections and protect our democracy. Unfortunately, this funding often comes too late to meet local needs. That’s why we were thrilled to learn about the All by April campaign led by Democracy Fund. This effort has raised awareness of the need for speed in democracy funding for the sector and helped us to achieve our fundraising goals for Public Rights Project’s Election Protection Hub.” — Jill Habig, founder and CEO, Public Rights Project

The need for free, fair, and representative elections won’t stop after this year. Pro-democracy field organizations will continue to work tirelessly to protect free, fair, and representative elections, and philanthropy has a responsibility to modernize our grantmaking approach for the long-term. Early funding provides strong benefits to grantees and the positive impact on our democracy is clear.

“Getting ahead of the election cycle with time to plan is critical to our success in the big presidential election years. We’ve had an early renewal that provided both early and extra funding to help make sure voters have useful, well-designed information and tools that invite them to participate in our democracy.” — Whitney Quesenbery, director, Center for Civic Design

How Democracy Fund Drives Support for Elections & Voting

To guide our grantmaking, we will continue to deepen our conversations with grant recipients and their communities. In addition to this year’s All by April grants, we are committed to investing in:

Grassroots organizations that are working to build power in their communities.
Support for our election systems and administrators.
Structural changes to equalize voters’ power and address the fairness and legitimacy of the election system.

We will continue to invite peer funders to help us create a stronger pro-democracy field that values and protects everyone’s right to an election system that consistently produces trusted results, fairly represents the will of the majority of voters, and reflects equitable participation — especially among communities of color. Together, we can improve our philanthropic practices to better support the building of an inclusive, multiracial democracy.

*Please Note: Democracy Fund does not accept unsolicited business plans, proposals, or personal requests. For general inquiries, contact info@democracyfund.org. Check out our website to learn more about our work and our grantees.

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A Multiracial Democracy Includes BAMEMSA Communities

Omayma El Ella, Sanjiv Rao & Josh Stearns

April 16, 2024

Democracy Fund invests in the power of communities of color. We have long included BAMEMSA communities (Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian) in our approach to strengthen and expand the pro-democracy movement and undermine those who threaten the ideals of an inclusive multiracial democracy in the United States. Our work is grounded in the belief that we must recognize BAMEMSA communities’ full humanity and inclusion in the democracy of our dreams with no tolerance for dehumanization, hate-based discourse, or violence.

Our early funding of these communities began in 2016 in response to fear mongering and hate crimes that were on the rise in the United States. We stood up a special project in 2017 as policies like the Muslim Ban and the separation of families seeking asylum at the border were initiated by the federal government. We more recently expanded this work into our Just & Inclusive Society program, which seeks to support the safety, self-determination, and dignity of marginalized groups in the United States through a shift from providing direct services, to building capacity, power, and momentum across communities. In 2018, we also began focusing on reparations and rights for BAMEMSA communities in online spaces. Our Digital Democracy portfolio works to bring about a digital public square that is free of algorithmic discrimination, harm, and bias. We envision a world where communities can create, access, and enjoy media and technology that represents their needs, concerns, and dreams.

As the violence in Israel and Palestine continues to reverberate globally, dehumanizing and racist narratives are fueling Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism, and anti-Semitism here in the United States. Many Americans are fearful for the safety of their communities. In particular, we have witnessed horrific violence especially against Palestinian Americans alongside dramatic increases in reported threats against both Muslim and Jewish Americans.

Democracy Fund has been proud to support efforts to end political violence, whose flames are often fanned by mis- and disinformation. The intersection of these forces — threats of political violence amplified by mis- and disinformation and rising Islamophobia — present particular risks to BAMEMSA communities, which must be fully included in the multiracial democracy we seek.

The commitment and investment BAMEMSA communities have shown to America has been historically unrecognized. BAMEMSA communities are an integral part of the inclusive multiracial democracy we strive for, and their efforts should be recognized and respected by government and philanthropy. We have been particularly concerned over the past several months as we have heard reports from grantees about feeling isolated and under attack. In this moment, we believe it is particularly important to affirm our continued support for the critical work that these organizations undertake.

We are proud to continue to support our grantee partners, who stand for human dignity, civil and human rights in person and online, and the rights of BAMEMSA communities to thrive in this country. As public discourse evolves this year and beyond, we can’t lose sight of the core idea that a truly just multiracial democracy — and society — must include BAMEMSA communities.

Democracy Fund continues to support and fund these organizations. They are relying on us to meet this moment with them and to not back away from threats to our vision of an inclusive multiracial democracy. We are proud of our longstanding support for organizations working in BAMEMSA communities, who have experienced inequality, marginalization, targeting, and other forms of identity-based discrimination. Our grantees’ work is essential to our democracy. Unfortunately, this work as a whole was significantly underfunded back in 2016, and it remains underfunded in 2024.

Today, we reaffirm our support for BAMEMSA communities and urge other funders, civil society organizations, and leaders to do so as well. The future of our democracy depends on it.