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Civic Journalism, Engaged Journalism: Tracing the Connections

Geneva Overholser

August 3, 2016

“Want to attract more readers? Try listening to them.” That’s the headline on Liz Spayd’s debut as the New York Times’ new public editor. That she devoted her first column to the need to pay attention to readers’ views shows how central the idea of engagement has become for journalists.

She is building on an emerging trend. Mediashift recently published a series of articles called “Redefining Engagement,” inspired by a conference in Portland last October. (They provide a rich trove for anyone seeking to understand the movement.)

Consider also the ONA London 2016 engagement conference in April. A book by Jake Batsell called Engaged Journalism: Connecting with Digitally Empowered News Audiences. An Engaging News Project at the University of Texas, and the Agora Journalism Center at Oregon.

A Reuters Institute report looked at engagement and the 2015 UK elections. The Coral Project creates tools for engagement. An Engagement Summit in Macon, Georgia, in January that I attended produced this manifesto. And more and more newsrooms are naming engagement editors, as Elia Powers describes.

The Democracy Fund sees public engagement as a key element of its work to support vibrant media and the public square. And among the questions it has considered as it thinks about today’s engaged journalism is this: How is it different from civic journalism?

Many will remember—some with a touch of heat—the 1990’s movement known as civic (or public) journalism, which called for a rethinking of newsrooms’ relationships with their communities. Is today’s engaged journalism a new chapter of that movement? As someone who edited a newspaper during those earlier years, and who is now working as a senior fellow and consultant with the Democracy Fund, I’d say the short answer is yes – but: Engaged journalism is a much-evolved descendant, born into a radically changed landscape.

Civic journalism’s proponents felt that journalism was failing our democracy in important ways. Detachment from community was part of the reason. A working relationship with the community to help shape local journalism was key to the solution.

Wikipedia has a richly helpful entry on what it calls this “idea of integrating journalism into the democratic process.” It continues, “The media not only informs the public, but it also works towards engaging citizens and creating public debate.” The movement’s intellectual founding father, Jay Rosen, wrote that “public journalism tries to place the journalist within the political community as a responsible member with a full stake in public life.” The now dormant Pew Center for Civic Journalism said the practice “is both a philosophy and a set of values supported by some evolving techniques to reflect both of those in journalism. At its heart is a belief that journalism has an obligation to public life – an obligation that goes beyond just telling the news or unloading lots of facts. The way we do our journalism affects the way public life goes.”

One of the most important truths about civic journalism is that it came into being at a time when newsrooms were confident (many would say arrogant) in their top-down role as society’s primary sources of news. Moreover, their organizations were enjoying robust economic success. There was little thirst for prescriptions for improvement, however well intentioned.

More specifically, the movement’s opponents resisted it as a threat to journalism’s essential ethic of independence, and as a challenge to its time-honored allegiance to objectivity. (Not to mention the plain old comfort of operating by familiar patterns and enjoying a sense that it was newsrooms, not the critics, who understood what the public needed.) For whatever mix of reasons, by 1997, a survey of Associated Press Managing Editors found that only 7 percent of respondents strongly agreed that civic journalism was “an important way for many news organizations to reconnect with their alienated communities.”

And yet, there is this interesting truth: Within the two decades between then and now, the most basic principle of civic journalism has come into widespread usage. Virtually every newsroom has a richer conversation with its readers, viewers, listeners (or, in Rosen’s memorable phrasing, “the people formerly known as the audience”). In this way, civic journalism prevailed after all.

What changed over those two decades? Almost everything in the journalism world. Advertising became disconnected from news, leaving news organizations bereft of their principal means of support. Technology fractured journalism’s audiences. It also radically redefined roles, opening remarkable opportunities for the public as providers and creators of information. Trust in media continued to plummet. News organizations that once seemed to print money began to pile up debt. Newsrooms that had been averse to change began desperately looking for answers.

What did not change is concern about the health of our democracy. That concern, if anything, has deepened since the ‘90s, when it served as a primary motivation for civic journalism.

And so to 2016’s buzzword, “engagement.” What questions (or answers) does the experience of civic journalism offer its young relative? It would be a mistake to be too definitive about this. Engaged journalism is very much a concept in formation. Still, some fruitful points for examination present themselves:

Civic journalism was, by design, loosely defined. (Rosen himself called it everything from an argument to a debate, an adventure to an experiment.) It was a continual work in progress, repeatedly being invented in different ways by different partners. However intentional, the vagueness did at least lend a hand to those who chose to dismiss it.

It’s probably important for engaged journalism, too, to keep its parameters flexible enough to allow for different methods of practice among varied practitioners in diverse communities. Still, some clarity as to its primary goals and baseline practices seems essential in order to spread its message, create a vibrant cohort of practitioners, and gauge its impact.

If stubbornness and blitheness were a part of journalists’ resistance to civic journalism, so was the substantial question of how to be responsive while retaining independence. With a clear-eyed understanding of this valid concern, engagement enthusiasts will be better prepared to help newsrooms find ways to ensure that community-mindedness can coexist with, for example, investigative zeal. This fine Mediashift piece is a good place to start.
Civic journalism was presented to journalists largely as a recommendation for change in their behavior in relation to the community. Newsrooms today are far from the dominant force they were, and the position of the public has changed dramatically. The former “audience” has in its own hands the tools to shape the flow of information in the public interest. This new public role—along with new technologies and transparency and social-media tools, as well as growing interest from community partners such as libraries – means that engagement now holds the promise of something much broader than a change in newsroom practices.
Civic journalism asserted that journalism thrives only if community thrives – an implicit promise regarding the future health of journalism, yes, but not specifically about its business model. Today, engagement is offered by some proponents as precisely a business model. Indeed, in some applications it seems indistinguishable from audience development; a matter simply of building a user base. How well engagement can serve both goals remains to be seen. (While Philadelphia’s news outlet Billy Penn is not yet profitable, its engagement practices seem promising in that regard. In 2015, events accounted for about 80 percent of revenue.)
Civic journalism was no doubt weakened by the fact that newsrooms largely failed to reflect the demographics of their communities. This remains woefully true today, and engagement efforts that ignore this will surely be undermined. The proliferation of new startups and the ability of previously under-attended voices to be heard in social media offer promise.
Civic journalism bemoaned journalism’s “view from nowhere,” to use another of Rosen’s apt terms. Now, partly because of a growing emphasis on consumers’ appreciation of “voice,” partly because of critiques about false equivalency and about journalists’ failure to share all they know, journalists have gotten better at not being that voice from nowhere. It is clearer now that they are not disinterested observers. On its face, this offers promise for connection. But if journalists have gotten better at claiming their own voice, their talent and taste for listening to public voices seems less thoroughly developed. Taking advantage of the new tools of engagement will be essential.

Civic journalism was a reconsideration of journalism’s practice: Don’t stand off and deliver; ask the community to help shape your work. Engaged journalism, too, reconsiders journalism’s practice but, at its best, considers the new potential for not just journalists, but all citizens to collaborate in bringing about a more informed public. Journalists no longer have a lock on information. Members of the public are now their partners. As a consequence, greater attention is paid to the impact of journalism, to what about it attracts readers or drives them away, to how it affects people’s actions. Businesses, nonprofits and politicians can reach the public directly. Transparency is increasing, and accountability along with it. This could be a promising moment for a melding of legacy journalism’s best strengths, civic journalism’s commitment to community and the new culture of participation.

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Supporting Servicemembers through the Military Voter Education Project

Stacey Scholl

July 1, 2016

At this time of year, Americans remember what it means to be a free country, turning our thoughts to the approximately 2.1 million men and women in military uniform who serve to guarantee that freedom. This year is also an election year; many important races and initiatives will be decided on both primary and general election ballots.

June 27-July 5 is Armed Forces Voting Week, an observance that highlights—but in no way limits—the time to draw attention to voting for this group. We help honor our servicemembers when we work steadily to ensure they have timely information presenting clear steps to share in the freedom to vote—no matter where they are.

For this reason, Democracy Fund is proud to announce a new grant to the Military Officers Association of America Military Family Initiative (MMFI) for its Military Voter Education Project, a one-year, non-partisan voter education effort. The goal of the project is simple: Focus attention on valuable resources and information for military voters and their families.

Absentee voters must find and retain voting information months before Election Day—and it is unfortunately easy for voters to miss critical deadlines or directions; this is especially true for members of the military who are serving away from home. Distance affects the type of information they come across and pay attention to. Election administrators and voting advocates must rely on the most recent findings and data on how best to reach military voters with essential information about requesting, receiving, and returning their ballots in time for counting.

The study “Effects of Spouses on Voting in the Active Duty Military Population,” released in 2015 by the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) points to the unique link between marriage and the likelihood that a servicemember will cast a ballot. FVAP is the Department of Defense agency responsible for assisting military and overseas voters. The piece reveals that, in part, “being married lowers the opportunity costs associated with gathering election information. Once one married partner learns about some aspect of the election, sharing those voting resources and information is costless.” This led FVAP to conclude, “If spouses can provide information about … voting assistance resources, a marketing campaign directly targeting spouses of military members could potentially have a positive effect.”

That’s where MMFI can have a specific impact. MMFI holds that “nothing is more important to [our] national defense than the welfare of our military families” and has dialed into the needs of this particular group. The trust MOAA garners in this community, as the largest association of military officers, means it is in a unique position to disseminate information so that it is likely to be seen and retained by many groups, including spouses. MOAA also will work with additional partners to reach the enlisted community with the same level of energy and attention, because there is no division in our armed forces—they are all united in the same mission.

Over the next year, we look forward to seeing military voters and their families connect with distinct marketing aimed at equipping them with voter information. We hope we will see more citizens choose to participate in the election process because they feel empowered to do so.

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Welcoming Aboard Srik Gopal

Joe Goldman

June 28, 2016

This week we are excited to announce the newest addition to the Democracy Fund team – Srik Gopal, Vice President of Strategy, Learning, and Impact. In this new role, Srik will help lead the Democracy Fund’s systematic approach to making democracy work better. His extensive background and leadership in strategy and evaluation make him the perfect addition to our team.

Before joining us, Srik was Managing Director at social impact consulting firm FSG and co-led the firm’s Strategic Learning and Evaluation practice. At FSG, Srik worked with a variety of clients including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Omidyar Network, the National Academies, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, and the city of San Francisco. He has specific expertise implementing strategy, learning, and evaluation from a systems and complexity orientation.

Prior to FSG, Srik spent a decade in leadership roles in the social sector, primarily in education. As Chief Impact and Learning Officer at New Teacher Center, a national education nonprofit, Srik worked to set up frameworks for impact measurement as well as systems and processes for data-driven learning and improvement. He previously worked on supporting whole systems change in education in his role as Director of Evaluation for the Ball Foundation.

Srik’s articles have been featured in Foundation Review and Organizational Development Practitioner, and he has blogged for sites including Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Guardian, Forbes India, and Markets for Good. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross Business School and a Certification in Advanced Evaluation Study from Claremont Graduate University. Srik has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Our team is looking forward to working with Srik on expanding our strategy and achieving positive impact for our American democracy. Welcome aboard, Srik!

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A Fresh Look for the Democracy Fund

Lauren Strayer

June 22, 2016

After five years of grantmaking and on our second anniversary as an independent foundation, the Democracy Fund has a fresh look and updated program names. We hope these exciting changes offer a clearer and more energetic window into who we are becoming and into our efforts to ensure the American people come first in our democracy.

At the Democracy Fund, we know we are one actor in a field of passionate and committed advocates, experts, peer funders, and elected officials who care about making our democracy work better. We believe that the issues we work on are part of complex systems in which efforts to create change will have ripple effects, some intended and some unexpected. Progress must be made through multi-pronged strategies that reinforce one another and are sustained over time. Like our founder, eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, we hold a deep respect for the values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Our republic has endured through periods of great stress in the past and we are confident that, with the dedication of committed Americans, our democracy will continue to rise to the occasion, solving the country’s most pressing challenges.

These beliefs, combined with our commitment to building bridges across partisan divides, are represented in our new logo’s forward-moving and alternating red, blue, and gray waves.

To date, we have committed more than $30 million in support of a healthy democracy. Our grantee partners range from the Bipartisan Policy Center and Pew Charitable Trusts to the Congressional Management Foundation, Cato, and Common Cause. We are humbled by the impactful and innovative work of our partners in each of our three core programs. We remain deeply committed to improving Congress, election administration, and local journalism, and today, we’re excited to share the new program names, which more transparently reflect the democratic values we strive promote:

Governance and Bipartisan Problem Solving is now Principled Leadership and Effective Governance. Led by Betsy Wright Hawkings, the Governance Program will continue to support approaches that help our elected leaders deliberate, negotiate, and serve the American people.
Responsive Politics is now Modern Elections and the Role of Money in Politics. Led by Adam Ambrogi, the Elections Program is working to advance bipartisan solutions that ensure the views and votes of the public come first in our democracy.
Informed Participation is now Vibrant Media and the Public Square. Led by Tom Glaisyer, the Public Square Program continues to support innovations and institutions that help people understand and participate in the democratic process.

We hope our new look and language reflect the Democracy Fund you have come to know, and we hope it makes our work as a foundation even more transparent over time.

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Designing Ballots for Tomorrow

Natalie Adona

June 6, 2016

The Elections Program at Democracy Fund proudly welcomes the Center for Civic Design as its newest grantee.

By virtue of its ultimate goal – “ensuring voter intent through design” – the Center for Civic Design seeks to improve the voter experience by designing election materials that are understandable to an electorate with diverse educational, personal, and cultural backgrounds and learning styles. Its expert leaders, Whitney Quesenbery and Dana Chisnell, not only improve voting through usability testing and applied design research but also develop tools and best practices for use by local election officials.

You might, however, be asking yourself, “why is the design of election materials important?” The most obvious answer can be summarized in two words: butterfly ballot. Okay, how about “Florida 2000?” “Bush v. Gore?” (Does the “v” count as a third word?)

When a voter accidentally skips or misreads a piece of important information, that oversight can quickly lead to a missed opportunity to cast a vote or have that vote count. Even with the growing trend toward digitizing some aspects of election administration (notably, the move to online voter registration and the adoption of e-poll books), let’s face it: most election processes still use paper forms that have a lot of required information packed into them. The likelihood of a voter skipping essential data fields is very high when presented on a paper form – especially when instructions look like a hodgepodge of technocratic mumbo-jumbo squished into irregularly-shaped boxes all seemingly sewn together WITH LONG STRINGS OF INSTRUCTIONS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS.

I think you get the idea. When I was a poll worker trainer in California, a supervisor of mine once described the election process as “a big paperwork party.” Her point was two-fold:

1) On the administrative side, local election officials are required to distribute and process thousands of paper forms to and from voters (and poll workers – but that’s a story for another day). Every piece of paper received from voters helps officials determine important details like who’s eligible to receive which ballot, how many voters could show up to vote per precinct, or how many resources need to be allocated to polling places.

Here’s an example of information that must be communicated to voters from election officials in Minnesota. The Center for Civic Design and a team of volunteer experts around the country worked with the Secretary of State’s office to refresh its absentee balloting instructions after the 2008 election. As you can see, the difference is remarkable.

Minnesota Voting Instructions: BEFORE

Minnesota Voting Instructions: AFTER

2) From the point of view of citizens, most will receive and cast paper ballots. Those ballots can have several contests on them and come with a lot of instructions that voters need to see and understand in order to properly cast their ballot. Voters also encounter important materials like voter registration applications, envelopes containing official election materials, and voter information pamphlets.

One type of form that voters in most states must complete is the voter registration application. As you can see from the example below, the Center for Civic Design, working closely with collaborator OxideDesign Co., redesigned Pennsylvania’s voter registration form. Pennsylvania recently implemented online voter registration, but many of its voters still rely on the paper form to register. The paper form is designed to coordinate with the online form, letting voters choose the way of registering that works best for them. Which do you think is easier to read?

Pennsylvania Voter Registration: BEFORE

Pennsylvania Voter Registration: AFTER

The Center for Civic Design works with election officials, government and nonprofit organizations, and the public to achieve its ultimate goal of accurately capturing voter intent. Its leaders’ painstaking research and collaborative projects to improve the voter experience make the Center for Civic Design a fantastic addition to our portfolio. Welcome to the Democracy Fund team!

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Welcoming New Teammates

Joe Goldman

May 16, 2016

As we near the Democracy Fund’s two-year Independence anniversary, we are delighted to welcome new staff members to our team. With each new team member, we celebrate the opportunity to enfold new experience, diversity, and perspective to our efforts to ensure the American people come first in our political system. We are pleased to introduce the following new members of our team:

Josh Stearns will be joining the Democracy Fund as Associate Director for the Informed Participation later this month. He currently serves as the Director of Journalism and Sustainability at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, where he currently leads the Local News Lab. Josh previously led national advocacy campaigns in support of freedom of expression and media diversity; most recently he served as the Press Freedom Director at Free Press, a national nonprofit fighting for all people’s rights to connect and communicate. As an award-winning journalist, Josh has published numerous reports on local news, public media, and media policy. He is a founding board member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation and served on the board of the Student Conservation Association. Josh has a B.A. in Writing from St. Lawrence University and a M.A. in American Studies from UMass Amherst.
Freddie Salas recently joined us as a Program Assistant with the Responsive Politics team. He most recently served as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care where he worked to improve the organization’s services for the homeless and homeless veteran populations. Before joining AmeriCorps, Freddie volunteered with the Greater Fredericksburg Habitat for Humanity. He graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Urban Affairs and Planning.
Emma Thomson joined our team as the Digital Communications Assistant in May. Before coming on board, she served as a Press Assistant for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. Emma’s internship experience spans her range of interests, with previous positions in politics, public relations, and digital media. She graduated magna cum laude from The George Washington University with a B.A. in Political Communication.

Please join us in welcoming these new faces. The Democracy Fund is in the process of recruiting and hiring for several positions, and we will keep you updated as we continue to grow.

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Strengthening our Systems Thinking Muscles

Donata Secondo

April 20, 2016

Democracy Fund’s President, Joe Goldman, recently wrote on our blog about some of the benefits and difficulties our organization has found while integrating a systems lens into our work. He noted how systems thinking, designed to help us grapple with complexity, can at times be awfully complex itself. As a member of the Impact and Learning team, I’ve been helping Democracy Fund make sense of what it means to be systems thinkers, and Joe’s words rang particularly true for me.

Working with the incredible systems and complexity coaches at The Omidyar Group, the Impact and Learning team has been supporting program staff in developing their systems maps, and shepherding their systems-based strategic planning processes. We’ve been alongside the teams grappling with what’s been hard—but we’ve also had a front-row seat to see the wins. Like our evaluator, I’ve seen our teams’ pride in their work, and try everyday to help the teams further recognize how much we’ve learned and how our systems skills have developed.

I had a strong moment of recognition of this progress recently when Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) released their Guide to Systems Grantmaking. This resource is designed to provide grantmakers and nonprofits a toolkit of essential systems assessment tools, frameworks, and best practices—and it is yet another piece of evidence of the growing community of philanthropies taking an interest in systems thinking. As it does on other topics, GEO can continue to be a convener for this group, collect our stories, and help us share our lessons learned.

GEO’s Systems Grantmaking Resource Guide suggests, just as we’ve found, that it takes time to understand and internalize a systems mindset. At first glance, I was overwhelmed by the wide variety of tools and practices it recommended. I learned of several new approaches I’m eager to play with in our work, augmenting the causal loop systems mapping we’ve started with. But, after I dug a little deeper, what struck me more was the complementarity and interconnection of these tools. I realized that we’ve already been engaging in many more systems practices than I’d been aware. SAT analysis, leverage points, and systemic action research are already part of our approach, flowing naturally from one another as we mapped systems. Even aspects of our grantmaking approach I had considered distinct from our systems work—our interest in scenario planning, for example—are logically tied to the systems thinking frame.

When introducing new staff to Democracy Fund’s systems practice, I describe it as fundamentally a sense-making process. While systems mapping is a great tool for new learning—particularly when designed, as our process has been, to be deeply participatory—it has also been powerful in helping to bring into sharper focus what we already knew and to align assumptions across our organization and with key partners. GEO’s Guide to Systems Grantmaking, it turns out, served the same purpose for me. It brought to life what has been hard to see in the sometimes tedious day-to-day of map-building: just how strong our systems muscles are becoming.

We’ve got a lot yet to learn to get to “expert” level on GEO’s self assessment, and I know the challenges our evaluator observed will continue into the future. But, armed with new tools and deeper connections to others in the field, I’m all the more confident we’ll get there.

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Deconstructing Congressional Dysfunction: A Systems-based Approach

Betsy Wright Hawkings

April 11, 2016

In my years of service on Capitol Hill, I saw first hand that Congress is full of good people driven to make our world a better place. Yet for far too many Americans, Congress is not fulfilling its responsibilities as a representative body. Why? And can it be helped?

The Democracy Fund’s Governance Initiative spent much of the past year seeking to understand how Congress could better respond to the needs and demands of citizens. To explore how we might better understand the systems that drive Congress, we began with the framing question, “How is Congress fulfilling or failing to fulfill its obligations to the American people?”

It didn’t take long to conclude that the institution is failing to do so.

Using the work of our funding partner, the Madison Initiative of the Hewlett Foundation, as a base, we pursued the broad and substantive question of what dynamics are the most significant in contributing to this dysfunction. Through that understanding, we can start to piece together what can be done to address them.

To that end, we’ve published the first public iteration of our systems map, Congress and Public Trust. We have been gathering feedback from a wide-range of stakeholders, and welcome additional thinking and ideas.

Mapping Congress and Public Trust

Last Spring, we convened a group of experts on Congress—scholars, former members of Congress and staff, and active supporters of the institution—who helped us explore the key narratives that drive the system. A ‘core story’ quickly emerged.

Core Story Loop: Congress and Public Trust

With expanded access to and use of the Internet by the public, communications to Congress have dramatically accelerated. The money infusing politics intensifies the pressures on an institution ill-prepared to process, let alone interpret and meet them, further weakening congressional capacity and reducing satisfaction of both among members and the public at large. This has contributed to trust in the institution falling to an all-time low.

With growth in dissatisfaction, some citizens “double down” to increase pressure on leaders, but the public is increasingly “opting out” and disengaging from the system—leaving only the loudest, shrillest, and most polarizing voices to feed the hyper-partisanship characterizing our current politics. Congress, conceived in Article One of our Constitution as the leading branch of our federal government, is becoming irrelevant to an increasing number of Americans.

Our Congress and Public Trust map describes the factors that are intensifying this process, inside and outside the institution. A long stretch of voter dissatisfaction and important demographic shifts within the two-party system have led to increasing intensity of competition for majorities in Congress. This historic level of competition has led the parties to stake out more stark ideological differences, driving their partisan constituencies further apart philosophically. As the parties and their constituents have fewer ideas in common, hyper-partisan behavior within the electorate and among those elected to Congress increases, winnowing the possibility for compromise and dragging down congressional function.

At the same time, the institution’s ability to formulate thoughtful, cooperative policy solutions has diminished. Some members (and many challengers) have responded to decreased public satisfaction by running against Washington, demonizing the institution, and reducing the institution’s resources to the breaking point. Loss of institutional expertise exacerbated by increased staff turnover has weakened policy-making capacity and increased the influence of outside experts, some of whom also proffer campaign donations. In fact, money flows throughout our systems map, depicted by factors with green halos. Further research through creation of another systems map focused on money and politics is forthcoming and will be aimed at deepening our understanding of this phenomenon.

Where do we go from here?

OK, you say. We know Congress isn’t working well; public dissatisfaction is at an all-time high and politics is as nasty as it has ever been. This map basically depicts a death spiral. What do we do about it?

A systems map helps identify leverage opportunities—places where smaller levels of effort lead to disproportionate impact. And leverage opportunities inform strategy. As we work to identify leverage opportunities and develop strategy, several themes are emerging.

First, despite this story of profound dysfunction, there are bright spots within the system. Many members of Congress and their staffs still possess what we call “servant’s hearts,” meaning they are driven by a call to public service. We know staff and members want to be effective, despite being stuck in a cycle of diminished resources. We also see a bright spot in the ability of outside partners to help Congress become more efficient and effective—to “work smarter.” As a result, we are thinking about how we can best support and empower servants’ hearts across the institution by more effectively enabling substantive work and deliberation.

Second, we believe that the institution’s failure to respond to increasing communication is driving public dissatisfaction and disengagement. We cannot simply invite greater public engagement without making sure Congress has strengthened its ability to respond. Without these investments first, we risk further alienating those we are trying to re-engage.

We have to ask, therefore, how we can help Congress develop more efficient tools to listen to the public, process the overwhelming amount of information, and invite more interaction from constituent groups, all while better managing the volume of communications from advocacy groups.

Third, once Congress’s capacity to listen and respond to the public is increased, can we help members and staff build a more functional culture that responds less reflexively to fear, elevating the leadership strength of members and staff? Members currently have too little incentive to act beyond partisan teamsmanship. Are there interventions we can make to help alleviate some of the political pressure members feel and encourage them to better withstand hyper-partisan heat? Can we help them find courage to cooperate across the aisle and strengthen bipartisan relationships that offer a foundation for institutional progress?

Finally, the cost of running for office has risen exponentially, driven by pressures from the political system we call the “Political-Industrial Complex.” Our map clearly illustrates how the need to raise campaign funds ripples across the congressional system. Reducing the amount of time spent by members fundraising would free them to focus more on legislation and remove some partisan invective from their messaging. We also see a potential bright spot using emerging campaign techniques that rely on cheaper media, and are considering exploring whether, if accelerated, they could disrupt the dominance of the political-industrial complex by reducing money on the demand side of its predominant business model.

We are knee deep in strategy development work and have some distance to go. We expect that as we continue to learn our analysis will evolve. In fact, learning and evolution is the essence of understanding the system, because by definition, it is always changing. It is our hope that by collaborating with partners across the field, existing grantees, and most importantly, with Congress itself, the Democracy Fund can play a constructive role in helping strengthen the institution and our democracy as a whole.

You can explore the map and its elements here. As you do, we hope you will tell us how to better describe and illuminate the dynamics of the Congress and Public Trust system. Please email us at congressmap@democracyfund.org to share your feedback or related resources.

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New Faces at the Democracy Fund

Joe Goldman

April 6, 2016

2016 has proved to be an exciting year so far for the whole team here at the Democracy Fund. Since our launch, we have been hard at work building our new organization – setting up internal systems, approving new grants, refining our strategies, and so much more. We are proud of how much progress we’ve made so far, and are thrilled to see much of our planning work begin to reach the implementation stage.

As an organization, we believe that strengthening our democracy requires the involvement of diverse voices from across the political spectrum and from all walks of life. The Democracy Fund team is a group of remarkably passionate, dedicated people who strive every day to make our democracy work better. We are delighted to welcome several new members to our team:

Pat Christen is the newest member of the Democracy Fund’s board of directors. Pat is a managing director of The Omidyar Group, and serves as a senior advisor to Pierre and Pam Omidyar. She brings curiosity, a sense of humor, and a commitment to high accountability to her role, which focuses on cultivating environments of learning, innovation and impact across all Omidyar Group organizations and initiatives. Prior to joining The Omidyar Group, Pat served as President and CEO of HopeLab. She was President and Executive Director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation for 15 years and also served as President of the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation She has written, studied, and lectured on social and health issues both in the U.S. and abroad. Pat is a graduate of Stanford University, where she studied biology and political science. She is also a mother of four, a role that deeply inspires her work.
Terry Ao Minnis joined us as a Senor Fellow & Consultant for our Responsive Politics Program, bringing valuable insight into the current voting rights community and important dynamics shaping our elections. Terry serves as the director of the census and voting programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), co-chairs the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Census Task Force, and sat on the U.S Department of Commerce’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee from 2002 through 2011. Terry has been counsel on numerous amicus briefs filed before the Supreme Court on voting rights cases, including Shelby County v. Holder and was one of the key leaders in campaigns on reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act in 2006 and on Census 2010. She received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law and her Bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago.
Hugo Castro joined us as our Operations Manager from the Hispanic Business Initiative Fund, where he provided financial, accounting, tax, and human resources services to over 400 entrepreneurs and business owners. He graduated from the University of South Florida Business School with a Bachelors in International Business and a minor in Marketing.
Chris Crawford joined us as a Program Assistant for our Governance Program from the Susan B. Anthony List, where he worked as a government affairs associate. During the 2014 midterm elections, Chris was Assistant National Field Director for the organization’s Super PAC, leading a GOTV operation that made over 1 million live voter contacts across four states He has worked on multiple campaigns at the local and federal level in his home state of New Hampshire and graduated from The George Washington University with a B.A. in Political Science.
Jessica Harris joined us as a Communications Associate from Third Way, where as marketing manager, she ran the distribution network that pumped organizational ideas into the policy world, amplified the debate using digital media, and oversaw the planning and execution of hundreds of highly regarded events on Capitol Hill and across Washington, D.C. aimed at advancing the case for a pragmatic, solutions-oriented U.S. politics. Jessica has worked on multiple campaigns at the local and federal level in her home state of Colorado and graduated from the University of Colorado with a B.A. in Political Science.
Roland Kennedy joined us as a Grants Management Associate from the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program where as a contract and grants associate he gained domestic and international grant making experience and worked with diverse grantee organizations and donors. Roland obtained his BA in Global Studies from Villanova University, an MS in Global Studies from Northeastern University, and is a candidate for an MPhil from the University of Pennsylvania.
Karla McLean joined us as a Network Associate on our communications team, having previously served as as an Intern and then Special Projects Coordinator here at the Democracy Fund. She also gained experience through internships with the Media, Culture, and Special Initiatives division of The MacArthur Foundation and the Illinois State Senate Policy and Budget Committee, where she helped draft legislative bills, communicated with stakeholders and senators, and analyzed the state budget. Karla graduated from the University of Chicago with a Masters in Public Policy.

Looking ahead, we expect to continue to add talent and capacity across the organization. The Democracy Fund is in the process of recruiting and hiring for several positions and we will keep you updated as we continue to grow.

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The Language Barrier in the Voting Booth

Terry Ao Minnis

April 4, 2016

During the Democratic presidential caucus in Nevada last month, the issue of language assistance in elections came up front and center — and it was not pretty. Fingers pointed in all directions about what actually happened and who was to blame, but what is clear is that there were caucus participants who needed assistance in Spanish to fully understand the process and their options and that they did not receive this essential help. This incident highlights how important language assistance in the political process is and why more must be done to ensure that language needs are being accommodated.

Today in the United States, one in five people speak a language other than English at home, and of that population who are 15 or older 42 percent report having some difficulty with the English language. Despite the increases in the eligible voting populations of Latinos and Asian-Americans in recent decades, according to the Pew Research Center there continues to be a 15-20 percent gap in voting participation rates between those voters and whites. While a variety of factors can contribute to a voter’s inability to participate in the election process, in many communities language barriers are a huge obstacle.The language-minority voting community often faces the same socio-economic disparities and logistical barriers that negatively impact other marginalized voters. They can face hurdles, and at times discrimination, at the polls from poll workers or challengers who are not able to communicate clearly. In the worst cases, there may be false assumptions that language difficulties mean a voter is ineligible to cast a ballot. And the political process can be overly complicated for those who have emigrated from countries with no democratic system, while our voter materials are often written in complex English.

As the 2016 election cycle unfolds, election administrators, civic organizations, and advocates can take steps to help mitigate problems faced by language-minority voters, helping to ensure equal access to the ballot.

First, at a minimum, election officials should make sure they comply with federal protections for language minority voters under the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The federal law requires jurisdictions that meet a certain threshold of eligible language-minority voters to provide language assistance via translated written materials, bilingual poll workers, and publicizing available language assistance. Another provision of the VRA allows voters the opportunity to bring someone of their choosing to assist them in the voting process. Administrators should ensure that their poll workers are aware of this right and are trained in how to assist voters with language needs.

Additionally—and regardless of any federal or state requirement—elections administrators should attempt to recruit bilingual poll workers, identify which polling locations could have a language need, reach out to local and ethnic-community media to help with recruitment, and partner with local and ethnic organizations to review and share nonpartisan election information. A minimal investment in recruitment and targeting can yield big returns for the same cost as hiring monolingual poll workers exclusively. Civic organizations and advocates can help in this effort by working to educate language-minority voters about what rights they have to assistance at the polls and by sharing resources, such as in-language hotlines to call with questions.

While the Nevada caucus is the most recent incident of a language-assistance failure, it is not the only incident and it certainly will not be the last. Concerns about language barriers continue to be raised by groups across the country, including Latino voters in Massachusetts, Asian voters in Florida and Native American voters in Arizona.

It remains to be seen how well language-minority voters will be accommodated during the rest of this year’s election cycle, but the Nevada incident is a reminder that this is an increasingly important issue in elections. We should address language issues head-on to prevent miscommunication and disenfranchisement, and we should work together to make voting for this growing segment the American population as comfortable and easy as it is for everyone else.

This piece was originally published via GOVERNING Magazine.