Earlier this year, over 100 philanthropic donors and advisors signed on to the All by April campaign, calling on funders to make most or all of their grant commitments by the end of April so pro-democracy organizations could sufficiently prepare for November’s election.
The effort, which went on to collect over 170 signatories, didn’t intend to dissuade donors from providing support later. Rather, it was about encouraging them to support year-round movement building in a democracy and civic engagement space where funding usually rises and falls with the ebbs and flows of the election cycle.
“It was a natural fit to sign on to All by April,” said Park Foundation Executive Director Rachel Leon and Senior Program Officer Michael Connor in a joint statement to IP. The foundation had “already made the decision to ensure state-based civic participation groups received their funds earlier in the cycle, after our first board meeting in March.”
Leon and Connor said the foundation wants “to help the organizations we support become sustainable and avoid boom-and-bust funding cycles that cause steep fluctuations in staffing and resources.”
With November quickly approaching, I reached out to Leon, Connor and leaders at two other forward-looking funders that signed on to All by April — Wallace Global Fund and the James B. McClatchy Foundation — to learn more about their democracy and civic engagement grantmaking strategies. Here’s what they had to say.
Park Foundation
The Park Foundation was established in 1966 by entrepreneur and media executive Roy H. Park, Sr. The family foundation seeks to advance “a more just, equitable, and sustainable society and environment, both nationally and in our local Ithaca community.” In addition to a Civic Participation and Democracy program, additional funding priorities include animal welfare and school food and nutrition. The foundation accepts proposals and letters of inquiry.
Civic Participation Program
Launched in 2020, the foundation’s Civic Participation program supports “year-round work to mobilize active engagement,” Leon and Connor said. “It is not limited to election-season get-out-the-vote campaigns.” The program funds state-based organizations that educate and mobilize voters, national and state groups protecting voters’ rights and election integrity, and groups opposing attempts to suppress participation in the democratic process.
This grantmaking occurs in a steady, predictable manner. “Early on we arrived at a grantmaking sequence we’ve followed ever since,” Leon and Connor said.
The foundation’s first quarterly round of grants support state-based organizing in select states, primarily through state-specific donor tables that regrant to groups on the ground. The second round primarily flows to national organizing and national collaboratives for state organizing. The third and final round funds legal defense efforts to protect voters and the integrity of elections. “If any program funds are left by the final quarter, they are awarded to wherever the need seems most urgent,” Leon and Connor said.
The foundation’s grants database reveals it disbursed 39 civic participation grants to organizations in Washington, D.C. and over a dozen states across the first two quarters of 2024. Recipients range from the Arizona Center for Empowerment to NEO Philanthropy’s State Infrastructure Fund.
Democracy Program
The Park Foundation’s separate Democracy program was launched in 2017. Priorities include ending partisan and racial gerrymandering, overturning Citizens United, expanding ballot access, and holding government officials accountable for corrupt and unethical practices.
The foundation disbursed 14 democracy grants in Q1 and Q2 2024. Organizations in Washington, D.C. and five states that received support this year include Florida Rising Together, Free Speech for People, and the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund.
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Wallace Global Fund
The D.C.-based Wallace Global Fund was established in 1995 by the children of Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965), who served as the 33rd Vice President of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In an email to IP, executive director Robby Rodriguez said WGF’s strategy is informed by Wallace’s “vision of a democracy for the people, by the people — a progressive future, where his concerns about outsized corporate power, and his commitment to racial and gender justice inform our grantmaking. Those values and ideals have informed WGF’s strategy for decades to support an equitable and vibrant democracy in the U.S. and across the globe.”
“Cultivating a culture of civic engagement”
In 2024, WGF supported nonpartisan 48 grantees serving democracy-related advocacy and civic engagement projects.
“WGF funds organizations that ensure everyone is at the decision-making table and have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, including those who have been historically excluded from the democratic process,” Rodriquez said, noting that a top focus area for WGF’s democracy grantmaking is “cultivating a culture of civic engagement.”
Rodriquez cited one grantee, the Alliance for Youth Organizing, that embodies this ethos. “The organization,” he said, “collaborates with youth-focused partners like When We All Vote and NextGen America to educate, train and mobilize young leaders and ensure equitable voter access and education throughout communities and campuses in the U.S.”
Other grantees operating in the democracy and civic engagement space include the Heartland Fund, the Center for Popular Democracy, Civic Nation and Fair Elections Center.
“In an election year, it is crucial to understand that democracy does not end on election night,” Rodriquez said. “The work of fostering a strong vibrant democracy takes place all year long. The groups we fund know this and work throughout the year, across the globe, to develop leaders and bring communities together, to deliver solutions to problems and develop strategies for sustainable people power.”
More than tripling the 5% payout
In an environment where defending democracy means getting money out the door faster than is often typical, or comfortable, for foundations, WGF is a funder to keep an eye on because its board hasn’t been constrained by sector norms treating the 5% annual payout requirement for foundations as a ceiling, rather than a floor, for grantmaking.
Henry Wallace’s grandson, Scott Wallace, is the co-chair of WGF and sits on the advisory board of Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy individuals concerned about inequality and the destabilizing concentration of wealth and power in America. And earlier this year, WGF signed onto Donor Revolt for Charity Reform, a campaign that’s calling on legislators to increase private foundations’ minimum required payout from 5% to 7%, and to 10% for funders with assets over $50 million.
WGF walks the walk on high payout. I pulled figures from WGF’s Form 990s and its average annual payout ratio for fiscal years ending December 2020, 2021 and 2022 was a robust 18.6% — a welcome trend in an underfunded civic engagement ecosystem trying to break free from the boom-bust election year funding trap.
James B. McClatchy Foundation
James B. McClatchy (1920-2006) was a journalist at McClatchy Company newspapers, including The Fresno Bee and The Sacramento Bee, and McClatchy’s publisher from 1987 to 2005. In 1994, he and his wife Susan founded the Central Valley Foundation, which was later renamed the James B. McClatchy Foundation (JBMF).
“All of our grantmaking is under the north star of advancing a multiracial democracy in the Central Valley” of California, said CEO Priscilla Enriquez and Chief Impact Officer Misty Avila. To accomplish this goal, the foundation supports local grassroots leaders and journalism organizations — “two areas often overlooked by traditional democracy funders, but crucial for civic engagement and unbiased voter information.”
In 2016, the board voted to sunset by 2030. The decision has added a sense of urgency to the foundation’s work in a part of the state that has historically received tepid support from institutional funders. “Philanthropy moves slowly,” Enriquez and Avila said. “As a sunsetting organization, we know how to move money quickly, and knew that in an election year like no other, that we needed to move quickly in California’s Central Valley where some of the most contested races have great influences at all levels of government — local, state, and national.”
Support for grassroots leaders
A big trend in the civic engagement space is funders’ growing interest in healing the body politic by bridging divides, cultivating a sense of belonging and fostering pluralism. JBMF’s support for grassroots leaders sparks what Enriquez and Avila called “equitable civic engagement across diverse communities.”
One grantee, Hmong Innovating Politics, brought together Hmong and Southeast Asian American youth and elders to close generational gaps in voting, while Community Interventions engaged with Black men in Kern County and laid the groundwork for sustained political participation in a community that has felt historically disenfranchised. Another nonprofit, Jakara Movement, empowers the Central Valley’s Punjabi Sikh community through leadership development and civic education.
Support for journalism organizations
Recognizing that when a community doesn’t have a source of trusted local news, bad actors can fill the vacuum and exacerbate polarization, JBMF supports what Enriquez and Avila called “local and multilingual media to boost civic participation, keep journalism local, and counter misinformation.”
In January, JBMF launched the All in for Central Valley Democracy Fund with $500,000 in seed funding, and began moving money every 30 days to the hands of journalists or grassroots leaders across the region. Thanks to the support from other donors, the fund has mobilized nearly $2 million for over 30 organizations to combat misinformation, restore journalism and support civic engagement leaders.
Examples of media grantees include KOFP Radio and ONME News, which provide Fresno’s African American community with a platform for political dialogue and voter education; and Kern Sol News, a nonprofit bilingual newsroom that partnered with another grantee, the local NPR affiliate KVRP, to host a candidate forum in the figurative news desert that is Kern County.
Recognizing that organizations advancing civic engagement need ongoing support when the election cycle ends, JBMF also provides multi-year grants to cover operational and salary costs for community leaders. In a similar vein, it has provided support for Loud for Tomorrow, a grassroots youth-led organization based in Delano, California that builds youth power.
With JBMF set to close its doors in six years, Enriquez and Avila had some parting advice for their peers in the field. “We encourage funders to go beyond the standard 5%, especially in regions like the Central Valley that face chronic underfunding.”
For further reading, check out IP’s recent deep dives into the democracy and civic engagement grantmaking of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Latino Community Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
