Democracy Donors Rally to Fund Election-Related Work Well Before November

The old saw “better late than never” does not hold up at the ballot box.

Nonprofit organizations that work to ensure free and fair elections have long lamented that grantmakers dole out funds too late to make a difference in work designed to help register voters, protect voting rights and ensure a safe and secure voting process.

Until now. This year, more than 170 foundations, advisers and individual donors* banded together and pledged to disburse grants more quickly in an election-year effort dubbed the All by April campaign. Groups on the ground are using the grants to recruit and train community canvassers, organize voter registration drives and combat disinformation and misinformation, among other election-related efforts.

Launched by the Democracy Fund — a private foundation created by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar — All by April is a response to a critical need to support voting infrastructure around the country now, say its signatories. “While November marks the culmination of our nation’s election cycle, the work of educating and engaging voters must begin much earlier,” noted a March Inside Philanthropy op-ed piece by All by April campaign leaders. “In most jurisdictions, that schedule has been moving up as more and more places provide more choices for voters through things like vote by mail and early voting.”

Grantees have been flagging the need for early donations for years. “Over the past decade, we have consistently heard from grantees, especially from smaller, grassroots and BIPOC-led organizations, that too much of their election year funding arrived too late to be efficiently used,” said Democracy Fund president Joe Goldman. “To change this, we needed to create a new expectation among funders that being a responsible philanthropist means not waiting to make grants in an election cycle.”

The campaign, said Goldman, helped provide a rallying cry, gave funders a hard timeline to work toward and showed grantees that funders have their backs. Since 2014, the Democracy Fund has invested more than $275 million on work aiming to defend against threats to democracy.

A 2022 survey by the foundation revealed that charitable commitments to democracy-related causes have increased in recent years, although they still represent a tiny fraction of all philanthropic funding in the United States, according to a 2024 Democracy Fund report. Data on how much money was disbursed during the All by April initiative is still being gathered; an initial tally found that more than $127 million was pledged by early signers, according to Goldman.

Moving money fast is not typically a foundation strong suit, although in recent years, grantmakers have had plenty of opportunity to exercise their rapid-response muscles — including in response to threats to democracy. “As someone who runs a foundation, I can attest that it is not easy to shift internal systems to move more quickly,” Goldman said. “It required collaboration between our program, grants management, legal and finance teams, and was only possible because we had a clear deadline to meet. I know the same was true for our fellow signatories.”

Grantees say investing early is essential

In the past, community groups have lamented the “deluge or drought” nature of election year funding: Nonprofits receive support until election day, but then funds disappear once the election is over. This boom-and-bust cycle is destabilizing for grassroots organizations trying to build rapport and trust among historically marginalized voters, including Black, Latino and Indigenous people, as well as youth, rural and low-income workers.

Take organizations like the New Georgia Project. The nonprofit seeks to register, civically engage and build power for Black, brown and young voters every year — not just in even years. “We already have to contend with the boom-and-bust cycle of funding that follows major election years,” said New Georgia Project CEO Kendra Cotton. “Having resources to start the year allows us to have impact immediately and plan for the future.”

As a result of early 2024 investments, the organization has 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, Cotton said. “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.”

Funding in the spring gives nonprofit groups across the country an opportunity to gear up for vital election-related work in the summer and fall. “Early funding is helping us hire, train and run voter contact and registration programs in the summer — ahead of get-out-the-vote season — which is critical to building strong, community-centered campaigns made up by trusted, messaged and homegrown leaders,” said Jose Salvador Orellana, co-founder and lead organizer of Loud for Tomorrow, an organizing group in California’s Central Valley, which received almost $100,000 in early funding from All by April campaign donors.

“Early money is vital for organizations like ours because we are working with young voters of color who have been forgotten or seen as not a priority from traditional political campaigns,” Orellana said. “Voters of color, especially rural and first-generation, are labeled as ‘low propensity’ because they do not turn out often. We see them as ‘high potential’ because when we get one voter of color, we get their whole network and community.”

At stake in 2024

The stakes in the presidential race rematch could not be higher, according to funders. “At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, the fate of our very democracy hangs in the balance of this year’s election, and the philanthropic community has a role to play in bringing it back from the brink,” wrote Beth Huang, program officer for civic engagement and democracy for the nonprofit philanthropic organization Tides in an April IP op-ed piece. Tides signed on early to the All by April campaign.

Voters in 22 states will face new restrictions and barriers to voting that take effect this year, notes Huang, who leads the Healthy Democracy Fund, a Tides Foundation grantmaking initiative of pooled funds that seeks to close racial, age and income voter turnout gaps and has granted more than $46 million to more than 150 organizations since 2020.

The outcome of the presidential election will determine the next generation of judicial appointments, the timeline of the country’s national transition to renewable energy, and its standing on the world stage at a precarious time around the globe, Huang notes. She added that beyond the top of the ticket, voters will make critical decisions about how and when they can access reproductive healthcare, who will represent their interests in statehouses across the country and who will interpret voting rights policy in state courts.

Meanwhile, trust in government is at a near record low, according to the Pew Research Center. Millions of people are alienated from the political system and unsure if casting a ballot is worth their time in 2024, notes Huang. Trust is key to turning out these disaffected voters. Early funding allows organizations to transform ordinary people into powerful, long-term, trusted leaders and movement makers, she said.

As part of All by April, Tides disbursed $75 million to 660 organizations in 38 states, which represents about 80% of available funding earmarked for democracy work for 2024, according to Huang. From May through early November, the organization will continue to disburse funds as election-related opportunities and challenges arise. She points to beneficiaries of early grant giving: Tides has funded organizations such as One Pennsylvania, which has a year-round canvassing program that develops leaders and encourages Black voter participation in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It also funds the nonprofit Make the Road Nevada, which targets voter participation among Latinos. And it has funded many campus-based voter registration groups, which have a short window to mobilize voter registration initiatives. As a former college campus organizer, Huang knows from her own experience what it’s like to have a sizable philanthropic gift dangled at you too late to make a difference.

It’s too soon to gauge the impact of the initiative. An evaluation will likely come after the election, Goldman said. Anecdotally, he said, one grantee reported that more than seven donors moved up their gifts to reach the group by April. The grantee described the timing as a “game changer.”

The strength of the campaign may lie in its simplicity, Huang said. It didn’t address which organizations to support, or how much to give or why, and that broadness may be the key to the campaign’s success, she said. “I think if you ask foundations to change three to five practices, you can lose them,” Huang said. “All by April just asked for one thing: Fund early.”

*Full disclosure: One of those donors is IP founder and editor-in-chief David Callahan

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