With each executive order, massive policy shift, and resulting harms, I find myself thinking about what the history books will say about this period in American democracy and about the role philanthropy played when our shared humanity was so willfully dismissed and ignored. Will it be a story of how foundations and donors met a moment of crisis, as they did during the Covid-19 pandemic? Or will history remember this era as a time when philanthropy was paralyzed by fear to the detriment of all?
Policy — either good or bad — is built on narratives that define both the existing problems and viable solutions. Whether someone believes that democracy is crumbling, or that America’s greatest days occurred in a past worth returning to, or something else entirely, depends on the narratives they hold true.
Authoritarians already know the value of story, amassing power by tightly controlling narratives and spreading misinformation. For example, pardoning the nearly 1,600 people who took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on live television, was rewriting history — with a black Sharpie.
Democracy funders, however, have consistently overlooked the far right’s successful years-long campaign to change public perceptions, instead focusing on funding election-related efforts. Those initiatives should certainly continue, but building an equitable and resilient democracy requires grant makers to also support narrative work that convinces the public that such a world is both possible and worth fighting for.
A Fight for America
I recently heard someone characterize this moment we’re in as “a narrative coup.” The phrasing stuck with me because I agree that we are in a fight for America’s story. Consider, for example, how nonprofits, funders, and universities — often under legal guidance — are grappling with whether to scrub their websites of diversity, equity, and inclusion language, as if these ideals are no longer sacred aspirations.
Some argue that altering the narrative like this ensures the work itself can continue. But the narrative is part of the work, too — defining the destination and ensuring the public embraces that vision. Is that worth giving up? After all, the White House’s anti-DEI crusade is nothing less than a push to dismantle civil rights, furthering what the New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie calls the administration’s “segregationist intent.”
The stories a nation embraces shape the futures that are possible. “A country is essentially a group of people that tell the same story about themselves,” says Imara Jones, CEO of the trans nonprofit news organization TransLash. “In order for us to have the country that we want, we have to tell new stories.” (Jones was interviewed and featured in a report on supporting a multiracial democracy, released last month by my organization, the Bridgespan Group.)
Some grant makers have long understood the power of narrative work. The “love is love” narrative — funded by the Civil Marriage Collaborative, which included the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Overbrook Foundation, and the Gill Foundation, among others — helped push the marriage equality campaign over the finish line. “An Inconvenient Truth” was a slide show created by Al Gore until philanthropist Jeff Skoll helped turn it into a top-grossing film, sparking worldwide awareness of climate change. And Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, supported by a Soros Justice Fellowship, changed the mass-incarceration debate by documenting how the so-called war on drugs targeted Black men and stripped them of basic civil rights.
Democracy funders can support similar narrative efforts that show why a functioning and inclusive democracy is important for all Americans. As PolicyLink founder-in-residence Angela Glover Blackwell wrote, building a thriving, multiracial democracy can be “the next great U.S. innovation” — a stark reminder that a democracy that works for everyone doesn’t yet exist.
Ample Opportunities
This work is already well underway, providing multiple opportunities for grant makers. The Bridgespan research found that nonprofits led by those who are most threatened when democracy falters — including Black, trans, queer, and Indigenous people — are spearheading efforts to build a multiracial democracy that benefits everyone. And much of that work, which includes narrative initiatives, isn’t focused on elections, but on how diverse communities can be better included and heard by government leaders and fellow Americans.
Take TransLash’s podcast series “Anti-Trans Hate Machine,” which, as Jones says, shows how “democracy overall is being undermined through the attacks on the trans community.” Its most recent season chronicles how violent, paramilitary groups such as the Proud Boys and Patriot Front recruit members using anti-trans ideology. Still, TransLash’s documentation of “trans stories to save trans lives” — with an emphasis on people of color — is the type of narrative work traditional democracy funders often overlook.
Donors who want to help build the “next great U.S. innovation” will need a broader understanding of what long-term democracy work involves.
“Democracy funders often focus on resourcing field partners to drive civic engagement around elections or policy campaigns, and the disconnect between this approach and the totality of what is needed to achieve deep and resilient democracy in the U.S. is becoming more pronounced,” says Bridgit Antoinette Evans, CEO of Pop Culture Collaborative, a pooled fund supporting efforts to tell more inclusive stories.
“The assignment has changed,” Evans told Bridgespan researchers. “Democracy funding also needs to focus on where we have the power to instill pluralist norms, behaviors, and identities that can stand the winds of time when individual leaders fail us.”
That need is urgent. For years, funders on the right have spent significant money to weaken democracy by limiting who has access to the full rights of citizenship. From 2015 to 2021, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, or NCRP, estimates that what it calls “regressive” public policy organizations focused on rolling back individual rights spent more than $1 billion per year on average. During that time, their fundraising and spending increased by more than 50 percent, and their assets and regranting doubled.
Similarly, NCRP found that “regressive philanthropy” nurtured efforts to undermine a democratic and just society by consistently providing multiyear, unrestricted funding and general operating support. These donors clearly don’t want a democracy that works for everyone — and they have the resources to make that a reality.
A true multiracial democracy — where people of different races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders, and religions are respected and empowered — does not live or die without help. Yes, democracy funders need to continue to support civic engagement, especially among people of color and other marginalized communities, but they also need to help write a compelling new story about what democracy looks like.
