The Democracy Innovation Project
Helping Donors Capitalize on Disruptive Change and Nurture Democratic Innovation
Since 2016, the democracy field has experienced a surge of investment and entrepreneurial energy, with the formation and maturation of subfields dedicated to topics like structural reform, pluralism, deliberative democracy, and political violence prevention. Much of this activity reflects growing awareness that American democracy is in crisis. Our democracy is threatened by rising authoritarianism and political violence, election denialism, toxic polarization, fractured civic culture, ineffective governing institutions, eroding norms, a fragmented information environment, and many other challenges.
Despite these significant headwinds, we believe that American democracy is resilient and capable of delivering on the promise of liberty and justice for all. Achieving this goal will require a combination of good defense and strong offense sustained over time. This will entail reforming and potentially transforming outdated systems and structures, building a robust and broad-based pro-democracy movement, and, importantly, using our imagination to develop robust future visions of what our democracy could become.
Momentum is building to operate differently — to develop an inspiring affirmative vision for our democracy to usher in its next chapter and to reimagine what American democracy could become in the years ahead. The Democracy Innovation Project seeks to accelerate that more aspirational, experimental future-focused momentum.
The Democracy Innovation Project surfaces and connects bright spots and new approaches, synergizes disparate initiatives, and mainstreams reform and transformation efforts with more donors and field practitioners. Among other things, we seek to lift up efforts that:
Improve government effectiveness, representativeness, and legitimacy in the eyes of the public, in particular by improving the speed, efficiency, and user-friendliness of government services;
Grow public participation and agency in working with and alongside the government, by giving the public ways to influence government decision-making other than by voting, through co-governance and deliberative democracy experiments;
Strengthen civil society connective tissue to make it more resilient and cohesive by developing civic renewal efforts, bridging programs, media platforms, and pro-social narrative content and infrastructure that foster social cohesion, create shared understandings and aspirations, reduce polarization, and counter mis- and disinformation; and
Integrate longer-term thinking into governance and policy making to ensure the interests of both present and future generations are considered and addressed, and that modes of governing are suited to solving complex 21st century problems.
More about our work
Like our democracy, philanthropy is facing unprecedented pressures right now.
We believe that to navigate this disruption, funders must think nimbly about the future, lengthen their time horizons beyond near-term elections, embrace uncertainty, and direct a greater share of their funding towards innovation and building the foundations of a better functioning democratic system fit for governing in the 21st century.
DFN has focused on navigating these threats and opportunities with an eye to the long term in a concerted way since 2022, when we launched the Better Futures Project and published the influential report, Imagining Better Futures for American Democracy. The report discusses the perils of dystopian and defensive thinking and the benefits of positive visioning to enable American democracy to meet its potential – ushering in and sustaining a just, fair, and multiracial democracy. The report draws from 64 interviews with a wide range of visionaries in various sectors of civil society and extensive secondary research on the value of positive visioning and the bright spots that exhibit what is possible. The Imagining Better Futures report argues that a “business as usual” mentality is simply inadequate to address the challenges facing our democracy today.
Through 2024, the Better Futures Project sought to strengthen the ecosystem of pro-democracy reformers and transformers through the intertwined work of network weaving; thought leadership; identification of positive visionaries, early adopters, and experimenters in the democracy sector; and the forging of tighter connections among democracy practitioners, donors, futurists, and foresight experts. We have also challenged donors to engage in thinking, grantmaking, and collaborating that make use of futures thinking and foresight techniques at this time of great uncertainty with our publication, Becoming Futures Ready: How Philanthropy Can Leverage Strategic Foresight For Democracy.
In 2025, the Democracy Innovation Project replaces the Better Futures Project, and will operate with a broader set of objectives:
Identifying and elevating promising democracy and governance experiments from across the country, as well as from outside the U.S., through our publications and programs;
Developing tools and resources related to democratic innovation and the future of democracy such as Exploring An Innovative Approach to Democratic Governance: A Funder’s Guide to Citizens’ Assemblies;
Supporting broader donor understanding of important experiments and ideas through a Democracy Innovation Series;
Leveraging donor interest in supporting democratic innovation in a collaborative way; and
Supporting storytelling and case making about democratic innovation and how it can improve people’s daily lives.
We continue to be available to advise DFN members on how to integrate futures thinking into their organizational culture, learning processes, and grantmaking. Please contact us at democracy@thirdplateau.com if you’d like to learn more.
Resources
Guides & Reports
Spring 2025 Democracy Funders Network and New America, Exploring An Innovative Approach to Democratic Governance
Fall 2024 Democracy Funders Network, Becoming Futures Ready: How Philanthropy Can Leverage Strategic Foresight For Democracy
May 2024 School of International Futures, The Promise of Future Design: Using intergenerational role play and negotiation to improve planning and decision making - and become better ancestors
November 2022 Democracy Funders Network, Imagining Better Futures for American Democracy
Articles
March 2025 The Fulcrum, Democracy Donors: Let's Make Lemonade Out Of Lemons
January 2025 The Fulcrum, Reasons For Hope in 2025
March 2024 The Fulcrum, Navigating uncertainty: Can philanthropy be the good ancestor we need?
February 2024 The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Futurism is Having a Moment in Post-Pandemic Foundation Strategy
July 2023 The Fulcrum, What if election campaigns inspired us to Dream Bigger?
April 2023 The Fulcrum, Reimagining American Democracy as Governance for the Future
January 2023, Einhorn Collaborative, A Call to Think Big and Bold about Our Future
December 2022 The Fulcrum, with Rachel Kleinfeld, Pro-democracy forces need to go on offense
December 2022 The Art of Association, We Need to Start Imagining Better Futures for American Democracy
Podcasts
June 2024 CityBiz Interviews, The Fulcrum Democracy Forum Meets Suzette Brooks Masters, Sr. Fellow, The Democracy Funders Network
July 2023 TFSX podcast, Creating Foresight-Fueled Action
January 2023 Niskanen Center podcast, The Future of American Democracy