Building a robust, high functioning pluralist democracy in the U.S. capable of ushering in better futures for Americans requires us to think boldly and move away from reaction, apathy, and surrender. The extraordinary times we live in, full of rapid change, uncertainty and possibility, call upon us to identify and lift up positive disruptors who dare to dream and imagine what could be.

DFN’s report Imagining Better Futures for American Democracy is a call to action to imagine what our democracy could become. Informed by dozens of interviews with visionary thinkers and doers from a variety of fields and viewpoints, including futurists, activists, thought leaders, creatives, artists, religious leaders, and funders, the report shares their insights on why positive visioning matters, discusses how those visions of better futures relate to democracy and governance systems, and asks how we can inspire more Americans to dream bigger and develop a sense of agency to bring those ideas to fruition.

Read the full report here>

Below are the report’s key findings and recommendations:

Findings:

• Enthusiastic and emphatic agreement that positive visions of the future matter tremendously because they help us to imagine better alternatives, motivate us, and guide us to achieving positive societal outcomes. They also reinforce the idea that we have agency to shape our individual and collective futures and those of our descendants.

• Several points of disconnection – 

  • Few interviewees saw governance as critical to achieving the better futures they articulated, or had thought about how to improve and reimagine democracy.  

  • The future-oriented community seldom connects with the democracy community.

  • America lags in experimenting with new forms of future-oriented governance models and thinking.

  • The people we interviewed are also disconnected from each other, although there are some hubs and communities of practice that provide connective tissue that some interviewees are a part of.

• Many obstacles (e.g., complex problems from the local to the planetary, conflict-driven media and political environments, dystopian narratives, racism and othering) currently stand in the way of positive visions of the future emerging at scale.

• Positive stories about the future and narratives of mutuality and abundance exist but are barely breaking through in mass culture.

Recommendations:

While we have a strong foundation on which to build – great ideas, visionary leaders, real-world experiments, powerful stories about better futures, and media campaigns – we need more infrastructure and connective tissue to gain traction and impact.  Accordingly, we recommend three types of strategies:

Strengthen the positive visioning ecosystem by investing in infrastructure and relationships 

There are numerous ways to build and support an emerging ecosystem and to create connections between those broadly engaged in positive visioning and those working specifically on democracy issues. We recommend more networking, collaboration, and mapping, more productive chances to convene donors and working groups around the future of democracy, and greater use of futures thinking tools to change mindsets.

Model what’s possible and fund experimentation

We want to explore how to adapt governance innovations from outside the U.S. that incorporate a futures orientation, a longer planning horizon, and an intergenerational fairness lens. We also see promise in funding innovative efforts to strengthen and invigorate democracy in the U.S., especially at the state and local level, by using technology, engaging youth, creatives, game designers, and speculative fiction writers, and tapping into collective imagination exercises.

Strengthen narrative systems & amplify positive, futures-oriented content 

We need strategies that elevate and sustain narratives of abundance, interdependence, and mutuality and that amplify current bright spots for greater impact. Content also matters. We need more of it that’s positive, inspiring, and hopeful about what we can build together. That means influencing which stories are told, by whom, and how.

Read the full report here>

The Constitution Drafting Project brings together three teams of leading constitutional scholars—team libertarian, team progressive, and team conservative—to draft and present their ideal constitutions. Team libertarian was led by Ilya Shapiro, then of the Cato Institute, and included Timothy Sandefur of the Goldwater Institute and Christina Mulligan of Brooklyn Law School. Team progressive was led by Caroline Fredrickson of Georgetown Law School and included Jamal Greene of Columbia Law School and Melissa Murray of New York University School of Law. Team conservative was led by Ilan Wurman of Arizona State University College of Law and included Robert P. George of Princeton University, Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School, and Colleen A. Sheehan of Arizona State University.

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With U.S. democracy in crisis, guest contributors Mike Berkowitz and Rachel Kleinfeld argue that philanthropy cannot stick to its usual playbook. They outline five ways funders can improve how they approach this work.

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In this moment of crisis, donors must use all the tools available to protect American democracy. Tax-deductible philanthropy alone is insufficient.

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In case you missed DFN’s The Role of Faith Communities in Preserving Democracy program, PACE provided a summary of the webinar.

In this meeting, DFN explored key questions around the role faith communities can play in preserving American democracy: What can faith communities contribute to a pro-democracy movement? How can faith leaders and communities be mobilized to act in defense of democracy and resist embracing extremist and anti-democratic viewpoints? What are the potential benefits of faith engagement in the pro-democracy movement, and what do we risk by failing to engage religious communities?

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More in Common’s newest survey, Parties and Politics, focused on Americans’ attitudes towards the 2022 midterm elections and their feelings about how to best influence politics. It was developed in collaboration with the national NBC broadcast & streaming network, LX News, as well as our polling partner YouGov.

The top findings are :

1. Americans across party, race, and generations overwhelming see voting as the most effective way to influence politics. However, Gen Z Americans are much more likely than other generations to also see protesting as an effective way to influence politics.

2. Democrats and Republicans are much more likely to want more moderate candidates in the other party than in their own party. In contrast, Independents want more moderate candidates in both parties. Republicans and Democrats who want more moderate candidates in their own party were less ideologically extreme and more likely to say they belonged to their party because of their family or friends, as opposed to how their party aligned with their values.

3. Registered voters are ten times more likely to say they will vote in the 2022 general election compared to Americans who are not registered to vote.

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As cases of political violence rise in America, PACE reviews five strategies for funders interested in preventing political violence to implement.

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There is no shortage of headlines about the grim state of our democracy. Many forces are to blame: leaders who flout democratic norms and spout “us vs. them” rhetoric, a political system that fuels polarization, growing threats of political violence and election interference, and the divisive and distorting effects of social media. The list goes on. Another factor, frequently left out of the picture, is loneliness – often defined as the discrepancy between one’s desired and actual levels of social connection.

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We see every day how local news strengthens democracy. People rely on local news to figure out who to vote for, how to speak up at school board meetings, how to run for local office, where to find vaccines, when to organize for change, and more. From daily reporting that equips people to act, to huge investigations that reveal corruption, the health of local news is bound up with the health of our democracy.

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Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld, Senior Advisor to DFN and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, authored a U.S. Democracy Funding Strategy report laying out a comprehensive strategic approach to the set of challenges facing our democracy and what we might do at scale to solve them. She lays both long-term and short-term critical strategies and offers pictures of 3 possible futures we might achieve through them.

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This guide was produced hoping to orient funders to the different ways civil society actors are thinking about and addressing the problems of affective polarization and eroding social trust. We broadly outline some of the major theories of change for advancing social cohesion, explore ways funders can support these strategies, and conclude with a set of open questions with which the field still needs to grapple.

Our hope is that funders — whether brand new to this set of strategies or already investing in them — will come away with clearer understanding of this rapidly proliferating space. We also hope funders will see the research and theory undergirding many of these initiatives and recognize this work for what it is: a serious and vital project for sustaining and restoring the health of American democracy. 

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On September 16, 2019, the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance (DCG) program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University convened fifty scholars, practitioners, funders, and elected and government officials to discuss political violence in America in the context of what we know about political violence abroad. Participants were chosen for their capacity to increase understanding of and/or influence the prevention of potential violence. We sought to include a broad range of perspectives on the problem and means of addressing it. Participants were not expected to agree. In fact, some may have seen others in the room as a potential problem. Coming from the field of international conflict, where armed groups previously at war must come together to negotiate peace, the organizers accept that it requires engaging divergent perspectives for a country to make progress on reducing political violence. To solve our problems, we must begin by acknowledging that all of our identities. are complex and that we must work together to achieve durable solutions to preserve our democracy and deliver more equal rights and freedoms.

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Several social trends in the United States suggest an increasing risk for political violence. Little is known about support for and personal willingness to engage in political violence and how those measures vary with lethality of violence, specific circumstances, or specific populations as targets.

In this cross-sectional, nationwide survey, participants were asked various questions which revealed insight into different beliefs about American democracy and society and the use of violence, including political violence, and extrapolations to the US adult population.

Political violence poses a growing threat to democracy, from high-profile events like the January 6 attack on the US Capitol to local threats of violence to election workers and school boards. 

In response to this growing concern, The Joyce Foundation, Trusted Elections Fund, and The Klarman Family Foundation initiated a new public opinion research project at the end of 2021 to better understand public attitudes towards political violence and ways to address it. 

This research project sought to:

• Better understand the public’s view of​ political violence and armed political extremism;

• If and how threats of political violence may impact the public’s likelihood to participate in (or avoid) civic activity;

• Gauge the public’s support for targeted policy reforms; and

• Provide guidance on effective messages and messengers on how to talk about these potential threats in a way that doesn’t scare people from voting or participating in other civic activities. 

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Philanthropy is increasingly called upon to do more to fight deepening polarization in the United States, shore up the nation’s backsliding democracy, and bring people together across ideological and political divides. But to be effective in that role, grant makers need to acknowledge their own part in perpetuating the toxic polarization they seek to address.

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America’s elections face three existential threats in the coming years: An exodus of election officials, the potential of election manipulation, and inadequate funding of our critical election infrastructure. Congress and the states can help reduce these threats if they act now.

In the wake of a massive and coordinated disinformation effort during the 2020 elections, election officials and election workers — who do the behind-the-scenes work of running our elections and ensuring their safety and accuracy — have faced threats of violence and harassment, which has led to an exodus of good people from these positions.

At the same time, we’re seeing a wave of anti-democracy, conspiracy-minded candidates running for positions as election officials, and statehouses across the country are considering or passing bills that would place election administration under greater partisan control for their own political gain.

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States United Action released updated data for its Replacing the Refs tool, which tracks the trend of candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election (Election Deniers) running for the key statewide offices that run, oversee, and protect our elections—governor, secretary of state, and attorney general—in 2022. The April update indicates that there are now nine states with Election Deniers running for all three top statewide positions.

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Under our Bridging Differences initiative, we have reviewed decades of scientific studies, interviewed dozens of leaders, and surveyed the landscape of relevant programs. From this work we have collected enduring wisdom and best practices for bridging political, racial, religious, or other divides. It has led us to identify a set of skills and strategies that support positive dialogue, relationships, and understanding between groups or individuals.

The Playbook synthesizes these core skills and strategies. For each of the 14 skills that we identify, we first briefly explain the main steps involved in how to practice it. Then we explain why and when this skill is useful and offer caveats to keep in mind when you try it out. Finally, we cite research that supports this skill and organizations that use it in their work, along with other resources where you can learn more about it.

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Among national institutions —government, media, and business— More in Common tested in December 2020, none earned the trust of a majority of Americans. Levels of interpersonal trust were similarly concerning, with a majority of Americans saying you “can’t be too careful in dealing with other people” and one in three Americans saying there is no community outside of friends and family where they feel a strong sense of belonging.

These topline findings paint a stark picture. If we probe deeper, however, we discern important distinctions in the probable drivers of distrust. Under- standing these nuances does not make the overall picture brighter, but itcan illuminate potential solutions and pathways to renew trust. Two distinctive “stories” of distrust are evident in the data—an ideological ‘us versus them’ distrust and a ‘social distrust’ that tracks interactions and feelings of belonging, dignity, and equality. These two stories are not fully comprehensive of the myriad drivers of distrust in America, but they capture distinctive ways distrust relates to ideology and experience.

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PACE’s Civic Language Perceptions Project seeks to understand peoples’ perceptions of the language associated with civic engagement and democracy work.

PACE seeks to advance liberal democracy’s ideals and our vision is one in which all Americans are informed and empowered to contribute to civic life. To do so, we need to understand what perceptions and associations exist related to “civic and democracy work,” and how these terms and concepts resonate (or don’t), so that we can work more inclusively, effectively, and constructively. 

That’s why PACE conducted an updated, nationally representative survey of 5,000 Americans as step 1 into a larger process of inquiry and discovery. The exploration of this data– and what it means for our collective work– is only just beginning. And we can’t (and shouldn’t) do it alone. PACE invite others who are working to advance the principles, values, and norms of liberal democracy to see the data as theirs to explore, to probe, to ask questions, to make meaning, and ultimately, to improve our shared efforts of increasing civic engagement and strengthening democracy.

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