With democracy under threat here and around the world, this election year poses the question: what are the requirements of a multi-racial democracy? What must be in place to ensure that our right to participate survives for all of our children? There are many elements, of course, and at the Democracy Frontlines Fund we support power building organizations that protect and enhance our right to vote, as well as groups that are creating community-led strategies to keep us all safe and designing solutions to the climate crisis.
DFF Slate Member Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, photo by Garrett Garms/Winston-Salem State University
11 Grantees.
74.5 Million Dollars.
Infinite Opportunities.
74.5 Million Dollars.
Infinite Opportunities.
We are listening to the will and self-determined priorities of Black communities, supporting them, and getting out of the way.
“What Will It Take? Requirements of a Multi-Racial Democracy” ‑ Inaugural DFF blog post by Crystal Hayling and Daniel Lau
‑ Inside Philanthropy
Read DFF’s Year Two Report highlighting powerful accomplishments of the DFF Slate, and stories of change from our Funders.
Julia
Beatty
Borealis Philanthropy
Julia Beatty (she/her), Director of the Black-Led Movement Fund at Borealis Philanthropy, brings an extensive background in community organizing, racial justice policy advocacy, donor organizing and social justice philanthropy. She formerly served as the Director of Programs for the Twenty-First Century Foundation—a 40-year old Black-led intermediary philanthropy that provided multi-year, general support to Black-led grassroots organizations. She has also worked with national policy organizations to build the organizational and leadership capacity necessary to create and sustain change led by communities of color. Julia is the former Director of Grants Development, Evaluation and Communication for the W. Haywood Burns Institute, a national training intermediary that aims to eliminate structural racism within juvenile justice systems. She also worked with the Center for Social Inclusion to deepen the structural racism analysis of policy advocates and assist them in crafting racially equitable policy strategies on infrastructure issues critical to communities of color.
Nicole
Boucher
Just Trust
Nicole Boucher (she/her) leads the strategy and operations of The Just Trust to fight for criminal justice reform. She has a ferocious belief in the power of organizing and movement building—seeing early on in her career that the most brilliant problem solvers were the organizers, coalition leaders, storytellers, and practitioners closest to the challenges. She is committed to strengthening movements by organizing resources amongst a broad constellation of philanthropic funding partners, supporting the development of movement leaders, and cultivating high-impact teams. As the former vice president of Way to Win, she worked on the larger landscape of partnerships to strengthen and create the infrastructure needed to advance transformative policy and build lasting power. Prior to Way to Win, she was the co-executive director of the California Donor Table. She has contributed to the growth and sustainability of a number of organizations focused on racial, social, and economic equity, including Rockwood Leadership Institute, Urban Habitat, and PolicyLink. She serves on the boards of Color of Change PAC and Tides Advocacy Fund.
Vini
Bhansali
Solidaire Network
Rajasvini (Vini) Bhansali (she/her) is the Executive Director of the Solidaire Network. In a wide-ranging international career devoted to social, ecological, and economic justice, she led Thousand Currents for nine years where she was credited with helping launch a collaborative climate justice fund and an innovative impact investment fund and grow the organization’s grantmaking and partnership practices with social movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She has led a national youth development social enterprise; managed a public telecom infrastructure fund addressing digital divide issues in Texas; and worked as a researcher, planner, policy analyst and strategy consultant. Vini also worked as a capacity builder for youth polytechnics in Kenya—motivating her work to transform U.S. philanthropy. Born and raised in India, Vini earned an MPA with a focus on technology and telecommunications policy at the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Astrophysics and Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities; Social Sciences from UC Berkeley.
Vanessa
Daniel
(formerly) Groundswell Fund
Vanessa Daniel (she/her) is the founder and former Executive Director of Groundswell Fund, the largest funder of the U.S. reproductive justice movement and of Groundswell Action Fund, the largest fund in the country centering giving to women of color-led 501c4 organizations. Under her leadership, Groundswell has moved more than $50 million to the field, focused on grassroots organizing led by women of color, low income women, and transgender people. Prior to Groundswell, she supported LGBT rights and economic and environmental justice grantmaking at Tides Foundation; organized homecare workers with SEIU; helped win a landmark living wage law with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy; and helped support the organizing efforts of welfare mothers with the Applied Research Center (now Race Forward). Vanessa serves on the Board of Common Counsel Foundation. She has a B.A. in American Ethnic Studies from Smith College and is a graduate of the Center for Third World Organizing’s Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program.
alicia
sanchez gill
Emergent Fund
alicia sanchez gill (her/ella) is the Director of Emergent Fund, managing all of the operations of this Black, Indigenous and people of color-led rapid-response fund. Emergent Fund was established in 2016 to help move resources to communities under attack by federal policies and priorities. Prior to this role, alicia was the Interim Executive Director of Collection Action for Safe Spaces, a Black trans and queer grassroots organization that uses survivor-centered, anti-carceral solutions to eliminate public gendered harassment and assault in Washington, DC. alicia believes another world is possible—and trusts the leadership of the people most affected by harmful policies to bring this world to bear. alicia is deeply connected to local and national movement spaces, having organized with Black Mama’s Bailout, INCITE!, YWCA USA, DecrimNow DC! and the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. She knows we can organize ourselves into freedom and is thrilled to help ensure that those on the frontlines have the support they need to build power and transform our world and ourselves in the process.
Ashindi
Maxton
(formerly) Donors of Color Network
Ashindi Maxton (she/her) is a Co-Founder and former Executive Director of the Donors of Color Network (DOCN). Prior to DOCN, she served as an independent strategist and donor advisor in democracy reform and social and racial justice. She has developed funding strategies informing more than $100M in investments from foundations and individuals including the Democracy Alliance, the Ford Foundation, and the Women Donors Network. Other past roles include National Policy Director of the NAACP and National Director of Political Partnerships for SEIU. She also was the principal of an arts charter school and a bilingual Spanish teacher. She serves on the boards of Way to Win and Voqal USA. Ashindi has been recognized as “Donor Organizers of the Year” by Inside Philanthropy. She was also listed three times on the Young and the Guest List among “forty-and-under geniuses, visionaries, crusaders and innovators shaping Washington’s future” by Washington Magazine, and by “NAACP Power 40” list. A Fulbright Scholar, Ashindi holds an MPP from UC Berkeley, and a BA in Africana Studies from Vassar.
Teresa C.
Younger
Ms. Foundation
Teresa C. Younger (she/her) is an activist, advocate, renowned public-speaker, organizational strategist, and a proven leader in the philanthropic and policy sectors. Having spent over 20 years on the frontlines of some of the most critical battles for comprehensive equity and the elimination of institutionalized oppression, she now serves as the President and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women. Prior to Ms. Foundation she led the Connecticut General Assembly’s Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, and the ACLU of Connecticut. Teresa is a thought leader at the critical intersections of gender and race, serving initiatives such as Grantmakers for Girls of Color, Funders for Reproductive Equity, Philanthropy New York, and Black Funders for Social Justice. Teresa also serves on a number of boards including the Ethel Walker School and Essie Justice Group. Teresa is a graduate of the University of North Dakota and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in Humanities from the University of New Haven in 2018.
Tynesha
McHarris
DFF Curriculum & Facilitation Director
Tynesha is the Principal of Black Harvest, a Black Feminist advisory firm working with movement leaders and philanthropy. She brings over fifteen years of experience advocating for racial, gender and youth justice in social movements, organizations, and philanthropic institutions. Tynesha has worked to mobilize resources to feminist movements and racial justice ecosystems. This includes the Movement for Black Lives, Grantmakers for Girls of Color, and the Black Feminist Fund. She has also led organizations supporting survivors of gender-based violence, and young people impacted by incarceration. Inside foundations, she has worked with the NoVo Foundation, the Brooklyn Community Foundation, Newark Trust for Education and has designed portfolios of more than 150-million-dollars in investments. She is also on the advisory board of Funders for Justice, Just Beginnings Collaborative, and Grantmakers for Girls of Color.
Daniel
Lau
DFF Initiative Officer
Crystal
Hayling
DFF Founder; Former Executive Director, The Libra Foundation
With democracy under threat here and around the world, this election year poses the question: what are the requirements of a multi-racial democracy? What must be in place to ensure that our right to participate survives for all of our children? There are many elements, of course, and at the Democracy Frontlines Fund we support power building organizations that protect and enhance our right to vote, as well as groups that are creating community-led strategies to keep us all safe and designing solutions to the climate crisis.
To have a functioning democracy, we need to ensure that people, and in particular Black people who are closest to injustice, are safe and thriving. With this pivotal election year, our DFF blog series will focus on our civic engagement pillar and three aspects within: vibrant and well-resourced community organizing, free and fair access to voting, and addressing disinformation.
We’ll start with organizing in this inaugural blog, because that is where the hard, often unsung work of democracy begins. We can’t fully exercise our democratic rights unless groups in our communities have first laid the groundwork by tilling and sowing the ground – that’s like trying to grow a garden without any soil. True organizers don’t just show up and try to harvest votes in an election year – they are at their work in the winter, in the fallow times, and as we write this they are seeding this fall’s successes in the spring.
Organizing is the diametric opposite of despair —the belief that no one cares and nothing can be done about the threats to our democracy. Organizing at its best can stoke our precious sense of hope, and help us imagine coming back together as vibrant, whole and well – while steering us from this fragile moment to that destination. This is because organizing leaves people feeling connected to their neighbors, part of a network in their community. It can also help overcome toxic divisiveness.
People’s Action gets this, and that’s why their “Organizing Revival” takes us beyond transactional spurts of organizing that fall conveniently in election years. Their goal is a much more longterm “strategic alignment and shared movement infrastructure that will help independent as well as networked organizations build and wield power more effectively across issues, geographies, and constituencies.” They’re bringing poor and working people back into a process from which they’ve too often been sidelined or excluded.
Our grantee partners in the Democracy Frontlines Fund know better than most that organizing is a long-term investment that builds deeper relationships over time. No one understands the deep and lasting role of organizing better than Black Voters Matter, working to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. “This isn’t about one election, this isn’t about one person winning or one party being in power,” LaTosha Brown reminds us. “I have the audacity to believe that there are far, far more of us that want an inclusive, representative democracy than those who seek to undermine and destroy it.” Amen.
In preparation for this year’s consequential election, Black Futures Lab is leading a five-state electoral organizing strategy to engage Black voters through deep canvassing, relationship-building, and voter education. Alicia Garza shares, “Every election cycle, there’s a lot of hand-wringing about whether or not Black voters are going to show up. We know that our communities show up when we invest consistently and with curiosity – when we listen to, rather than talk at our folks.” Black voters have made a significant difference in every election, and this cycle will be no different.
There are so many more amazing folks out organizing our frontline communities, too many to mention by name here, and their compelling work at the grassroots desperately needs resources. So it’s shameful to see many funders scale back their racial justice work in this critical moment. This is a time for funders to follow the bold lead of DFF and move their money to organizing – now. After completing our first round of multi-year investments of $39 million in Black power building from 2020-2023, our funder community came back to the table with starting commitments of $35.5 million through 2026. In election years, organizers need the money early to engage and inform their communities.
We are proud to sign on to the All By April campaign, joining nearly 200 pro-democracy funders and donors in accelerating our 2024 giving to frontline civic engagement partners. We thank our funder community who, through our swift and collective efforts, make possible the accelerated awards of $11.5 million to our 11 grantee partners building power in Black communities across the nation six months ahead of our normal grantmaking timeline. We must have the vision and the bias to action to get the resources to the grassroots. As we’ll discuss in future blogs, this is not the sole requirement of our democracy. But organizing is the beginning, the core element that makes it all possible.
