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In times of political turbulence, the impulse to focus solely on immediate challenges is understandable. Yet history reminds us that democracy has always been a long-term project — one that requires sustained investment, strategic patience, and unwavering vision.
Democracy as Ongoing Evolution
American democracy has always been an ambitious experiment, expanding incrementally through constitutional amendments, legislation, and cultural shifts. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, the removal of literacy tests for Native American voters in 1972, and ongoing debates about bilingual voting access all represent milestones in this journey — hard-won victories that required both fierce advocacy and continuous vigilance.
What makes this moment unique isn’t just recent political events, but the opportunity to envision something unprecedented: a multiracial, pluralistic democracy where people across all demographics can exercise political power and participate fully in governance. This vision stands in stark contrast to authoritarian systems and represents what Angela Glover Blackwell of PolicyLink calls “the next great U.S. innovation.”
Looking Beyond Election Cycles
I joined a team at The Bridgespan Group to explore how philanthropy can contribute to supporting a healthy democracy. While philanthropic funding for democracy has grown in recent years — including $2.7-$3.4 billion annually from institutional foundations in 2021-2022 — a focus on elections still dominates this portfolio creating inherent limitations. As Bridgit Antoinette Evans of Pop Culture Collaborative notes, “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 a deep and resilient democracy in the US is becoming more pronounced.”
This insight suggests a fundamental reframing is called for: rather than measuring success purely through voter turnout or electoral outcomes, philanthropists might instead consider how their investments contribute to the infrastructure needed for democratic participation year-round, and year after year.
Three Horizons for Democratic Philanthropy
For donors committed to this long-view approach, three strategic horizons emerge from our research:
1. Cultural Evolution: Reshaping Narratives and Identities
Perhaps the most fundamental work in building a multiracial democracy involves transforming how Americans understand themselves and each other. Organizations like the Pop Culture Collaborative fund storytellers and cultural strategists who expand conceptions of who belongs in the American story.
“Each of us moves through our lives immersed in what we call a ‘narrative ocean,’” explains Evans. “In the best of circumstances, that narrative ocean is helping us to be more powerful, connected, just, and joyful.” Supporting narrative change means investing in a diverse ecosystem of storytellers who can imagine and articulate an inclusive vision of American identity that resonates across divides.
2. Community Infrastructure: Building Democratic Muscle
Democracy requires practice. Organizations like Showing Up for Racial Justice create what Executive Director Erin Heaney calls “political homes for people that are the places where people make meaning, and have community, and find belonging over a much longer period of time.” These spaces allow diverse communities to identify shared challenges — like housing concerns in rural Tennessee — and develop collaborative solutions.
Similarly, New Pluralists invests in transforming everyday gathering places into sites for meaningful encounters across differences. These community-level investments build the democratic muscles needed for civic participation beyond election seasons.
3. Governance Capacity: Supporting Diverse Leadership
Getting diverse candidates elected represents only half the challenge. As Ludovic Blain of California Donor Table observes, “You cannot be putting people of color, women of color in powerful positions and then leaving them without support to handle everything from the death threats to the budget threats to the insubordination that happens.”
Organizations like Local Progress help local officials — many of whom work part-time while balancing other responsibilities — navigate institutions historically designed for others. Meanwhile, Sovereign Tribal nations demonstrate the transformative potential of self-governance, consistently outperforming external decision-makers when empowered to chart their own course.
From Crisis to Creation
While crisis often drives philanthropic response, building a resilient multiracial democracy requires something more: the ability to envision and invest in possibilities that don’t yet fully exist. This means supporting organizations committed to this work through economic and political cycles, recognizing that meaningful change unfolds across decades, not quarters.
The AAPI Civic Engagement Fund exemplifies this approach, combining demographic research with cultural competency to activate communities often overlooked in political outreach. Their multilingual voter helplines and targeted local initiatives reflect deep knowledge of specific communities — knowledge that can only develop through sustained engagement.
Similarly, Higher Heights for America PAC demonstrates both the achievements and challenges of building electoral power. Despite helping elect Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks and Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester — making them the first Black women to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Senate — CEO Glynda Carr notes that “Black women-led organizations are still not invested in at scale. We actually put more work into this democracy than we actually get back.”
The Patient Capital Democracy Needs
The fundamental question for democracy-minded donors isn’t “What will produce immediate victories?” but rather “What foundations are we laying for a democratic system that can flourish across generations?”
This perspective reframes democracy funding as patient capital — investments that may not yield immediate, measurable returns but establish essential infrastructure for future democratic flourishing. It suggests moving beyond the boom-and-bust cycle of election-year giving toward sustained support for organizations building democratic capacity year-round.
Donor Karen Grove of the Grove Foundation put it:
I would like for all people to be heard and seen, and have the opportunity to experience joy in life. And for that to happen, we need small ‘d’ democracy. We need to include all voices in discussions of the path forward and we need to give at least as much weight to voices in communities feeling the greatest impacts of today’s problems as we give to those with more protections and wealth. That’s why Grove invests in long term efforts to engage and empower under-represented communities.
By taking this longer view, philanthropy can help nurture what has never fully existed before: a democracy where all voices truly matter, where diverse communities find common cause, and where government at every level reflects and responds to the full tapestry of American identity. This isn’t merely idealism — it’s the practical, necessary work of democratic renewal for the decades ahead.
Farai Chideya is an author and journalist with extensive experience covering politics; and also a former grantmaker for the Ford Foundation. She was a 2024 Bridgespan Fellow and co-author of “Philanthropy for a Multiracial Democracy: How Investing In Pluralism Can Open the Aperture for Democracy Funders.”
Editor’s Note: CEP publishes a range of perspectives. The views expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily those of CEP.
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