Reflective Democracy Campaign
Building a Democracy Worthy of the Name
In 2021, the Reflective Democracy Campaign expanded its groundbreaking research on the demographics of political power and awarded nearly $1 million in grants, investing in strategies to build a truly democratic future.
System Failure
The Campaign analyzed the 2020 primary elections and found a pattern of systemic gridlock fortifying white male minority rule. At just 30 percent of the population, white men exercise minority rule over 42 state legislatures, the House, the Senate, and statewide offices across the country. Two systemic factors sustain this: the advantages incumbent officeholders have in elections and the massive demographic divide between Democratic and Republican candidates.
#advanceAAPIpower: Asian American Pacific Islander Political Leadership
Amid growing anti-Asian threats and violence but also growing Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) political mobilization, the Campaign conducted a first-of-its kind analysis finding extreme under-representation of AAPI people in elected office. Yet the Campaign research showed that AAPI elected officials are highly electable, and their impact is greater than their small numbers might suggest.
Mapping Black Representation During a Turbulent Era
Our political system was crafted to preserve white men’s political power, and structural barriers could easily demoralize movements for racial justice and gender parity. Yet the Campaign research found Black representation on the rise at every level, with Black women specifically gaining federal, state, and local positions at double-digit rates of increase.
Grantmaking for a Truly Democratic Future
The Reflective Democracy Campaign’s $950,000 in grants expanded the work they incubated in past years and invested in developing important new areas in the fight for democracy. The Campaign invested $700,000 to strengthen and expand its Community Power Building model to position grassroots organizing groups as pathways to political power, replacing major donors and party officials as the power brokers who decide who’s on our ballots. Grants to Texas Organizing Project, TakeAction Minnesota, Michigan United, Ayada Leads, Local Progress, and People’s Action supported the deepening and expansion of this strategy. The Campaign also made grants to the Social and Economic Justice Leaders Project and The Institute to End Mass Incarceration to develop new work at the forefront of democracy-building.
Click here to read more about the Reflective Democracy Campaign’s work.
Founded by the Women Donors Network in 2014, the Reflective Democracy Campaign is at the forefront of a growing movement for a democracy where all of us are reflected in the halls of power.