Congratulations to the 2025 Advancing Democracy Innovation Fund Recipients

Published on September 2, 2025August 30, 2025 by Joy Mayer | Reading Time: 4 minutes

Since 2022, the Advancing Democracy fellowships have helped almost 60 newsrooms and hundreds of journalists move beyond surface-level, horse race political coverage and invest in journalism that equips communities with the information they want and need.

The program is offered in partnership with The Solutions Journalism Network, Hearken and Trusting News. It guides journalists toward coverage that builds trust, centers communities, and highlights where and how progress can be made. Research shows that the participating jouranlists significantly improved their coverage.

As part of the new 2025 offerings, our teams are excited to launch the Advancing Democracy Innovation Fund and are proud to announce the first 11 projects the fund will support. The grantees, listed below, will receive financial support and coaching to help them strengthen civic life and participation — and help solve community needs.  

Interested? You can sign up for alerts here to learn how to apply for the second round of grants, which will be awarded this fall. That’s also the best way to learn about the program’s free webinars and trainings.

Here are the first 11 grantees that are charting new paths forward.

Atlanta Civic Circle (Atlanta, GA)  is forming the “Kitchen Cabinet,” a resident-informed advisory panel for the 2025 city elections in Atlanta to put community priorities at the center of local coverage and policy making. Throughout the election cycle, the panelists will meet regularly with ACC reporters to discuss neighborhood concerns, share what they’re hearing from candidates, and foster deeper, issue-driven conversations with City Council and school board contenders. Guided by solutions journalism and engagement practices, the Kitchen Cabinet aims to bring residents into the newsroom, build a more engaged readership, and inspire more residents to take part in civic life.  

Canopy Atlanta (Atlanta, GA) will use AI to create previews of civic and public meetings, with the goal of increasing civic participation.  Given that many critical decisions impacting residents’ daily lives are made in public meetings with little to no public attendance, Canopy Atlanta hopes to utilize AI to create concise, compelling “preview summary blurbs” for civic meetings, which then will be covered by Atlanta Documenters. The project comes at a time when Atlanta has a number of significant races on the horizon, including for the Public Service Commission, the Atlanta City Council and for mayor.  

Dallas Free Press (Dallas, TX), with help from the Reynolds Journalism Institute, will identify key moments from public meetings to use in short, informative videos. The videos will be produced with the help of community members who are paid to participate in the publication’s Documenters program, and will help educate residents about local governance and civic participation.

Latino News Network (National) in partnership with Latino community leaders, will hold community conversations to meet, speak and listen to the public about the most common form of homelessness experienced in the Latino community, called “doubling up” homelessness in which people temporarily live with others. The project seeks to inform housing policy, especially the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s narrow definition of homelessness that currently does not account for those living doubled-up. 

Texas Standard (Texas) will produce a series of stories on literacy and adult education, based on the fact that one in four Texas adults reads at or below a first grade level — one of the highest percentages in the country. The work will build on what the publication created as part of SJN’s Building Democracy fellowship, and will include solutions-focused reporting and audience engagement activities.  

The Arizona Republic (Arizona)  seeks to demystify local governance in Arizona through accessible, informative storytelling. Its journalists plan to explain how decisions are made in city councils, the state legislature, and other local bodies, and how residents can participate. They’ll host an in-person event to foster dialogue and utilize The Republic’s “Oasis of Clarity” framework to bridge the disconnect between residents and local decision-making.

The Austin Common (Austin, TX) plans to prepare young Austinites for Austin’s first-ever tax-rate election in November 2025. Recognizing that this off-year election on a complex topic will likely see low turnout, especially among young, non-regular news readers, Austin Common will engage with them directly to empower informed voting. They’ll lead a community zine-making workshop about the election and then distribute those zines throughout the community, using art to make learning about the election engaging and fun.

The Haitian Times (National) will track progress on solutions Haitian community leaders are pursuing, such as mechanisms to expunge records containing erroneously issued driving infractions in Indiana, establishing a community microlending fund, and expanding efforts to promote accurate narratives about Haitians in U.S. media. The ultimate goal is to produce a Haitian Community Engagement Roadmap that empowers community organizations, nonprofits, academics, and small business owners to replicate events locally in pursuit of larger community goals.

The Seattle Times (Seattle, WA) will report a solutions journalism-style story on how to manage an overcrowded and understaffed wilderness area in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest known as the Enchantments. The newspaper’s outdoors reporter, whose recent reporting on the issue generated national attention, will travel to Aspen, Colorado to investigate how the White River National Forest, in collaboration with local government, successfully manages the Maroon Bells Scenic Area with a strict limit on private vehicle access and frequent, reliable shuttle buses. The Times will also explore outreach and dissemination strategies including podcasts and live events.

The Tucson Sentinel (Tucson, AZ) will create audience-guided election coverage by centering community questions and concerns about the many overlapping elections — federal and local — taking place in 2025 in Southern Arizona. The project will use reporting and public discussions with reporters to help keep the public informed so they can navigate the complex electoral landscape and stay informed about local governance. 

VNN Oklahoma (Tulsa, OK) will hold a listening-and-learning Session with Indigenous community members and local leaders in Tulsa this October. By connecting Tulsa’s Indigenous community members with local city and tribal leadership, they aim to increase community engagement and identify barriers to inclusive policy-making. This in-person event will help reimagine civic life for Indigenous communities and help the organization build stronger relationships in the community.

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