Our History

2015
Creation and Planning

The Bridge Alliance emerged from a meeting in Boulder, Colorado in February of 2015 of leaders of what was then called the Transpartisan movement. The meeting was the brainchild of Mark Gerzon and John Steiner of Mediators Foundation, who are two pioneers in the movement created to bring Americans together to find better ways to bridge the divides that separate us and to solve the serious problems facing our nation.

The invitation to that meeting stated that the following:

The meeting is about defining the actual vision and mapping out steps for implementation. We will design an agenda that allows us to emerge from the meeting with a much clearer idea of the actual who, what, when, where and how of the National Convening that we envision.

At that time, we had a vision of a National Convening for the summer of 2016; a convening to shine the spotlight on the many organizations and millions of Americans who shared our vision, and who are already each in their own way were working to bring about a new paradigm in governance for our great Country. While it’s taken longer to realize, the vision of the convening and the discussions in that room was the start of the Bridge Alliance.

The vision of the Bridge Alliance that emerged at the meeting was that of an umbrella group to harness the collective energy of the many social entrepreneurs working across the country for healthy self-governance.

The Stanford Social Innovation Review study, titled “Channeling Change - Making Collective Impact Work,” was discussed at length and became a significant component of the Bridge Alliance theory of change.

“The complex nature of most social problems belies the idea that any single program or organization, however well managed and funded, can single-handedly create lasting large-scale change.“

We all realized that it was essential that we come together as a movement and believed that it would not happen organically.
We understood that the process needs nurturing and we designed our first strategic plan to create backbone infrastructure to bind us together.
The vision of what the Bridge Alliance was created with consideration of the five conditions of the Collective Impact theory and remain an important part of our strategy today:

Bridge Alliance Members made a commitment to the following Five Principles:

2016
Building Infrastructure & Member Services

Membership Growth

From 25 to 50 organizational members

Member Education through Peer and Consultant Learning Sessions - through 2020

Approximately once per month, the Bridge Alliance Education Fund hosted one Peer Learning Session and one Consultant Learning Session via Zoom video conference. These sessions provided interactive, informational lessons to Bridge Alliance members to help them succeed in their missions.

Weekly Updates Spreading the Word - ongoing

The Weekly Update continues to provide members and supporters alike with the latest in the democracy movement and continues to bring increased attention to our members events. You can subscribe to receive the Weekly Update via email, or check out past newsletters on the site.

Updraft America - one time event

Partnered with Suzanne Firstenberg and her art exhibit. The event was MC’d by Cokie Roberts

Social Media Campaign Experimentation - various in 2016 only

• The Waking Democracy (ala The Walking Dead)
• Your Story Matters (following the 2016 election)
• The Lab - Social Media Network
• Millennial Outreach
• Days of Gratitude
• American Love Story

2018
Helping the Field See Itself

Membership Growth

From 70 to 90 organizational members



Listen First-Charlottesville - Event sponsorship

Bridge Alliance sponsored and provided staff support for Listen First in Charlottesville to kick off the National Week of Conversation. This event promoted healing in the Charlottesville community and brought together a number of prominent speakers from both sides of the political divide for a full day of conversation.

The events were followed by an in-depth conversation between former RNC and DNC Chairs Michael Steele and Donna Brazille, hosted by Common Ground Committee.

Collaborative marketing campaigns

In 2018, Bridge Alliance sponsored three collaborative social marketing campaigns, highlighting the work on 18 members. Each of the three campaigns correlated to one Bridge Alliance “sector” of work. The three sectors of work within the Bridge Alliance stood at:

1. Campaigns and elections reform
2. Civic engagement; and
3. Governance and policy making

We collected about 13K email addresses over the three campaigns. Each of the members who participated received an email list for those who signed up. This early foray into collaborative communications laid the foundation for future, more successful efforts. 

National Convening #2 - Democracy as a Field of Work - We Need a Fractal Framework!

Convened in Washington DC, the second Summit convened around the discussion of “the field” and featured nine presenters who could see beyond the work of individual organizations. As the day progressed, members and guests were invited to see their work as an important aspect of the overall “field.” The Democracy Field Overview was the document created post-Summit to best describe our industry of work. This summit was also our first awareness of our self-selection process and who was “missing” from our work.

The outline of current work for the democracy field was an extensive portion of the known work in the democracy field, growing out of the national summit held in October 2018. The distillation was offered for examination and discussion amongst interested participants in the cross-partisan movement. It was a useful tool in helping the democracy field “learn about” complementary work that contributes to their own efforts, thereby further connecting the movement. Read the 2018 Democracy Field Overview here. 

2019
Diversity and Inclusion

Membership Growth

From 90 to 97 organizational members

The Fulcrum

Bridge Alliance Education Fund made a significant investment in The Fulcrum as a digital news publication about the democracy movement. We believed that providing media attention highlighting the work and accomplishments of our members is critical for the movement as a whole and to our members as well. In 2021, we acquired The Fulcrum and began to operate it independently.

Sector Convenings

Bridge Alliance members consistently express their need and desire for focused, strategic convenings (conferences and working sessions). The convenings are focused, with specific outcomes and goals, featuring deliberately diverse participants and presenters. At these sector meetings, Bridge Alliance facilitates a four hour session to ask and brainstorm on sector-level questions. As each of our members are experts in their own right, we provide experiential opportunities to share ideas, deepen relationships and develop collaborative work in complementary ways. 

March 2019 

Campaigns and Elections Sector members and guests met to think together about the “hot issues” of electoral reform and how the addition of relational skills building would impact the issues of the day. We brainstormed about the need for a “brand” that would attract mainstream attention. We talked about the need for electoral reform to connect with other divisive issues, to support the solutions people are working towards. Much of the work started this day has continued through the work of NANR, Unite America and Represent.US. 

June 2019

Civic Engagement Sector members met to discuss the challenges of “metrics” and providing accountability to funders for the effectiveness of relational skills building. Bridge Alliance had been in several funder meetings in early 2019 where this topic of accountability was recognized as less effective, and sometimes harmful, to the overall mission or purpose of the work. The resulting memo to funders was never approved by the group, but remains a touchstone for Bridge Alliance thinking. In a break-out session during the hosting conference, Bridge Alliance hosted a role-playing exercise that is applicable to and has influenced people working on racial justice issues in 2020.

National Convening #3 - Hamilton Meets Back to the Future

Inspired by Hamilton, the 2019 Annual Bridge Alliance Summit opened with live performers singing “My Shot” and “In The Room Where It Happened.” The day was spent imagining our success in 2039 and creating the narrative of our success from 2019 to 2039. 

Diversity and Opportunity Task Force

When Bridge Alliance started the Diversity and Opportunity Project, we knew it was vital to speak to and include community organizers in the conversation about how to conduct such an initiative. Thus, we recruited 11 grassroots organizers and formed the D&O Task Force -- a group of diverse democracy reform leaders made to create an outline for Bridge Alliance's goals of an equitable and representative movement and country. The task force convened on three occasions and led to several Bridge Alliance equity initiatives. 

Internship Program 

Offering young men and women the opportunity to learn more about the healthy self-governance field and contribute to the operations of the Bridge Alliance. Each intern has made a substantive contribution to the organization, and several have been hired on as staff.

2020
Member Support and Inclusive Community

Crisis Guide

Three months into 2020, the world was put on pause by the COVID-19 pandemic followed by a series of social justice movements that continue to reshape our society. In response to these circumstances, Bridge Alliance put together a collection of articles, videos, podcasts, petitions, and online events all related to surviving during the current crisis. The Bridge Alliance Education Fund Crisis Recovery Guide is a mass hub of resources open to the general public all provided by our member organizations. The Crisis Recovery Guide can be found here. 

The Daily Resource 

This e-newsletter replaced the Weekly Update to ensure that supporters had timely access to urgent resources during the COVID-19 pandemic and for the above mentioned crises thereafter. The resources featured in the Daily Resource are added to the Recovery Guide soon after publication.

Grants & Foundations Spreadsheet 

As a hub of support for democracy reform non profit organizations, we understand first hand the importance of fundraising. As an effort to provide assistance in this area, we created the Bridge Alliance Grants and Foundations Page, a spreadsheet consisting of grants, foundations and organizations that fund and work with organizations like our members. The goal of this sheet is to be a one stop shop for funding recommendations for our members, and it is still maintained, though it is no longer regularly updated.

Leadership in Crisis Calls

When Covid-19 shut the country down, Bridge Alliance recognized that the pause came with many struggles. Even as we experienced the struggle ourselves, we made it a priority to remain connected to the leaders within our network to share experiences, resources and check in personally. The Bridge Alliance Leadership in Crisis Calls commenced on March 20, 2020 and ended May 8, 2020.

Diversity and Opportunity Programs

The Diversity and Opportunity Project started from the premise that the democracy field is currently represented by mostly white, older and progressive-leaning people. Since our democratic republic is premised on equity, the democracy field should be genuinely representative of the nation. Those underrepresented in the democracy field are people of color, conservative thinkers, youth, and those from rural America. The objective of the Bridge Alliance Diversity and Opportunity Project is to organically begin making the democracy field diverse and representative of the country with regard to race/ethnicity, ideology, geographic origin and age. We began by exploring what needs exist at the individual, community, and organizational levels, and began to create initiatives that fulfill those needs. 

The Justice, Diversity, Equity Fund

After our 2018 member summit, we realized that in order for our spaces to become more diverse, we must actively seek diversity and make it the operating system for our work instead of a goal amongst others. For our 2019 summit, we worked toward this by creating the Justice, Diversity, Equity Fund, made to sponsor grassroots and community leaders to come to the summit and share their work with leaders in our network. We saw a significant change in the number of diverse faces in our space, which had a major impact on the conversations that day. Bridge Alliance has pledged to make diversity a part of its operations and will continue to advance this fund for further collaboration with the grassroots movement. 

Mastermind Cohorts

In the midst of the 2020 social climate, Bridge Alliance recognized the many social and spiritual leaders who are working to improve conditions within their communities, often with limited resources and means. Bridge Alliance actively sought out committed engagement of leaders amongst peers to elevate their work and professional development and to strengthen their relationships. Mastermind was developed; a cohort-based program providing an opportunity to develop social and spiritual entrepreneurs. The program's aim was to improve effectiveness for leaders and organizations; adding to sustainability and scaling through a mutual-aid strategy of cooperative learning and peer coaching. Bridge Alliance has hosted multiple Mastermind cohorts, and is proud to maintain a network of over 60 cohort graduates.

Diversity Report

Everyone we have spoken to over time has generally agreed the democracy/cross-partisan/healthy self-governance field is lacking in diversity. However, the evidence was largely anecdotal. It seemed self-evident that the lack of diversity we observed with Bridge Alliance members and allied organizations was much more complex than just the lack of racial and ethnic diversity, and included ideological, geographic origin, age, and other backgrounds. 

Bridge Alliance needed to confirm these observations with specific data that we could then share with our allies, thus we created the BAEF Diversity Report. The results of this report confirmed that the healthy self-governance movement -- as represented by Bridge Alliance members -- is led primarily by white people who lean progressive, and are over 45 years old. The purpose of this survey was to serve as a baseline for current and future diversity efforts within the emerging field around democratic values and civil society. This initial report measured the organizations’ board members and executive leaders (defined as CEOs, directors, etc.) across four areas of diversity: 1) race/ethnicity 2) ideology 3) hometown geography and 4) age. It should be noted that staff members are more visibly diverse — in race/ethnicity and age — than leadership. 

Over the course of more than three months, the BAEF team surveyed nearly 1,300 leaders of Bridge Alliance members, including both staff executives and board members. For each one of these individuals, the BAEF team researched their race/ethnicity, age, hometown, and ideology -- using a variety of publicly accessible databases. Surveys were sent out to confirm and augment the digital research.

2021
Expansion and Preparing to Scale

Field Building Organizations

2021 saw an increase in collaboration amongst Bridge Alliance members and their networks. 

• The National Week of Conversation event led by the Listen First Coalition expanded the event to include America Talks, reaching over 90 million people in 2021. It was supported by a collective group of Bridge Alliance members who continue to organize to normalize “bridging behaviors” into society. 
• As a founding member of the National Association of Nonpartisan Reformers (NANR), Bridge Alliance sits on their executive advisory committee to provide connections to the civic engagement community and others as needed. NANR itself provides coordination and support for state by state efforts on electoral reforms such as changing the primary voting systems, voting options beyond “first past the post”, and redistricting. 
• Bridge Alliance also supports other field building organizations, offering overviews about the democracy ecosystem itself, making introductions as appropriate.

Launch of Citizen Connect

Members of Bridge Alliance had been asking for a “portal” as a tool to assist marketing efforts, making it easier for everyday Americans to connect to our Healthy Self-Governance movement. In 2021, this portal was launched as Citizen Connect and has become the go-to database for our movement. Featuring over 500 organizations, their events and on-demand content, we offer the public a way to get connected with 1-2 clicks. 

Media Consulting/Assistance for Our Members

In late 2020, we hired Nevins & Associates (no relation to our co-founder, David L. Nevins), to provide public relations support. This effort has helped to professionalize the outreach of members to the media.

The Fulcrum Acquired

The Fulcrum was conceived and founded in 2019 by Issue One as a niche publication covering democracy reform. At that time, the Bridge Alliance Education Fund invested in the publication, and in 2021, The Fulcrum became a project of Bridge Alliance Education Fund. The vision of journalism about democracy reform has remained, and coverage now includes videos, podcasts & essays about topical issues and pop-culture, as it connects to strengthening democracy. Bridge Alliance members provide much of the expanded content.

Coffee Party USA

Coffee Party USA and Bridge Alliance joined networks in 2021 to expand reach, impact and diversify content on all platforms. Coffee Party members joined Bridge Alliance supporters and have been receiving all the benefits of the healthy self-governance network. The robust social media community of Coffee Party USA engage with news and updates from within the network, and give us a wider audience for all of our members and partners.

To Build a Bridge

In 2021, Bridge Alliance launched its' first podcast. Previously formatted as 'online learning sessions', Bridge Alliance transformed their webinar series into a podcast where members and pioneers in the democracy reform movement can discuss issues in democracy and what their organizations are doing to solve them. 

2022
Deepening Connections Across Differences

Membership Growth

Bridge Alliance Membership grew to 118 organizational members. Citizen Connect grew from ~450 to nearly 600 members.

JEDIs for Democracy

Justice, Equity, Dignity and Inclusion = JEDI.

With a generous grant from the Omega Institute, we launch a JEDI for Democracy Fellows program. The invitee list included practitioners across multiple sectors (or pillars) of work: dialogue and deliberation, peace building, social justice and electoral reform. During an in-person retreat, we convened 35 JEDIs to explore two questions:

1. What does social cohesion look and feel like in the United States?
2. What systems need to change, to bring about that society? 

All JEDIs committed to a year-long program to continue our exploration together. 

Organizational Growth

• The Fulcrum reached over 622,000 unique readers
• Led by Coffee Party USA, the combined social media footprint of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund initiatives got 38 million impressions and 3.7 million engagements.
• Citizen Connect served as the operational backbone for the National Week of Conversation.
• Citizen Connected hosted an election resources page that generated over 7,500 clicks to voting resources for the 2022 election.
  

Bridge Alliance Gathers at the Omega Institute | Social Cohesion Retreat Recap

2023
Co-Creation for the Future

Rebranding and Rethinking

The Bridge Alliance Leadership Team redesigned the logo as well as the vision for the coalition with the tagline, “Empowering Citizens. Strengthening Democracy.” Board Chair David L. Nevins announced a new program development plan, where future Bridge Alliance Education Fund programs would be co-funded and co-created and designed with Program Managers to fill needs in the movement.



News Ambassadors

News Ambassadors was launched as one of the new, co-created projects by the Bridge Alliance Education Fund and Program Director Shia Levitt. News Ambassadors links student reporters with counterparts in politically or demographically dissimilar areas to collaborate on stories exploring solutions to contentious issues.

Engaged Athlete Fellowship

Beginning in the fall of 2023, the Engaged Athlete Fellowship was launched to empower student athletes from across the country to strengthen non-partisan civic participation on their teams, on their campuses, and in their broader communities. A co-created project with The Team, Project director Joe Kennedy brought this vision to life and the fellowship continues to grow and evolve.

Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map

As new COO Kristina Becvar came onboard with a focus on data analytics and network research, the Bridge Alliance teamed up with an emergent project hosted by the National Civic League, the Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map. The map continues to evolve, and serves as an unprecedented, interactive resource to map the actors, resources, connections, and ideas that sustain, adapt, and promote democratic practices in America.

New Leadership and New Frontiers

In September 2023, Co-F0under Debilyn Molineaux moved on from her role leading the Bridge Alliance to launch her new project American Future (now JEDI Future) and COO Kristina Becvar stepped into the Executive Director role.

2024

Structural Changes and Political Headwinds

A Goal Reached

Effective January 1, 2024, the Bridge Alliance Education Fund dissolved the Bridge Alliance 501(c)4 as a separate, membership structure from the underlying Bridge Alliance Education Fund.  The decision to do so was made because one of the original goals of the coalition had been reached - to see itself. With new coalitions emerging with deep resources to fulfill some of the roles the Bridge Alliance served to the smaller field in the emergent years, it became clear that the field had grownto a level that necessitated multiple facets of engagement. The Bridge Alliance Education Fund had already decided to position ourselves as co-creators of programs to fill needs in the field, and we decided to focus on that as our primary goal.

2025
The Path Forward

The Path Forward

In the wake of Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, the field was in a phase of analysis and introspection. The Bridge Alliance Education Fund decided to leverage our networks to best understand how the pro-democracy movement was seeing itself in relation to  these new threats to healthy democracy.

Beginning with an interview series with leading voices, a survey of practitioners across the field, and reviewing new research on polarization, pluralism, and civic health, the result is a collective snapshot of where the ecosystem stands today and concrete recommendations for the path forward.

New Leadership Model

In the fall of 2025, the Bridge Alliance Education fund announced that Kristina Becvar would be departing her role as Executive Director, and that we will be implementing a new leadership model going into 2026. 

The Strategic Fellows Collective  reimagines leadership within the Bridge Alliance. Scheduled to launch in January 2026, this agile, sector-based model replaces traditional top-down governance with distributed expertise, collaborative strategy, and public-facing storytelling.

We envision a cohort of seasoned civic leaders, each stewarding a vital pillar of the democratic ecosystem—from electoral reform and civic engagement to pluralism, media integrity, and the arts. Fellows will serve as strategic advisors, conveners, connectors, and catalysts—coordinating sector intelligence, amplifying field insights, and shaping the narrative of democratic renewal.