Collective Impact

UPDATE -- March 28, 2017 

We are pleased to announce today the awarding of more than $525,000 in our inaugural collective impact grants, to allow new collaborative efforts by two dozen Bridge Alliance member organizations.  

These ten joint projects will help members implement and test innovative approaches in our Alliance’s three core areas: expanding civic engagement and participation; improving governance; and reforming campaign and election processes. These projects, in addition to magnifying the impact of your work on the local, state and national level, are designed to generate tools, ideas and best practices for all Bridge Alliance members to use.

Highlights of the initial ten projects appear here.

INITIAL PROJECT 

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Recognizing that organizations cannot effectively bridge the broad political divide alone, the Bridge Alliance is awarding up to $1 million in Collective Impact grants in 2017 to enable its member organizations to better collaborate on ways to fix political processes on the local, state and national levels.

Initial grants, totaling $300,000, will be awarded in early 2017, with additional awards to follow financed in partnership with Invest America Fund and others.  

Projects which can yield short-term results will be given priority along with those focused on sustaining ongoing process improvements and on strengthening the cross-member work of the Alliance itself.

Collective Impact proposals under review address areas such as:

  • Seeking ways to support and encourage candidates to run for office who may not have strong financial backing or political party support;
  • Supporting action to promote civil discourse, such as training state legislators from across the country on effective dialogue across party and policy lines;
  • Developing teaching tools to demonstrate potential and possibilities of civil discourse to the next set of American voters: high school and college students;
  • Bringing “strange bedfellows” together for conversation and policy discussion;
  • Enabling organizations and members to find and connect with individuals or other groups with opposing views willing to discuss both policy and process;
  • Identifying tech tools for people to connect with each other and strengthen ties between the government and the people they serve;
  • Utilizing technology and robust social media tools to help make citizens’ voices more readily heard;
  • Exploring options to increase voting opportunities such as open primaries, rank choice voting and other process changes and improvements;
  • Sharing best practices to build grassroots movements.