Money worries cloud voter mobilization efforts

(Chronicle of Philanthropy) – The Voter Participation Center’s massive voter turnout campaign for the midterm elections almost didn’t happen.

“The funding did come, but it was late, very late,” said Tom Lopach, the nonprofit’s president.

With big plans but not enough money, Lopach and his staff tried in mid-August to decide what to cut. Should it be a digital get-out-the-vote campaign? A massive effort to get people to vote by mail? Or maybe a “social pressure” push that encourages people to join their peers in casting a ballot?

But by the end of summer, money came through, and Lopach and his staff were able to roll out a $40 million effort. The center, which consists of both a 501(c)(3) organization and a 501(c)(4), which can devote money to electoral politics, has helped 500,000 people submit voter registration applications and 400,000 vote-by-mail applications during the current election cycle.

Lopach declined to identify which groups and individuals helped the center stay on track, but in the recent past it has received funding from donor-advised funds at Fidelity Charitable and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation as well as the MacArthur Foundation.

Nonprofit leaders have made concerted efforts to encourage democracy-related funding over the past two years, perhaps most notably through the All by April campaign, which helped get philanthropy to dedicate $268 million to a range of issues related to voting, combating misinformation and election administration.

Despite those efforts, some leaders like Lopach say funders have been hesitant to commit money to voter mobilization efforts. Grant makers are stepping away, he said, because the Trump administration has initiated a slew of lawsuits related to voting to root out what it says is widespread voter fraud. And it has investigated grassroots groups that work to get out the vote and the organizations that fund them.