Welcome to Democracy Notes!
Hi, I’m Gabe Lerner, Democracy Notes’ Founder and Publisher. Welcome!
What is Democracy Notes?
Great question! Democracy Notes is a trade publication and field-support organization serving the U.S. democracy space.
What’s a trade publication? A trade publication is a publication for a particular ecosystem, field, or sector. We’re the trade publication for people working to protect or renew American democracy.
What does it mean to be a field-support organization? Another great question! We do more than just publish things. Our job is to support our community however we can. (Think: field catalysts and system orchestrators.)
So what do you do? And what’s your mission?
Our mission is to make the people and organizations doing pro-democracy work in the U.S. as effective as possible. We do this by connecting our community to ideas, resources, and to each other.
Here’s some of what we do:
We curate information about funding, jobs, events, and field news on the Democracy Notes Substack.
We run peer-learning cohorts for people working in the U.S. democracy space.
Our current cohorts serve COOs, “number twos,” communications professionals, and c-suite and mid-level fundraising professionals.
We publish others’ writing over at Democracy Notes Perspectives.
We host events (both virtually and in-person) to inform and connect the U.S. democracy space.
You can find recordings of our virtual events here.
We published the Democracy Notes 2025 Trends report, the result of 68 interviews of funders and field leaders conducted between October 7 and December 7, 2025.
Phew, that’s a lot! We’re keeping busy 😉
Who funds you?
We’re grateful to have received philanthropic support via grants or contracts from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Alta Futures, the Hewlett Foundation, the Packard Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and The Charles F. Kettering Foundation.
And…money from our readers is essential to maintaining our editorial independence and ensuring that our work remains relevant to our community. Right now, 200 people are paid subscribers to Democracy Notes.
If you find our work useful and would like to support it, we’d love for you to become a paid subscriber!
Last but not least, Democracy Notes is a fiscally sponsored project of Independence Initiative, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
