About MVF

Donors and funders give hundreds of billions of dollars to charity each year. If we could redirect even a fraction of these philanthropic resources to pro-democracy organizing and movement building, we could solve so many societal problems “upstream.”

Right now, less than 1% of philanthropic giving in the United States supports democracy, which includes voter engagement, protecting voting rights, independent media and journalism, and election administration. Meanwhile, federal funding for a wide range of nonprofits, from public radio stations to immigrant legal services, has been decimated, cutting off the general public from critical information and leaving the most vulnerable communities with few resources. 

For these reasons, MVF is here not only to move money, but to shift the culture of philanthropy by building a movement of donors and funders committed to supporting deep, long-term organizing. 

• MVF is organizing funders across issue areas and geographies to invest in systems change, community organizing, power building, and advocacy to protect communities and civil society. 
• Our Program Team advises local, state, and national grantmaking strategies, so that 501(c)(3) funds can have the greatest impact on short-term democracy defense and long-term grassroots power building.
• Our Philanthropic Advising Team works with donors and funders to make the most strategic investments possible in democracy, from grassroots organizations to national alliances. 
• Our Donor Organizing Team supports MVF donors to become volunteer donor organizers, who then, in turn, host events and launch fundraising campaigns to identify and bring in new donors.

MVF’s Capacity Building Program gives our partners the tools, skills, and support to strengthen, sustain, and scale their work. Our team has created a network of capacity-building providers to tailor support to hundreds of state and local organizations. Our program offers support in four major areas: 

• Data, Tech, and Systems: MVP offers free and discounted access to a Tech Tool Stack designed to optimize voter organizing efforts while saving precious time, money, and people power. MVF’s Director of Movement Tech & Data builds custom dashboards for grantees to share data on voter contact and organizing, allowing them to demonstrate their impact and enabling MVF to see real-time improvements in organizing. MVF convenes a Technology Infrastructure Working Group of tech providers, organizations, and tool developers to deepen collaboration and achieve broader alignment on shared strategies to address the growing need for movement-led tech infrastructure.
• Leadership Development: Talented spokespeople and organizers are often promoted quickly to lead organizations, but lack expertise in fundraising and ensuring financial sustainability. MVF funds two cohorts, each with 40 organizations, to coach emerging leaders on fundraising and financial management best practices.
• Narrative and Communications: MVF contracts experts who coach organizations to tell their communities’ stories to a broader audience and create crisis communications plans.
• Safety and Security: MVF is an anchor investor in the Nonprofit Legal Defense Task Force through the Alliance for Justice. This national hub of trusted legal experts supports advocacy and organizing groups navigating complex civil, criminal, and compliance challenges.

The MVF Capacity Building Program helps organizations build durable, cross-movement power within their ecosystems. Frontline organizations, particularly those working at the intersection of protecting communities and defending democracy, face coordinated threats from national policymakers, media figures, and think tanks on their nonprofit status, access to federal and institutional resources, civil rights, and basic dignity and humanity. 

To meet the urgency of this moment, our program is prioritizing youth, immigrants, BIPOC communities, LGBTQ+ people, and religious minorities. Fortifying these frontline movement organizations strengthens civil society and democracy for everyone.

In this time of rising authoritarianism, MVF is building alliances and funding pilots so leaders can learn how to organize, communicate, and govern effectively. In addition to supporting organizing at the local level, MVF is identifying and seeding pilots whose impact can scale and replicate in other contexts. Learning from these experiments will show where we can make the highest impact interventions on resetting political, cultural, and social dynamics to move from rising authoritarianism to multiracial democracy. Some of these projects include:

• Coordinating Federal Issue-Advocacy: Seed-funded by MVF and led by our allies and partners, Alliance for Congressional Accountability is a new coalition of local and national organizing groups coordinating a lasting organizing presence to educate and energize constituents on federal issues. Their overarching goal is to hold members of Congress accountable to serve their constituents, rather than billionaire donors and corporate interests.
• State-Level Digital Power: We are pioneering investments in new-media initiatives that strengthen partner collaboration and build rapid-response amplification networks. Using models like the Narrative Justice League in Minnesota, we will invest in coalitions (that include members, media, content creators, strategists, and organizational leads) that shift both local politics and the broader national conversation — scaling impact from the ground up.