Making Grants

April 7, 2015 FairVote Minnesota, a Voqal Fund grantee, works for better democracy through public education and advocacy by focusing on progressive voting systems that lead to greater competitiveness, better representation and more participation in elections. One such system, Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), is one of the more significant political reforms in generations. Over the

March 25, 2015 The Natural History Museum, a project of Voqal Fund grantee Not An Alternative, recently released an open letter signed by dozens of the world’s top scientists, including NASA’s former head climatologist James Hansen, calling on science museums to cut all ties to the fossil fuel industry. The letter was sent to 334

March 3, 2015 “Building and Aligning Power: Expanding the Money in Politics Field by Strengthening Connections to Movements for Racial and Economic Justice” – a webinar presented by Funders’ Committee For Civic Participation and the Piper Fund, is slated for Thursday, March 12. The webinar is co-sponsored by the Joyce Foundation, Overbrook Foundation, WhyNot Initiative

Feb. 28, 2015 The Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation is focusing its March briefing on examining the net neutrality campaign and discussing the lessons learned. Voqal President John Schwartz will moderate the briefing, which is cosponsored by Open Society Foundations, Wallace Global Fund, Voqal Fund and Ford Foundation. The featured speakers are Amalia Deloney, Media

Feb. 27, 2015 Voqal Fund and Chicago Filmmakers are excited to announce the fourth round of funding through the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund (CDMPF). In 2015 a total of $100,000 for digital media projects that progress social change is slated for award. The Chicago Digital Media Production Fund is a project of The Voqal

Feb. 13, 2015 FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting) — the progressive national media watch group — blends journalism, research and advocacy to provide timely fact checking of corporate media. With funding from Voqal Fund, FAIR released several major research studies in 2014. Highlights include documentation of the lack of coverage by the major news

Jan. 23, 2015 Making Contact, an independent media outlet, together with ALEC-Exposed and Food Democracy Now, used a grant from Voqal Fund to explore the undue influence of “big agriculture and bio-tech” on both our democracy and our dinner plates. Calling the effort “What the Fork?!?: Corporations, Food and Democracy,” the collaboration of radio, online

Jan. 20, 2015 With funding from Voqal Fund, Mother Jones conducted a thorough investigation on the influence of political money, often hidden from public scrutiny, on judicial elections and decision-making. The investigation included a first-of-its-kind dataset on contributions and spending at the district court level, combined with deep-dive investigative reporting and the smart use of

Jan. 2, 2015 With early foundation funding from numerous sources including Voqal Fund, 2014 was an inspirational year for Coworker.org The Coworker.org community consists of tens of thousands of people who connected to make their workplaces better. Voqal Fund is proud to share some of their stories in this 3-minute slideshow.

Dec. 8, 2014 With funding from Voqal Fund, Common Cause Hawaii created Civic*Celerator, a year-long collaboration aimed at developing user friendly applications (apps) leveraging the resource of open data made available by the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission. The project, the first of its kind in the nation, engaged the creativity of a local community of