The Lenfest Institute for Journalism is embarking on a comprehensive citywide effort to catalyze civic action and dialogue leading up to Philadelphia’s Mayoral Election in November 2023. The initiative will equip Philadelphians with what they need to ensure an informed voting experience through the support of public-opinion research, intensive community listening, issues coverage in multiple languages, voter guides, civics information, and events and debates.

The project’s overarching goal is to ensure that the issues that matter most to all of Philadelphia’s diverse communities are amplified and centered in the 2023 election by media, community organizations, and the candidates.

Through collaborative reporting and grants, we will partner with a wide array of media and community partners to deliver high quality journalism and information about the 2023 election. Through these partnerships, we will engage both mainstream and community media, support and conduct in-person and virtual events, community conversations and debates, and utilize traditional and social media to maximize reach and impact of the project. All reporting, event summaries, and materials produced by our partners will be aggregated on a project website.

In addition to the opportunity for financial support, any organization can become a project partner. Project partners will join a vibrant community of practice and have access to the project’s resource center, which includes elections reporting, voter guides, civics education materials, community data and research, media trainings, and partner events.

Launched in 2016, Borealis Philanthropy’s Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF) supports the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and other politically aligned organizations so that it can better shape policy agendas for Black communities, create alternatives to institutions that have been harmful to Black people, and build local Black community power. The Fund provides a dedicated vehicle for funders to support the ecosystem of grassroots, Black-led power building organizations working towards community safety, justice, and liberation.

The BLMF exists to ensure that progressive, Black-led movement organizations have the resources, visibility, infrastructure and leadership capacity to sustain their day-to-day work. This includes the organizing, advocacy and collective care needed to combat anti-Black racism, ableism, cis-heteropatriarchy, and state violence in their communities and achieve transformational and lasting change.