We are excited to announce the nine U.S.-based newsrooms selected for the second round of the Advancing Democracy Innovation Fund. They are pursuing work to reimagine democracy coverage through innovative and impactful civic journalism. Their projects will serve a wide range of communities, from Spanish-speaking residents of Florida to civically engaged young people in Minnesota. These awards support newsrooms that have completed core training in solutions journalism, community engagement and trust-building. With this selection, the Advancing Democracy Innovation Fund now includes a total of 18 participating newsrooms across two rounds.

These are the nine newsrooms in the second round, along with their projects:

Organization	Project Description
	Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism (Grand Rapids, Michigan) will lead “How Power Works,” a multimedia explainer project designed to break down how elections and government actually function. Reporting will be shaped by questions gathered directly from community members, ensuring coverage reflects real civic information needs. Through clear, mobile-first explainers, the project will show who holds power, what different offices are responsible for, and where residents can realistically demand accountability. Guided by solutions journalism and trust-building practices, the project reframes democracy coverage as a practical public service and positions the newsroom as a reliable civic resource.
	Factchequeado (Miami) will lead “What Helps Our Democracy Work?”, a community-centered solutions journalism project focused on the civic information needs of Spanish-speaking Latino communities. The project will begin with community listening, including an in-person event in Miami, to identify barriers to participation and examples of what has helped democracy function in practice. These insights will shape coverage examining evidence-based responses to challenges such as voter access, language barriers, misinformation, and trust in institutions. The project will also inform the continued development of Factchequeado’s civic tools, including Electopedia, a Spanish-language guide to U.S. elections, and Electobot, a WhatsApp-based chatbot that provides verified, nonpartisan election information. Both tools proved effective in closing information gaps during the 2024 election cycle and responding to thousands of election-related questions.
	Gulf States Newsroom community engagement producer Nellie Beckett and public health reporter Drew Hawkins are embarking on a project to empower residents of Richland Parish, Louisiana, who are coping with the disruption caused by the building of Meta’s data center. (The regional newsroom encompasses WBHM in Alabama, MPB in Mississippi and WWNO/WRKF in Louisiana.) With support from the Advancing Democracy Innovation Fund, Beckett and Hawkins will train residents to act as citizen scientists and documenters, holding community events to build trust, train people in documentation and share the reporting that comes from this project, fusing engagement and solutions journalism to further democracy through transparency, inclusion and co-creation.
	KALW Public Media (San Francisco Bay Area) will center 16- to 24-year-olds in its 2026 midterm election coverage using engaged journalism and The Citizens Agenda model. Rather than treating young people as a voting demographic, the project will elevate their voices by following youth-led efforts to overcome barriers to civic engagement, influence policymaking and increase youth representation in elections. The work began with a Youth Empowerment Summit on Jan. 31, designed as a deep listening session to identify youth priorities and define meaningful change. Insights from the summit will shape a co-created editorial road map, followed by a four-part solutions journalism series that examines successful models of youth civic participation, including Vote 16 initiatives and youth-led policy task forces.
	Louisville Public Media (Louisville, Kentucky/Southern Indiana) will develop a project to improve the discoverability and community relevance of government accountability reporting focused on Southern Indiana. Reporter Aprile Rickert’s coverage currently appears alongside a high volume of daily newsroom content; this project will create a more intentional, community-specific entry point that speaks directly to local civic concerns. By making coverage more participatory and easier to engage with in a dedicated space, the project aims to build deeper trust with Southern Indiana communities ahead of the 2026 election cycle and better connect residents to voting and civic resources.
	Minnesota Women’s Press (Minnesota) will produce three to five solutions-oriented stories examining how young people are engaging in civic processes to address mental health policy, gun violence prevention and environmental safeguards related to data center development. Each piece will focus on the legislative process, following students as they work with lawmakers, and will report on how bills are developed. The coverage will prioritize explanatory reporting that helps readers understand how governance and civic participation function in practice, rather than focusing solely on motivations or political outcomes.
	Nowruz Media (California) will lead “From Silence to Voice,” a community-focused civic reporting project highlighting Afghan immigrant experiences with local government, elections and civic life. Using engaged journalism, solutions journalism and trust-building practices, the project will begin with Nowruz reporters listening to community members to understand their civic information needs. Nowruz Media will produce multilingual stories and multimedia explainers in Farsi and English, including two solutions-focused pieces: one exploring how Afghan immigrants successfully engage with local civic institutions, and another examining how trusted community networks reduce fear and misinformation and encourage participation in civic life.
	The Providence Eye (Providence, Rhode Island) will provide comprehensive local elections coverage in 2026 through a combination of digital resources and in-person events. The project will pair evergreen civic education with timely reporting on hyperlocal races, helping residents better understand local government and election processes. By prioritizing clarity and accessibility, the coverage aims to support informed participation and strengthen civic knowledge ahead of local elections.
	Santa Cruz Local (Santa Cruz County, California) will facilitate a series of community listening sessions that will inform a free, bilingual, multimedia election guide and help reduce political polarization in the county. The sessions will bring together residents across age, race and political differences to discuss local issues, collaborate on solutions and engage in civil dialogue. What participants share will directly shape the questions Santa Cruz Local asks candidates in its election coverage. The election guide will be distributed across the newsroom’s website, Instagram news service and Spanish-language WhatsApp channel, as well as in print through partnerships with local nonprofits.

Here’s a look at some of the work the newsrooms from the first round have published so far:

• The Arizona Republic produced a six-part multimedia civic engagement series demystifying local governance through short video explainers covering topics ranging from how to report potholes to how residents can influence city decisions before council votes. The Republic is now engaged with civic partners to host in-person events extending through January 2026, with plans to scale the project statewide.
• Austin Common used art and engaged journalism to reach young, non-regular news readers ahead of Austin’s tax-rate election in November 2025. The newsroom created an illustrated voter guide about Proposition Q, which affects city funding for homelessness services, parks and affordability.
• Texas Standard has produced a series of solutions-focused stories on adult education, including reporting on a little-known Mexican government program that partners with US-based organizations to provide classes to Mexican immigrants. Their other stories include:
  • ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’: Texas churches expand English programs for immigrant students
  • Immigrants with degrees often struggle to find jobs. Adult education programs are trying to help
  • Adult education programs finally got federal funding. But for some, the damage was already done.
• The Seattle Times did a solutions story on what Washington state’s overwhelmed Enchantments region — strained by surging tourism and a collapse in Forest Service staffing — can learn from Colorado’s Maroon Bells system, which has successfully managed crowding. They are also hosting two public discussions to share what they found through their reporting.

Organization	Project Description
	Canopy Atlanta (Atlanta, GA) will use AI to create previews of civic and public meetings, with the goal of increasing civic participation. Given that many critical decisions impacting residents’ daily lives are made in public meetings with little to no public attendance, Canopy Atlanta hopes to utilize AI to create concise, compelling “preview summary blurbs” for civic meetings, which then will be covered by Atlanta Documenters. The project comes at a time when Atlanta has a number of significant races on the horizon, including for the Public Service Commission, the Atlanta City Council and for mayor.
	Crosswinds News (formerly VNN Oklahoma) (Tulsa, OK) is holding a listening-and-learning session with Indigenous community members and local leaders in Tulsa. By connecting Tulsa’s Indigenous community members with local city and tribal leadership, they aimed to increase community engagement and identify barriers to inclusive policymaking. This in-person event helped reimagine civic life for Indigenous communities and helped the organization build stronger relationships in the community.
	Dallas Free Press (Dallas, TX), with help from the Reynolds Journalism Institute, is identifying key moments from public meetings to use in short, informative videos. The videos are being produced with the help of community members who are paid to participate in the publication’s Documenters program, and will help educate residents about local governance and civic participation.
	Latino News Network (National) in partnership with Latino community leaders, is holding community conversations to meet, speak and listen to the public about the most common form of homelessness experienced in the Latino community, called “doubling up” homelessness in which people temporarily live with others. The project seeks to inform housing policy, especially the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s narrow definition of homelessness that currently does not account for those living doubled-up.
	The Haitian Times (National) is tracking progress on solutions Haitian community leaders are pursuing, such as mechanisms to expunge records containing erroneously issued driving infractions in Indiana, establishing a community microlending fund, and expanding efforts to promote accurate narratives about Haitians in U.S. media. The ultimate goal is to produce a Haitian Community Engagement Roadmap that empowers community organizations, nonprofits, academics, and small business owners to replicate events locally in pursuit of larger community goals.