Bolstering civic infrastructure and engagement has long been a central component of Revson’s Education and Urban Affairs portfolio. In recent years, the Foundation invested in four ways to help strengthen New York’s civic health: 

• Nonpartisan voter education efforts: Revson’s investments have created a model for broadly institutionalizing nonpartisan voter engagement among “non-voters” within the nonprofit sector. Since launching in 2021, GoVoteNYC has been the primary strategy for Revson’s support in this area. We established the donor collaborative and have co-chaired the effort since its inception. Sixteen donors have committed $4.79 million to GoVoteNYC aimed at increasing voter participation in New York City. GoVoteNYC has shown that nonprofits, who are also trusted messengers in their communities, can successfully inspire New Yorkers who have not voted in the past to vote in higher numbers, often at double the rate of comparable New Yorkers not engaged by these nonprofits.

• Research and policy development: Since 2017, Revson has supported the Brennan Center for Justice to develop the research and policy ideas needed to bring New York’s election administration into the 21st century.  Brennan’s research, coalition building, and policy expertise has helped pass signature electoral reforms in New York including small donor public financing, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and automatic voter registration. Their research and recommendations to improve the state and city Boards of Elections have also resulted in investments, training, and transparency reform the Boards of Elections and state voting laws. 

• Local journalism: The Foundation has invested more than $15 million in the local journalism ecosystem to keep New Yorkers informed and to hold government to account. Two of those investments were more explicitly focused on elections. The City Elections Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism supported community media in expanding their coverage of elections and connected their publishers with prospective advertisers in political and voter education campaigns. In 2021, the initiative resulted in these campaigns spending at least $1.53 million on advertisements in community media and 120 stories and explainers in nine languages about the local election. Revson also funded THE CITY’s Meet Your Mayor tool in 2021. The tool was used by 250,000 New Yorkers (a quarter of the voters in the primary) to see how mayoral candidates’ positions fit with their own opinions. Meet Your Mayor has been replicated by news outlets in Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

• Developing young voters: Youth turnout in New York was the lowest for all states except Arkansas in 2018. Young people are 40% more likely to vote at 18 if taught about elections and voting beforehand, and young people who vote in two consecutive elections tend to be voters for life, making early civic engagement an extremely effective intervention. Revson invested in the development and launch of the Youth Civic Hub, the Youth Civic Participation Coalition, and the Youth Journalism Coalition. These efforts are developing an accessible and effective ecosystem of organizations and resources to increase civic participation among young New Yorkers. 

Learn more about Revson’s support of New York electoral system and participation:

“If We Want to Strengthen Democracy Let’s Start in Our Backyard” by Martha King, Jamie Rubin, and Maria Torres-Springer in Philanthropy New York Insights, April 14, 2021

“New York’s Worst-in-the-Country Voting System” by Sean Morales-Doyle and Chisun Lee in The Atlantic

“A civic roadmap for teens: New online clearinghouse created ‘by youth, for youth’ aims to help” by Amy Zimmer in Chalkbeat

“NYC youth voter turnout is always low. Can this digital tool change that?” by Brigid Bergin in Gothamist

Photo credit: Karen Smul