• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Big Picture>
  3. bridge alliance>

Bridge Alliance Education Fund will take over and refashion The Fulcrum

Our Staff
April 20, 2021
Bridge Alliance Education Fund and The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum is getting a new owner, and a somewhat different mission.

The Bridge Alliance Education Fund announced Tuesday that it will take over next month and reposition the nonprofit digital news and commentary site in partnership with a public relations firm. Issue One, among the more prominent cross-partisan political reform groups in Washington, had created The Fulcrum in 2018 with a commitment to focus rigorous journalism on efforts to reverse the dysfunctions plaguing American democracy.

Terms were not disclosed, but Issue One and The Fulcrum leadership had struggled to raise money to sustain the project in recent months, despite a steadily growing audience at a time when democratic norms faced unprecedented stress. The Bridge Alliance Education Fund itself was among several original funders to sharply reduce their contributions.


The organization is the funding and communications arm of the nonprofit Bridge Alliance, a coalition of 90 groups that advocate for an array of policies they believe would achieve central goals of the democracy reform movement — more competitive elections, influenced less by money than by enhanced civic engagement, leading to transparent and effective governance "with a country-before-party mindset."

In an email to those members, Bridge Alliance leaders made clear The Fulcrum's identity would soon be altered.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

"We hope we can count on your continued support as we strike the proper balance between maintaining impeccable journalistic standards and magnifying the voices of all Americans yearning for a healthier governing system," Board Chairman David L. Nevins and CEO Debilyn Molineaux said, promising to soon "share increased possibilities of amplification" of the messaging of umbrella group members.

To that end, they have tapped the Baltimore-based marketing and public relations firm Nevins & Associates. (Its owner is not related to the Bridge Alliance's Nevins.) It will be "overseeing the future success and continued growth of The Fulcrum," Senior Vice President Mitchell Schmale said, with the goal of finding "new and diverse audiences that are interested in supporting a healthy democracy."

That is different from The Fulcrum's approach of the past 29 months. A focus on the debates over dozens of different ideas for bettering the political process — tighter campaign finance rules, alternative election methods, ending partisan gerrymandering and the like — dominated the first year, along with reporting on how fix-the-system promises were only tangential to the nascent presidential race.

But two profound and simultaneous threats to democracy upended coverage: The pandemic put the country's ability to conduct fair and comprehensive voting to an extraordinary test, while President Donald Trump's campaign of lies about fraud have restored voting rights as a topic of national prominence.

"While rooting for our democratic institutions to get stronger, we have no rooting interest in any of the prescriptions out there," the site's mission statement has said. "Our journalistic role is to help you by bringing a clear and unbiased eye to the debates."

The Fulcrum's new strategy will be to "to reach people where they are and help them connect to the reforming democracy movement," BAEF said, and unbiased reporting on efforts to make the American "democratic republic less partisan and more diverse" will remain only "part of its ongoing mission."

The Fulcrum's original publisher, David Meyers, will remain at least temporarily, to "ensure a seamless transition."

"We launched The Fulcrum at a time of intense interest in fixing our country's political system," Issue One CEO Nick Penniman said. "We are pleased that The Fulcrum will be able to continue its important work and reporting."

From Your Site Articles
  • Our mission - The Fulcrum ›
  • Want different politics? Pay attention to women like these. - Debilyn ... ›
  • Bridge Alliance - The Fulcrum ›
  • The Fulcrum has a new owner and a new mission - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Bridge Alliance Education Fund (@BrdgAllianceUS) | Twitter ›
  • Bridge Alliance Education Fund (@BrdgAllianceUS) | Twitter ›
  • Bridge Alliance Education Fund at Bridge Alliance ›
bridge alliance
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Anushka Sarkar

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone

Congress shows signs of bipartisanship with retirement benefits bill

Mario H. Lopez

Fair representation: More Black people needed in STEM today

Jennifer Stimpson

First instincts, second thoughts

Debilyn Molineaux
latest News

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Our Staff
3h

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Reya Kumar
19h

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Our Staff
18 May

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

David Meyers
17 May

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Our Staff
17 May

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Robert Pearl
17 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Leadership
Supreme Court expansion protest

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Judicial
North Carolina primary election workers

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Leveraging big ideas
Memorial for victims of Buffalo shooting

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Media
Sen. Ted Cruz and Judge Amy Coney Barrett

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws