A Funder’s Guide to Audience-First Strategy

About this Guide

This guide is a collaboration between the DCC and the Democracy Funders Network and is designed to help democracy funders understand and support audience-first communications, a strategic response to the challenges of the modern information ecosystem that enables those invested in American democracy to reach and persuade new audiences of its value.

Along the way, this guide will introduce some of the concepts that underlie modern communications programs and strategies. While funders do not need to be experts in communications to make good funding decisions, an understanding of how communications strategies have responded to the demands of the modern information ecosystem will make it easier and likely inform other areas of work as well.

This guide is the product of DCC’s staff of communications experts, conversations with an extensive network of communications practitioners representing more than 125 democracy organizations, a first-of-its-kind 2025 survey of the needs and challenges facing the democracy communications field, consultations with funders in the Democracy Funders Network and the expertise of DFN staff.

Who is this guide for?

This guide is intended for funders who want to expand the reach of the democracy field to include a greater diversity of Americans, as well as funders who recognize the field needs to compete for Americans’ attention in modern media but are unsure what that looks like in practice or how to support it effectively.

Those already funding practitioner organizations that are engaging everyday Americans on democracy-related issues, or work adjacent to that, are most likely to find this valuable, though many of its recommendations can be applied more broadly. Funders do not need to specifically support communications projects to apply this guidance to their work. If you would like to get in touch with the authors, please reach out to David Solimini or Mark de la Iglesia.