Announcing NMV’s 2019 Finalists

Published

By Julie Menter

In the categories:

At New Media Ventures, we see investment as a mechanism for societal change, and work to redirect capital towards entrepreneurs and activists tackling the biggest challenges facing our democracy and society today. We pride ourselves on looking beyond expected opportunities and finding the most innovative and effective approaches to creating lasting change.

After reviewing hundreds of applications, we can confidently say that we’re seeing groundbreaking innovation across the progressive landscape. NMV’s 2019 finalists represent some of the most uniquely effective and innovative organizations redefining civic engagement, sparking cultural change, and building lasting social movements.

Of the more than 500 applications we received in 2019, the NMV investment committee interviewed 98, and selected just 33 as finalists for investment. The 2019 finalists include a range of frontline organizing groups, progressive tech ventures, new media startups, and democracy infrastructure organizations. If selected, they are each eligible for up to $250,000.

NMV’s 2019 finalists include:

  • Avalanche Strategy - Avalanche provides deep insight into the values, emotions, and priorities of communities to empower progressives to resonate, mobilize, and win.

  • Black Youth Project 100 Education Fund - #SheSafeWeSafe is a national campaign led by BYP100 that uses a story-based organizing strategy to shift narratives, responses, and resources to end gender-based violence in ways that don't rely on policing for safety.

  • Center for Technology and Civic Life / Vote.org - CTCL and Vote.org will pilot open-source datasets, APIs, and user facing tools for surfacing ballot information to voters in local and state-level elections across the country.

  • CommunityConnect Labs - CommunityConnect Labs provides a suite of digital tools for a fair and accurate 2020 Census, including a Census Q&A chatbot, CommunityMotivator, Canvassing Optimizer, Misinformation Reporter, and Field Staff Recruiter.

  • Contest Every Race - Contest Every Race is a coalition effort working to make sure no Republican at any level gets elected without a challenger.

  • Count the Nation - Count the Nation is creating media, leveraging pop culture and uniting a network of authentic voices to increase participation in #census2020 among hard-to-count populations (immigrants, children, renters, PoC and other historically marginalized groups) by increasing awareness, combatting disinformation and reminding people that census is about their community being seen and served.

  • Luz Collective - Luz Collective disrupts false and inaccurate media narratives about Latinas through high quality digital content, and builds community through in real-life programs, experiences, and opportunities.

  • Main Street One - Main Street One mitigates the impact of misinformation and propagates progressive narratives online through its intelligence system

  • My RVPList by PF Data - MyRVP’s software and expertise helps communities leverage their personal relationships to build power and dramatically expand the electorate.

  • New/Mode - New/Mode is a powerful multi-channel advocacy and engagement platform that helps progressive organizers activate grassroots power, reach decision-makers, and win campaigns.

  • Outvote Inc. - Outvote is a digital organizing platform where campaigns and organizations can mobilize supporters and expand their reach through texting, social media, donations, volunteer recruitment, testimonials, and new voter identification.

  • PeoplesHub - PeoplesHub is a progressive online platform that connects people to the support, analysis, stories, and skills they need to make positive change within their communities and in the world. 

  • PredictWise - PredictWise tracks over 200 dimensions (political, economic, and value frames) for every voter, allowing campaigns to make fast, cost-effective, data-driven decisions on topics and messaging, as well as uniquely accurate, flexible targeting for individual-level engagement.

  • Press On - Press On is using GroundSource’s intuitive, two-way text messaging platform to build a movement media network of marginalized communities in the South. By developing an innovative agency model and integrations with other channels, GroundSource will support both journalists and organizers to power their community engagement.

  • PRIN: The Progressive Influencer Network - PrIN is the largest network of progressive macro and micro influencers available to candidates, organizations and communications teams to turbo-charge messaging impact with authentic human connections to targeted audiences via sources people trust.

  • Prism - Prism, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit affiliate of Daily Kos, elevates stories, ideas, and solutions from people whose voices are critical to a reflective democracy.

  • Pulso - Pulso is an organizing platform working to increase the political power of the projected 32 million Latinx voters across the country by creating deep digital relationships with their subscribers.

  • Revolution English - Revolution English on Facebook Messenger is helping over one million immigrants learn English for free as part of their mission to build the personal and political power of immigrants in the United States.

  • Stareable - Stareable, the largest community of web series creators, is democratizing the content landscape by helping diverse new voices build direct relationships with their fans while bypassing narrow-minded industry gatekeepers.

  • Sunrise - Sunrise Movement is building an army of young people to make climate change an urgent public priority by fighting for the Green New Deal.

  • Supermajority - Supermajority is a new home for women's activism, training and mobilizing a multiracial, intergenerational community that will fight for gender equity together.

  • Survey 160 - Survey 160 creates text messaging tools to improve the quality and availability of data used by analytics groups, researchers, and pollsters, particularly for audiences underrepresented using traditional methods.

  • Swing Left + Flippable - Swing Left and Flippable are joining forces as a single organization to drive activists, volunteers, and donors to the most effective ways they can get involved in the 2020 elections. By providing donors with simple digital tools, customized recommendations, and transparent reporting, they hope to shift political resources to candidates and organizations that have traditionally had less access to national platforms and donor communities—and, in so doing, to shift the balance of power in the political arena.

  • TAPinto.net  - TAPinto is a grassroots network of more than 80 franchised online local news sites helping to fill the void in local news and promoting civic engagement through its scalable sustainable local journalism model.

  • The Juggernaut - The Juggernaut is a venture-backed subscription media company building a global community that elevates underreported South Asian stories — South Asians are the fastest growing major demographic in the US and a quarter of the world's population, yet their stories are often reduced to monolinear tropes.

  • The Movement for Black Lives - The M4BL App for Black Lives will politically mobilize millions, build the leadership of thousands and move folks safely from online activism to organizing in their communities.

  • Tuesday Company - The Tuesday Company allows campaigns and causes to build engaged communities of their supporters while updating their modes of communication to include text, social media, and friend-to-friend contact. Their volunteer app, Team, was used by every Red-to-Blue congressional race in 2018.

  • Upsolve - Upsolve helps low-income families in crippling debt file for bankruptcy for free, using an online web app.

  • Verified Voting - Verified Voting's Data Analytics for Fair Elections Project seeks to take the data on elections that already exists in various places and use it to identify potential anomalies, while building an ecosystem of experts who can leverage this information to ensure fair elections.

  • Wonder Media Network - Wonder Media Network is a pioneering audio-first media company that uses stories to inspire action, to promote equality and justice, and to introduce empathy into politics, business, and culture.

We plan to announce our 2019 investment portfolio this summer and expect this to be our largest round of funding ever. Stay tuned for more soon!