https://demnext.substack.com/p/thanks-to-you
We feared that both would have to be cancelled after President Donald Trump's administration froze funds to the National Endowment of Democracy (NED), a key sponsor of our global Cities Programme.
We are heartened that more than 40 of you stepped in with individual contributions and subscriptions to a value of nearly €5,000.
The Nordic Council, alerted by our Danish partners We Do Democracy, granted emergency support of €10,000 for this week’s vital Baltic-Nordic facilitation training workshop. We Do Democracy's Managing Partner Zakia Elvang upskilled 30 participants, not just from Lithuania but also the facilitators and organisers of citizens' assemblies in Reykjavik, Iceland, Estonia, and Latvia.
Vilnius Municipality also stepped in to cover some of our travel costs, enabling us to go ahead with last week’s scheduled workshops for designing the Vilnius assembly. And an individual donor has gone even further with a significant gift of $25,000 USD in support of our work.
We are grateful to the global citizens’ assemblies movement for your investment in our work, and for the speed of your responses. DemNext's Cities Programme is not just organising one-off assemblies, but seeding and scaling the foundations for permanent citizens' assemblies – new democratic institutions to which we can shift real power to citizens. Vilnius remains determined to make their assembly happen this autumn. To achieve this, we will continue to work hard to fill the gap left by the loss of NED's valuable support. If you haven't already, please help now! So far, we've reluctantly had to press the pause button on the assembly in Kerewan, The Gambia. But our commitment has not waned. We have our fingers tightly crossed for a funding application we submitted last week, and, working closely with our partners, we are on the lookout for other funding opportunities. The funding needed here will go to support the logistical costs of holding the Kerewan assembly, including workshops for assembly design and facilitation, implementation, and evaluation. Our partners in Kerewan at the Great Green Wall Initiative, Civic, and CepRass (Centre for Policy, Research and Strategic Studies) remain committed to making this assembly happen as well. This will be only the third citizens' assembly on the African continent. Those involved in the two previous citizens' assemblies in Mali and Malawi are advising us, and we're sure our research on the Kerewan assembly will inform many more to come. As we noted in last week's appeal, funding is thankfully already secured for the third city in this year's edition of DemocracyNext's Cities Programme, Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. This will make possible the full cycle of activities necessary to establish the permanent citizens’ assemblies. In all three cases, we are inspired by the strong local political commitment to these new democratic institutions. We are also committed to harvesting the wider learnings and guidance that they can help provide to the wider movement. We still have a way to go, but wanted to share the good news of progress. We are particularly glad that we are able to proceed to the next stage in Vilnius. Lithuania has an unpredictable border with Russia. As our colleague Ieva Česnulaitytė pointed out in her 2024 study, a wave of citizens' assemblies in other Baltic and eastern European countries is playing an important role in strengthening their citizens' democratic resilience. Please rest assured that despite the funding freeze at NED, DemocracyNext's core short-term funding remains in place – even as we work hard for future support. And we are determined to find new ways to see our Cities Programme through in the years to come. More broadly, the tectonic plates of support for organisations like DemNext are shifting. Your response is an encouraging first signal of a future that includes broader, sustained individual actions that may be crucial to our longer term funding. Your many personal messages also did much to boost our morale at this difficult time, and strengthened our determination to create momentum for change. We’re far from alone in believing that another democratic future is possible. A big thank you once again to all who responded to our call. To those who haven't yet, please consider doing so!
