Heartland Fund

"Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
— Sydney J. Harris (American journalist)

Sarah Jaynes is a strategic political organizer and a long-time friend to the Kelly Ann Brown Foundation. She reached out in the summer of 2024 to see if we could again support the work she’s doing through a grant to the Heartland Fund.
 
Sarah told us: “Heartland Fund is the first funding collaborative built to support and connect local leaders and organizations working for progress across diverse communities in rural areas and small cities. We invest in permanent civic engagement, issue advocacy, and community organizing infrastructure, and sustainable urban-rural collations.”
 
Heartland Fund not only supplies grants carefully chosen to support voter-engagement nonprofits in rural America, but they also help leaders and organizations through their research and communications.
 
As Sarah told us: “Our rural leaders are on the frontlines – defending against emboldened attacks on democracy, reproductive choice, economic security, immigration and more.”
 
In 2023 Heartland gave $14 million to 155 organizations in 26 states that are committed to protecting and expanding nonpartisan civic engagement, as well as confronting the lies and policies that harm democratic institutions. Their Rural Youth Voter Fund works to engage young people in these same issues.
 
KABF was happy to do our part to support Heartland’s recent $30 million goal to continue to support our democratic systems, advance policies that improve the lives of all rural people and combat the lies that threaten our democracy.
 
For more information visit www.heartlandfund.org/

---