(WASHINGTON)–The Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) has been awarded a $2.45 million grant by the Ford Foundation, an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization on the front lines of social change worldwide. This grant is part of Ford’s Social Bond initiative to “stabilize and strengthen organizations we believe have what it takes to lead us through recovery to build a more just, equitable world.” The unrestricted award will be allocated over five years.
Alexandra Reeve Givens, CDT President and CEO, says:
“We are deeply honored and extraordinarily grateful to the Ford Foundation for this recognition. For 25 years, CDT has championed policies that empower people to use technology for good while protecting against invasive, discriminatory, and exploitative uses. These funds will strengthen our capacity to continue this work into the future.
People don’t experience the benefits or risks of new technologies equally. That’s why CDT is centering questions of equity across all of our projects. Recently, we expanded key workstreams on algorithmic discrimination, the impact of surveillance technologies on historically marginalized communities, and the experiences of underrepresented voices participating in online speech.”
With this grant, CDT will also advance its work centering disability perspectives in technology policy. CDT leads a specific project focused on algorithmic harms affecting people with disabilities and works broadly to integrate disability issues across its advocacy.”
According to the Ford Foundation, the Social Bond is the first of its kind by a foundation on the U.S. taxable corporate bond market and is meant “to ensure nonprofits can carry on their important work to serve the world’s most vulnerable communities.”
Learn more about the Ford Foundation Social Bond.
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CDT is a 25-year-old 501(c)3 nonpartisan nonprofit that works to strengthen individual rights and freedoms by defining, promoting, and influencing technology policy and the architecture of the internet that impacts our daily lives.
The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant-making organization. For more than 80 years it has worked with courageous people on the frontlines of social change worldwide, guided by its mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.