Journalism and Democracy in Crisis: What Funders Need to Know

Monika Bauerlein has been CEO of Mother Jones since 2015 and has focused on expanding MoJo's journalistic and revenue capacity, deepen its impact, and broaden its audience. Previously, she served as co-editor with Clara Jeffery, who is now editor-in-chief. Together, they have been honored with the I.F Stone Medal for Journalistic Excellence, the Pen/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing, and multiple National Magazine Awards including the 2017 honor for Magazine of the Year. Under their leadership, Mother Jones grew from, as the PEN judges wrote, "a respected, if under the radar indie publication to an internationally recognized powerhouse."

Fred Blackwell is CEO of the San Francisco Foundation, one of the largest community foundations in the country. San Francisco Foundation works with donors, community leaders, and public and private partners to create thriving communities throughout the Bay Area. Since joining the foundation in 2014, Blackwell has renewed its commitment to social justice through an equity agenda focused on racial and economic inclusion.

Blackwell is a recognized community leader with a longstanding career in the Bay Area. Before joining the foundation, he served as interim city administrator for City of Oakland, where he previously served as assistant city administrator. He was executive director of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and director of the SF Mayor’s Office of Community Development; he served as director of the Making Connections Initiative for the Annie E. Casey Foundation in the Lower San Antonio neighborhood of Oakland; he was a Multicultural Fellow in Neighborhood and Community Development at San Francisco Foundation; and he subsequently managed a multiyear comprehensive community initiative for San Francisco Foundation in West Oakland.

Blackwell serves on the board of Independent Sector, Bridgespan Group, and Dean’s advisory council for UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design. He previously served on the San Francisco Federal Reserve community advisory council, California Redevelopment Association, Urban Habitat Program, NCG, and LeaderSpring boards. He is a visiting professor in the City and Regional Planning Department at UC Berkeley. He holds a Master’s Degree in City Planning from UC Berkeley and Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Studies from Morehouse College.

Lydia Chávez, executive editor and founder of Mission Local, has watched Mission Local grow from a teaching lab for graduate students into an independent nonprofit media site covering all of San Francisco from the vantage point of the Mission District. The site has won numerous awards, including a 2022 award for General Excellence from the Online News Association. It continues to focus on high-impact reporting produced by a cadre of young reporters who reflect the city’s diversity.

Lili Gangas is the Chief Technology Community Officer at the Kapor Foundation, an operating foundation at the intersection of technology and racial justice, providing research and thought leadership, operating programs, supporting strategic partnerships and investments to increase diversity across the tech ecosystem--from K-12 education through entrepreneurship and venture capital - aiming to level the playing field in tech.  Lili co-leads the Kapor Center’s Equitable Tech Policy Initiative with a focus on inclusive technology policy with special interests in closing digital divide, scaling new tech workforce models,  advocating for responsible emerging technology as well as providing foundational support across civic engagement issues and tech enablement of civic organizations.

An attorney and racial-justice advocate, Jessica Gonzalez advances Free Press’ mission of building media and technology that serve truth and justice. A former Lifeline recipient, Jessica has helped fend off grave Trump-administration cuts to the program, which subsidizes phone- and-internet access for low-income people. She was part of the legal team that overturned a Trump-FCC decision blessing runaway media consolidation. Jessica is a leader in the fight to push tech companies to crack down on hate and disinformation. She co-founded Change the Terms, a coalition of more than 60 civil- and digital-rights groups that works to disrupt online hate, helped lead the Stop Hate for Profit campaign’s Facebook advertising boycott and sits on the Real Facebook Oversight Board. Previously, Jessica was the executive vice president and general counsel at the National Hispanic Media Coalition, where she led the policy shop and coordinated campaigns against racist and xenophobic media programming. Prior to that she was a staff attorney and teaching fellow at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation. Jessica has testified before Congress on multiple occasions on issues including Net Neutrality, media-ownership diversity and affordable internet access.

Tasneem Raja is the Editor-in-Chief of The Oaklandside and a co-founder of Cityside Journalism Initiative. A pioneer in data journalism and local non-profit news startups, she co-founded the Tyler Loop, a nationally recognized community news platform in East Texas. She was a senior editor at NPR’s Code Switch and at Mother Jones, where the team she led helped build the first-ever database of mass shootings n America. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and started her career as a features reporter at The Chicago Reader and The Philadelphia Weekly.