Prism Reports (Prism)

Background

Prism was founded in 2019 as a nonprofit affiliate of Daily Kos, a news website and blog focusing on left-wing and Democratic Party politics created by Markos Moulitsas. Moulitsas created Daily Kos to transform its readers into left-wing activists. The site raised significant funds for Democratic candidates and made endorsements in Democratic primaries since its founding in 2002. ⁴

Prism bills itself as a platform for diverse voices, and  authored and led by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals. The platform also claims the mainstream media landscape is not sufficiently centered on left-of-center ideology and “wasn’t bringing us closer to our vision of collective liberation and justice.” The platform claims to focus on “disrupting and dismantling toxic narratives, uncovering the hard truths of injustice alongside the people experiencing the acute impacts of injustice, and providing a platform for people of color to tell their own stories, and those of their communities.” ⁵

The nonprofit organization that is now known as Prism Reports was founded in 2016 as the Daily Kos Education Fund, which was an educational arm of the Daily Kos with the mission of educating the public about elections, the political process, and voter registration. ⁶

In 2019, the first year the group operated as Prism, the organization has nearly doubled from $669,000 in 2018 to $1.28 million in 2019. In 2022 the organization reported $1.4 million in revenue and $1.7 million in expenses. ⁷

Funding

Prism is funded by of left-of-center grantmaking foundations, including many of the largest foundations in the United States. The group also solicits contributions and memberships from the public using ActBlue, a donation platform serving Democratic candidates and groups affiliated with left-of-center politics. ^{8 9}

Funders of the organization include Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Libra Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the Emergent Fund, the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the Ford Foundation, New Media Ventures, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Justice for Migrant Women, the Open Philanthropy Project, and the Women’s Foundation of California .⁹

Views

Prism publishes far-left political and cultural stances including opposition to Israel and calling for a “ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war, defunding of police, liberal LGBT issues, and widespread abortion access. Issue areas highlighted at the top of the website include the Movement for Palestine, Abortion Rights Post Roe, COVID-19, and Disability Justice. ²

In a piece titled “5 movements that mobilized you in 2023” the platform outlines several far-left stances as key issues form 2023 including “Growing collective labor movements, workers’ rights, and unionization”; “Dismantling colonialism and imperialism, borders, and displacement”; “The state of abortion rights and reproductive justice post-Roe”; “Abolition as healing and reparations for the past, resisting oppression in the present, and building the future”; and “Climate justice is an intersectional, interwoven movement in all liberation struggles.” ¹