The State Infrastructure Fund (SIF) is a left-of-center donor collaborative and project of the left-of-center fiscal clearinghouse NEO Philanthropy launched in 2010 in response to Republican gains in the midterm elections that year. The group has funded efforts ostensibly aimed at boosting levels of spending for election infrastructure at the state level; however, most of its funding has been focused on increasing voter turnout among important left-leaning voting blocs such as various minority populations in politically competitive states. The group also advocates for left-of-center policies that change election administration laws to make it easier to vote, while equating attempts to pass right-leaning election integrity legislation to voter suppression. ^{1 2}

Background

The State Infrastructure Fund is one of several “funder collaboratives,” which NEO Philanthropy describes as tools for “connecting donors with aligned values to support work they could not fund as effectively on their own.” NEO reports that it has at least 12 of these collaborative funds, including SIF and the Four Freedoms Fund. Since the program began in 2020, SIF has raised over $170 million for over 140 organizations coordinating state-based election-related efforts and voter turnout campaigns and assisting in legal initiatives. ^{1 2}

The funding from the SIF has been allocated predominately to politically competitive states while less competitive states have received little or no funding. ²

The SIF is among several projects and initiatives formed within left-of-center grantmaking foundations ahead of the 2024 elections that prioritize get-out-the-vote campaigns with an emphasis on minority communities. A joint op-ed in Inside Philanthropy in 2024 by Cathy Cha, president and CEO of the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, and Ralph Lewin, the executive director of the Peter E. Haas, Jr. Family Fund, stated a commitment from their organizations and others to fund left-of-center “democracy” related organizations and projects, specifically citing the State Infrastructure Fund as one such initiative alongside the Democracy Policy Initiative at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and the Marin Community Foundation’s Safeguarding Democracy Fund. ^{3 2}

Activities

Created in response to Republican election victories in the 2010 midterm elections, the State Infrastructure Fund (SIF) mobilizes voter turnout of demographics expected to vote in line with liberal causes and the Democratic Party. According to its own website, SIF’s strategy for 2019/20 would focus more heavily on “the South, Southwest and Rust Belt.” SIF intends to assist state-based “voting rights” groups in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. ^{4 5}

2020 Elections

In 2020 the group coordinated litigation efforts against Republican-led election integrity legislation and sought to secure voting rights for felons, expand early voting, and oppose voter identification and proof of citizenship requirements. The group organizes an annual “Voting Rights Convening” which “brings together litigators, policy advocates, grassroots organizers, communications specialists and funders” to brainstorm strategies to expand efforts of the movement. ²

During the 2020 election, the group provided $56 million in funding to 140 organizations with a focus on 17 competitive states in the presidential election. ²

2022 Elections

In December 2022, Carnegie Corporation of New York published a report discussing how its nonprofit grantees have advocated for improving voter turnout and conditions for Americans to vote following the 2022 midterm election. The report quoted senior program officer of the State Infrastructure Fund Page Gleason saying, “There has been a ‘huge uptick’ in threatening behavior at voting locations, a ‘demonstrable difference in people showing up to polls with guns and dogs.’”  Vice president of the State Infrastructure Fund Erica Teasley Linnick commented that “some voters received robocalls informing them that if they voted by mail, debt collectors, the police, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would receive their information.” Linnick continued by stating the people who set up the calls were prosecuted but, “If you hear something that scared you, you think: ‘I don’t need to vote that badly.’” ⁶

Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder Response

For more information, see Shelby Response Fund

Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder was a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case that reversed parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring some states (mostly in the South) to seek federal review of changes to their voting laws. The decision was strongly opposed by many on the political left.

SIF funded a collaborative consisting of 12 law organizations focused on increasing voter turnout and undoing voter-fraud prevention laws. The group ultimate coalesced into another NEO Philanthropy “collaborative,” the Shelby Response Fund. This litigation collaborative consists largely of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Latino Justice PRLDEF, Advancement Project, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), Native American Rights Fund, Brennan Center for Justice, Demos, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. ⁴

People

Lisa Versaci is the founding director of the State Infrastructure Fund. She also works as a consultant for Democracy Alliance, a collective of left-of-center donors active in orchestrating “the activities of a permanent ‘left infrastructure’” since 2004. ⁷

Scott Nielsen is a former employee of the State Infrastructure Fund. He now works as the director of advocacy at the left-of-center consulting firm Arabella Advisors . ⁸

Funding

The State Infrastructure Fund has raised nearly $60 million through contributions made by large left-wing foundations such as the Ford Foundation, Kresge Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, JPB Foundation, and Open Society Foundations. The SIF also receives grants from the Bauman Family Foundation, the Grove Foundation, the Irving Harris Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, the Kendeda Fund, and the left-wing immigration advocacy organization Unbound Philanthropy. ⁴

In 2023, SIF received $10 million from MacKenzie Scott as part of her substantial grantmaking efforts to left-of-center organizations. ⁹

1. “Collaborative Funds.” NEO Philanthropy. Accessed February 06, 2019. https://neophilanthropy.org/collaborative-funds/
2. “State Infrastructure Fund.” NEO Philanthropy. Accessed June 24, 2024. https://neophilanthropy.org/collaborative-funds/state-infrastructure-fund/
3. Cha, Cathy and Lewin, Ralph. “Why All Funders Should be Democracy Funders.”
   Inside Philanthropy. June 11, 2024. Accessed June 24, 2024. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2024/6/11/why-all-funders-should-be-democracy-funders
4. Rojc, Philip. “Enfranchised: How a Collaborative Fund Advances Voting Rights and Protections.” Inside Philanthropy. Accessed January 30, 2019. https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2019/1/10/enfranchised-how-a-collaborative-fund-advances-voting-rights-and-protections
5. “State Infrastructure Fund.” NEO Philanthropy. Accessed February 11, 2019. https://neophilanthropy.org/collaborative-funds/state-infrastructure-fund/
6. Deutsch, Abigail. “Protecting and Advancing the Right to Vote: Carnegie Reporter Winter 2022.” Carnegie Corporation of New York, December 23, 2022. https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/protecting-and-advancing-right-vote/
7. Edsall, Thomas B. “Opinion: Are Liberals Fundraising Hypocrites?” The New York Times. September 30, 2015. Accessed June 21, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/opinion/are-liberals-fundraising-hypocrites.html?_r=0
8. Nielsen, Scott. Linkedin Page. Linkedin.com. Accessed June 24, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-nielsen-22b50064/
9. “State Infrastructure Fund Receives $10 Million from Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott to Support Critical Voting Rights Amid Continued Attacks.” NEO Philanthropy. December 7, 2023. Accessed June 24, 2024. https://neophilanthropy.org/state-infrastructure-fund-receives-10-million-from-philanthropist-mackenzie-scott-to-support-critical-voting-rights-amid-continued-attacks/