The Election Trust Initiative (ETI) is a grantmaking project of the Pew Charitable Trusts that donates to organizations that support election administration in the United States. Its founding partners are the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Klarman Family Foundation, and the Peter J. Peterson Foundation, all of which contributed $25 million at the initiative’s launch.

Grants

The Election Trust Initiative gives grants by invitation. The ETI’s first grant cohort consisted of seven organizations. The amounts of the grants were not publicly disclosed. ¹

The Election Integrity Partnership received a grant to support its efforts to monitor election-related disinformation and write counter analyses. ²

The Elections Group received a grant to analyze election verification processes and write reports to improve best practices for local election officials. ³

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab received a grant to analyze the effectiveness or shortcomings of new election practices instituted during the 2022 election. ⁴

The National Association for Media Literacy Education received a grant to develop multimedia resources on election procedures that election officials can distribute to constituents. ⁵

The National Conference of State Legislatures received a grant to expand its elections legislation database and host regional meetings to promote election-administration best practices. ⁶

The R Street Institute and the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University received a grant for a joint project to produce research on electoral administration best practices based on testimonies from persons across the political spectrum. ⁷

Because of a glut of grants to state and local government election organizations, the ETI does not give grants to election officials. ⁸

Leadership

Ashley Quarcoo is the executive director of the Election Trust Initiative. She is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she has worked since 2019. From 2021 to 2022, Quarcoo was concurrently a senior director at Democracy Programs and Pillars. From 2019 to 2020, Quarcoo was a visiting fellow and then senior research manager at the Aspen Institute, and an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ⁹

Earlier in her career, Quarcoo worked for various government agencies. From 2015 to 2019, she served as a democracy specialist and African region coordinator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). From 2013 to 2015, Quarcoo was a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State‘s Bureau of International Organization Affairs where she monitored United Nations peacekeeping operations in Sudan. In 2010, Quarcoo briefly worked as a legislative fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives. ¹⁰

Maria Bianchi Buck is a senior program officer at ETI. She previously worked as vice president of Democracy Works where she ran the Voting Information Project and Ballot Scout. Bianchi Buck is also a former member of the Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. ¹¹

Ethan Bauer is a program officer at ETI and a former program developer at Pew Charitable Trusts. ¹²

Olivia Matthews is a grants and operations specialist at ETI and a former grant manager at Pew Charitable Trusts. ¹³

1. “Grants.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/grants.
2. “Grants.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/grants.
3. “Grants.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/grants.
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6. “Grants.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/grants.
7. “Grants.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/grants.
8. Moretti, M. Mindy. “Election Trust Initiative Launches.” The Election Center. April 13, 2023. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://electionline.org/electionline-weekly/#tab-1.
9. “Ashley Quarcoo.” LinkedIn. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-quarcoo-69885523/.
10. “Ashley Quarcoo.” LinkedIn. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-quarcoo-69885523/.
11. “About.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/about.
12. “About.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/about.
13. “About.” Election Trust Initiative. Accessed April 15, 2023. https://www.electioninitiative.org/en/about.