Field Building Initiatives

For decades, Mediators Foundation has been a trusted convener and catalyst in the bridge-building ecosystem. A key part of our mission is to elevate and support initiatives that deliver unique and lasting value to the common good.

As the field has evolved, we've recognized that certain systemic gaps remain unaddressed—areas where existing efforts fall short and where Mediators, given our experience and positioning, can play a pivotal role. In such cases, we don’t just offer fiscal sponsorship; we proactively launch and host collaborative field-building initiatives designed to strengthen the overall infrastructure of the field.

These initiatives go beyond addressing single-issue challenges. Instead, they aim to create foundational assets—tools, networks, or frameworks that improve coordination, boost capacity, and increase the effectiveness of bridge-building efforts across the board. They are developed in close partnership with field leaders and allied organizations, and Mediators Foundation takes an active role in their design, development, and implementation.

  • Better Together America is a nation-wide, nonpartisan support network of local, regional, and state “Civic Hubs.”  These civic hubs are helping build community resilience and civic capacity, enabling communities across the country to work together to solve their biggest challenges and ensure government institutions and elected leaders are accountable and fairly elected.  By connecting and accelerating these place-based, collective impact efforts across the country, we are empowering communities to reimagine democracy from the ground up. This project is led by a coalition of leaders in the field, and spearheaded by Jacob Bornstein.

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  • The Civic Exchange is a collaborative fundraising campaign designed to address one of the most persistent and widespread challenges facing the bridge-building sector: chronic underresourcing. Led by Jacob Bornstein and Alyssa Newlon, this field-building campaign offers a creative and collaborative approach to mobilizing funds by blending gamified, peer-to-peer, and crowdfunding strategies with larger donor matching opportunities. The Civic Exchange is structured to engage both national and local partners, inviting broad participation in a shared effort to democratize and strengthen the sector’s financial foundation.

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