Spotlight: 2024 Grantees—Moderate Power Venture Fund

As the Moderate Power Venture Fund passes the halfway mark of its inaugural funding cycle, we are pleased to highlight some of our cohort members’ exciting work! Continue reading below to explore how The Next 50, The Welcome Party, and Young People’s Alliance leveraged their venture grants to achieve transformative results in 2024.

The Next 50

Mission

The Next 50 provides support for the next generation of civic-minded philanthropists and public leaders by building community, providing strategic advice, and facilitating leadership development.

2024 Activity

In 2024, The Next 50 applied its MPVF grant to make transformative efforts in political leadership development through the launch of the Civic Leadership Development Program (CLDP). The program addresses critical gaps in support for newly elected officials, including leadership development, peer connections, and orientation experiences.

CLDP experienced robust growth in just its first few months after launch at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Program staff developed 17 best-practice modules, published over 100 pages of original content, and engaged in depth with dozens of leaders. The inaugural Civic Leadership Summit, held in partnership with NewDEAL Leaders, brought together prominent figures like Representative Pat Ryan and Secretary Pete Buttigieg to focus on governance in challenging districts and maintaining personal-public life balance.

Looking ahead, The Next 50 aims to expand the program in 2025 by launching a Peer Mentorship initiative, updating its Best Practices Handbook, and scaling its support services. Through these efforts, The Next 50 is redefining leadership support, equipping the next generation of political leaders with the tools to thrive both professionally and personally.

The Welcome Party

Mission

The Welcome Party’s mission is to grow the Democratic Party by engaging less ideological, less partisan swing voters and conducting research demonstrating why a big-tent party is both a reality and a necessity.

2024 Activity

The Moderate Power Venture Fund’s 2024 investment in WelcomeStack transformed the scope and impact of its communications. Views skyrocketed from 142,000 last year to over 1.5 million this year. Subscribers contributed more than $100,000 to Welcome and its slate of supported candidates, proving that out of several methods tested, Welcome’s substack-focused contributions strategy has high potential for scalable growth. The social media funnel exceeded expectations, attracting over 60,000 new followers across platforms and amplifying the broader moderate power movement.

At a pivotal moment for moderates, WelcomeStack hosted new, high-profile polling on potential alternative presidential candidates and successfully shaped the national conversation. Most critically, MPVF support empowered Welcome to level up its organizational impact by proving the potential of its partnership-driven growth model.

Young People’s Alliance

Mission

The Young People's Alliance is a youth-led nonprofit that empowers young people through student-led advocacy and organizing and builds an on-ramp into politics for those who fall outside of the political extremes.

2024 Activity

Young People’s Alliance employed its MPVF grant to mobilize tens of thousands of college voters, lobby and testify before Congress in support of vital social media legislation, and launch a 26-campus chapter program in 2024, while laying the groundwork to file an AI-focused FTC complaint in early 2025 and roll out a federated youth campaign this coming spring.

Leading up to the 2024 election, YPA registered 2,200 NC student voters, mobilized an estimated 30,000 students to vote across fifteen universities, and reached 20,000 students with in-person messaging tailored toward a moderate, apolitical audience. They simultaneously launched their brand new chapter program this fall, hosting an organizing and advocacy bootcamp for the 26 participating campuses. They plan to put this newly trained base into action in 2025, channeling young people’s economic populist energy from the 2024 election into a campaign for state legislation to protect youth economic opportunity.

On the advocacy front, YPA lobbied, testified before the Energy & Commerce Committee, and earned national media coverage to support the Kids Online Safety Act in 2024, leading the bill to pass the Senate 91-3 and inspiring Instagram to launch 'Instagram Teens'. This new Instagram program’s features–such as content filters and time limits–reduce doomscrolling and curb exposure to extreme content, improving online safety and restricting the spread of political extremism.