Washington D.C.'s Fair Elections program provides a lump sum grant to candidates who reach a certain threshold of small-donor support, and those who qualify can then raise matching funds from the community that are matched with public funds at a rate of 5:1. The program has contributed to a more diverse candidate pool for local races and increased the number of small donors across the city, with the biggest increase in small donations coming from D.C.'s low-income zip codes.

To give less affluent political hopefuls a fighting chance in local races, Seattle's "democracy vouchers" program provides each resident with four $25 vouchers to donate to candidates of their choice. The initiative has nearly doubled the number of candidates running for city positions since 2015, and those using the vouchers are more likely than cash donors to be young and low-income, leading other cities, such as Oakland, Calif., to consider adopting similar programs.

In a truly grassroots effort, organizers of a campaign to end partisan gerrymandering in Michigan mobilized more than 10,000 volunteers to rally support for establishing an independent redistricting commission. Through building meaningful relationships with everyday voters in each of the state's 83 counties, the campaign successfully gathered more than 400,000 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot, and the constitutional amendment was ultimately approved in 2018.

In response to the yellow vest movement, France decided to experiment with "open democracy" by convening the French Citizens Convention on Climate, which asked 150 randomly-selected citizens to consider ways for the country to curb greenhouse gas emissions. With the help of more than 100 experts, the convention developed 149 recommendations that were used as the basis for France's most ambitious climate legislation proposal to date.

Ahead of Tennessee's August 2022 primary, organizations such as TIRRC (Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition) Votes and the Effendi Foundation targeted their outreach toward immigrant communities to increase turnout in key elections, resulting in wins for several TIRRC-endorsed candidates. The organizations relied on culturally-relevant strategies, including employing engagement coordinators from multiple countries, bringing candidates to speak at local mosques, and using community-specific language in written outreach.