The Updraft:
Democracy needs new ideas. Let’s build them together.
The Updraft is a global network for the people defending and reinventing democracy, who know the moment calls for more creativity, more experimentation, and deeper connections across borders and movements.
What Is the Updraft?
An experiment in doing democracy differently.
Democracy is under pressure almost everywhere right now, and the usual responses aren't adequate. Another expert panel, another report, another room full of lawyers and policy experts… it isn't going to be enough. Meanwhile. genuinely exciting work is happening all over the world. In Nepal, protesters used a Discord server to collectively select an interim prime minister after toppling a government. In Colombia, a collective of human rights lawyers won a landmark ruling at the Inter-American Court protecting defenders from state surveillance and persecution. In Kenya, youth organizers forced a president into a live social media session with millions of listeners, bypassing the State House entirely.
The Updraft is a democracy incubator where people doing work like this can find each other, get genuinely excited about what the other is building, and figure out what to do next.
If you're already building something, we want to know about it. We want to hear what people are trying. We want to help the best ideas spread and scale. And when something is working, we want to invest in it.
What We Believe
The innovation is already happening… everywhere
The democracy field has spent decades running expertise outward from Washington and Brussels, on the premise that liberal democracy as practiced in the US and Europe is the model to be replicated. That premise has taken a serious beating lately, and it was flawed from the start. The bravest and most inventive work is coming from young people, from artists and organizers, from people who learned to be creative because they had no other choice. The people who have been fighting longest in the hardest conditions have developed a body of knowledge that the field needs to take seriously. The Updraft is organized around getting that knowledge into the room.
Democracy work can be creative, joyful and fun
Organizing against authoritarian pressure is hard, dangerous, and it burns people out. The parts of movement work that sustain people over time, curiosity, camaraderie, the feeling that you're part of something larger, tend to get squeezed out by the parts that feel like homework. The Updraft is energizing and uplifting. Peer learning, real experimentation, and creative approaches. The program invests in storytelling and expression alongside strategy because we know the power of culture, creative practice and community. We want people to leave a session with something they can use and someone they want to call.
Connection is Vital
We talk a lot about international solidarity. What we don't do enough is build the actual conditions for it: the relationships, the shared knowledge, the resources that let people in one place genuinely help people in another. Those connections don't happen on their own. That's what Updraft is for.
What We Focus On
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Technology is being used right now to surveil dissidents, shut down internet access during elections, track journalists, and profile communities. The question is who controls it and to what end. The tools for building more open, secure, people-controlled technology have never been more accessible, and people are using them. This track works through what it looks like when technology is designed to expand freedom rather than restrict it, and brings together the practitioners who are actually building and using those tools in contexts where the stakes are high.
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How do you build participation that feels like a community rather than an obligation? How do you use narrative, art, humor, and cultural production as genuine organizing tools? How do you make a campaign that surprises people and brings them in? The practitioners we want here have done this, imperfectly, in real contexts. That's who we learn from.
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Courts are being packed. Emergency powers are being normalized. International human rights mechanisms are under-resourced and under attack. And yet legal and policy channels still matter, sometimes because they produce real outcomes, sometimes because the fight itself documents what's happening and builds record. Lawyers are using the architecture of the law that's still standing, even when the institution around it is crumbling. This track brings together lawyers, advocates, and policy practitioners working in restrictive contexts to share that strategy and develop it further.
What We Do
The Collective
Open peer exchange and learning. Events meant to connect, inform, and inspire.
The Incubator
When Funding for ideas and collaborations that emerge from the network
The Lab
A fellowship for practitioners who want to go deeper- with mentorship and curriculum built around real world case studies and an opportunity to use funding to collaborate and build.
The Studio
Where ideas get developed, tested, and shaped. Part workshop, part creative residency, part pitch preparation.
The Summit
An annual gathering (party, huddle, celebration) where the whole network comes together.
The Observatory
Research and documentation of what's actually working in democracy innovation, produced with and for practitioners.