Center for Inclusive Democracy Steps Forward as an Independent National Organization

The Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID), founded and directed by Mindy Romero, Ph.D., will launch as an independent national organization on July 1, 2026, transitioning away from its previous university affiliations to operate with greater focus and decisiveness at a moment when the integrity of nonpartisan democracy research requires institutional independence. With Sierra Health Foundation serving as its new fiscal sponsor, CID will continue producing rigorous, data-driven research on voter participation, electoral access, and civic engagement while expanding into new educational outreach programs, customized community data tools, and deeper direct engagement with community partners across the country. The organization's sixteen-year track record — informing the work of election officials, policymakers, and civic organizations at the state and national level — has earned it broad recognition as a trusted, nonpartisan resource in the democracy field. CID's commitment to closing the gap between democratic ideals and lived civic experience aligns directly with NCDD's mission to strengthen inclusive participation and ensure that dialogue and deliberation are accessible to all communities.

---

---

The Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID), one of the country's most respected sources of nonpartisan research on voter participation and civic engagement, will become an independent national organization as of July 1, 2026 — concluding a sixteen-year institutional journey that included affiliations at UC Davis and, most recently, the University of Southern California. Founded and directed by Mindy Romero, Ph.D., CID has built a national reputation for rigorous, data-driven research that examines who participates in American democracy, who does not, and why — producing findings that have shaped the work of election officials, policymakers, community organizers, and scholars across the country. The transition to independence is explicitly framed as a response to the current moment: as academic institutions face mounting external pressures, CID's leadership determined that protecting the integrity, focus, and mission of its nonpartisan work required the ability to act with greater decisiveness and without institutional constraint. Sierra Health Foundation, a California-based private philanthropy focused on health, racial equity, and racial justice, will serve as CID's fiscal sponsor in its new chapter.

​CID's core mission — advancing inclusive democracy through rigorous research, trusted data, and meaningful engagement — remains unchanged. What independence enables is expansion: deeper educational outreach to get research into the hands of communities and practitioners, new tools that empower individuals to participate in civic discourse, customized data support for community partners, and a more proactive role in identifying emerging trends in the democracy field before they become crises. CID has already demonstrated what this kind of work can produce over sixteen years: its research on electoral access, voting behavior, and civic participation has been relied upon by U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance, the League of Women Voters of California, Colorado's Division of Elections, and a wide network of community-based democracy organizations. The breadth and credibility of those endorsements reflect an organization that has earned trust across sectors and perspectives — a rare achievement in today's civic landscape.

For NCDD members, CID's independence is significant for reasons that go beyond organizational structure. CID's research consistently surfaces the gap between democratic ideals and democratic practice — documenting the participation barriers that make genuine dialogue and deliberation impossible for communities that are structurally excluded from civic life. Closing that gap requires exactly the kind of trusted, community-connected, data-grounded work that CID does. As the organization launches its new era with expanded educational outreach, direct community engagement, and new partnerships to be announced on July 1, NCDD members working in civic engagement, equity, and democracy practice are encouraged to follow CID's work and explore opportunities for collaboration. Full details about the transition and CID's plans for its new chapter are available at https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Exciting-News--CID-Becoming-an-Independent-Organization-.html?soid=1107417106344&aid=4-ux4uBXmG0