Draw the Lines earns two national honors

DTL Staff| November 18th, 2019

Kat Rosqueta, Executive Director, Center for High Impact Philanthropy

Draw the Lines PA has received two bits of national recognition as an innovation in the realms of voter engagement and democratic reform.

Our project is one of 13 nonprofit initiatives nationwide featured in “We the People: Nonprofits Making an Impact to Strengthen Democracy,” a publication of the Center for High-Impact Philanthropy.

Here’s part of what the center says about DTL: “Draw the Lines demonstrates citizens’ capacity to successfully engage on a complex subject.

"…. The maps also provide policymakers with a more detailed account of citizen preferences than common alternatives like petitions, polls, or form letters sent by advocacy organizations. The more time-intensive and detailed a citizen’s communication is, the more seriously policymakers take it. Draw the Lines engages citizens with a complex policy issue and allows them to make a meaningful contribution to the debate on political representation. “

Other projects highlighted in the report included Generation Citizen, which bolsters civics education in secondary schools nationwide,  and the solutions journalism initiative called Resolve Philadelphia.

DTL and Resolve Philadelphia were spotlighted last week at an event the center held on Nov. 12 at the Free Library of Philadelphia's central branch.

Draw the Lines was also a finalist for the Civvys Award in the Local category. Also known as the American Civic Collaboration Awards, the Civvy honors aim to “highlight best practices in civic collaboration and collective action that put community and nation before party, ideology and narrow interests.”

The national winner in the Local category was RISE Colorado, which trains and empowers parents in some of the state’s most diverse school districts.

The Civvys were handed out at an event in Washington, D.C., last month.