MORE ABOUT YOUR VOICE OHIO

The Your Voice Ohio project was initially funded in 2016 by a $175,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, an organization that supports journalistic endeavors. That funding provided for unique polling for the media by the University of Akron Bliss Institute for Applied Politics and public deliberation sessions facilitated by the Jefferson Center, a non-profit, non-partisan engagement organization in St. Paul, Minn. In 2017, the Democracy Fund, which supports media and public engagement in democracy, provided $250,000 to advance the work, and the Knight Foundation provided another $75,000.

The Jefferson Center continues to devise the public conversations and acts as the fiscal agent for the project. Doug Oplinger, a 46-year veteran of the Akron Beacon Journal who worked on three Pulitzer projects, manages the media work.